I’ve been fairly extreme throughout my life in regards to how/when I open and close the door to experience. Recently, I’ve gotten conformable and had a tight grasp on an understanding of who I think I am and am fairly blunt as whether or not something new would fit into that perception of myself. The fact remains, when you say NO to something, the world gets smaller until all you have left is a box to fit something into, which is why I’ve been trying make more efforts towards saying YES to something and taking more of a chance.

After the movie, I explored the Upper West Side. I was hungry and frustrated, yet I refused to “settle” on a brunch place. Settle meaning go to someplace outside of my usual preference of amazing, cheapish, and without a wait. While I was walking around, I envisioned a place that I’d go to for a brunch in Brooklyn on a typical weekend, which is the wrong way to go about it. I said YES to a new area, but was saying NO to accepting it for what it was.

I realized that part of traveling (for me the UWS is a distant far off land) is absorbing the culture, so I snapped out of it and settled on a bakery called Cafe Lalo(which I mistakenly thought was pronounced lay-lo instead of lah-lo). Had I not pushed myself to adapt to the area, I probably would have gotten fed up and gone to some place that would have been awful or gone back to Williamsburg for a bagel.

In life, you’re always going to be out of your comfort zone, so you always have to find ways to adapt and say YES to something new. Saying YES opens the world up more to new possibilities you might not have known existed.

Levon posses this unique quality of positivity with an understanding how the real world works. “Nothing’s a guarantee. It’s the old one day at a time.”

Yesterday in a cab to the lower east with my girlfriend, I was addressing my first world problems. For a second, I had to step back and have a laugh. I find the humor the ups and the downs that I face each day. Only now can I laugh even harder realizing my ridiculousness (as in the “absurd” definition of the word).

Having more clarity, I can acknowledge that my life ain’t that bad. I’ve never had cancer and I’m damn sure that I was never close to being stripped of doing what makes me happy or what makes me a living (which were one in the same for Levon). Only if could be as happy and appreciative of life as Levon.

With the New Year and my birthday practically overlapping, it’s hard to ignore existential questions from clouding my thoughts and dreams surrounding the first few weeks of the year.

Seeing this video in particular, I must ask myself where I want to go physically (travel), professionally (career-wise), and mentally (insight into myself and life itself).

I need to decide which direction I will steer then get on my way. It might just be Burning Man…

I find a lot of people give up on their ideas, goals, and dreams very easily.  This isn’t necessarily pessimistic.  It’s harder than one would think to lose weight (to continue on the analogy I started the post with), save enough money to take a much needed vacation, find a significant other, get a new job, quit smoking, read a book a week, habitually write a blog, or make your hobby your occupation (not implying I need any of these).  Planning and executing on these things takes a certain caliber of person.  This person is dedicated as well as must make sacrifices and make time (sleep, personal relationships, and work are usually the first to slip).

By nature, people try to maintain habits, so when you try to introduce something new, you need to try even harder to break your current habits and create a whole new pattern.  One of my oldest and bests friends was a drug addict.  Every couple times I saw him, I would ask him, “do you abstain from drugs because you think you shouldn’t take them or because you actually don’t need them?”  It took him about 10 months for him to answer with the latter response (after relapsing once early on).  I’m not trying to say that executing on your “New Years Resolutions” are on the same par as staying sober, but rather than breaking your old daily habits to make time for the new takes more than telling yourself once on January 1 that you wish you could ________.

The other thing is that NYR are often completely unrealistic.  There is a HUGE difference between long and short term (and even defining long and short can be a debate in and of itself).  Expecting to lose 20 pounds, get a movie deal, be featured in an art gallery, own a restaurant, or sell out Bowery Ballroom without proper understanding of what that means is naive, ignorant, and irrational.  People need to learn to be their own Project Manager, so they can plan better.  There will always be a certain level of doubt along the way, but the risk is always the scariest or can be the most exciting if you trust yourself.  All this is easier said than done, but that goes without saying.  This isn’t easy, which goes towards my main point to begin with.

So it’s 2012.  What do you want to do different?  What are you going to do to make constructive steps towards making sure that begins to come to reality at a realistic pace…and making sure you stick with it.

• Bon Iver – Bon Iver
• Wilco -The Whole Love
• White Denim – D
• Washed Out – Within and Without
• SBTRKT – SBTRKT
• Wye Oak – Civilian
• James Blake – James Blake
• The Antlers – Burst Apart
• Tedeschi Trucks band – Revelator
• Dawes – Nothing is Wrong

Honorable Mention:

• Amon Tobin – ISAM
• Other Lives – Tamer Animals
• Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire

See how this list stacks up to my lists from 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Dawes’ music makes you feel like they’re old friends.  It’s inviting, insightful, and grounded, which is the exact opposite of how some art can be.  Certain “artists” pride themselves for pushing boundaries and distancing themselves from fans.  Not Dawes.  They wear their love of rustic rock n roll on their sleeves.  They just wanna make good music that people can relate to.

They may not play soul music, but that doesn’t mean they’re not soulful.  Soulfulness is a part of talent, but just because someone is talented doesn’t mean they have soul (square-rectangle scenario).  Dawes has both. You can hear is in Taylor’s work and all of their music.

I look forward to seeing where 2012 takes them.

When I was cleaning out my grandmother’s apartment in Philly with my mom and sister, my sister found this old picture with musicians performing.  It was very “me” to say the least, so I brought it back to Brooklyn with me.

Flash forward a couple weeks.  I went on an overnight trip to Philly with my roommate Paul to see Ryan Adams.  We stayed at my parent’s house and when my mom asked what he thought of the picture, it dawned on me that he hadn’t seen it yet since we have conflicting schedules.  When we got back to the apartment I showed him the picture and he asked if I knew anything about it.

It reignited my desire to find out more details, so I googled “Sam Ashkynase Conductor” because they were the only words that we easily legible on the band sign in the picture.  The first thing that came up was Sam Ash’s wiki page.  For those who don’t know, Sam Ash Music is one of the most successful music instrument retail chains in the country.  This led me to 3 theories on why my grandparents had this picture:

1. I had a family member in the band.
2. I’m related to Sam Ash somehow.
3. Sam Ash’s family were friends with my grandfather’s family (both of Austria-Hungarian descent)

Paul, interested in helping me out, tracked down one of the current top execs at Sam Ash Music (via Linked In).  He then figured out the email address formats for Sam Ash employees (ie first.last@company.com), so I contacted what I thought to be the email address for that exec (it thankfully didn’t bounce back). Concurrently, I emailed my parents, sister, uncle, and cousins to let them know about this, to which my mom replied that either of them could be theoretically possible since my great grandfather moved from Austria to New York City.

As of now, I’m still waiting on a response from Sam Ash, but it boggles me what one picture, pushing myself to look for the details, and investigating further can do.  It’s about the picture, but it’s not at the same time because there’s a pleasure in finding things out…Richard Feyman would agree.

UPDATE:  I got a response from Sam Ash Music and should be meeting with them soon

It started off when I came home for my grandmother’s funeral in late October.  I told old stories, I looked at old pictures, and connected in a way with my extended family that I’d never had done before.  It also reminded me of the diminishing gap between where I am and the end (however you want to define that is up to you).  Not in a bad way though.  I felt that I was a puddle and this deep thought was a stone being dropped on top of me, so I was moving forwards and backwards at the same rate.

So thus began the month of “Re”.  I grabbed old books from my room, grabbed old CD’s and records, and event snagged a few DVDs (I would have grabbed a couple VHS’, but I lack the proper player and TV at my apartment).

A week later, my girlfriend and I took a vacation to Durham and Asheville (that I documented here).  On the plane to Durham, I re-read Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country.  The first time I read this, I was on a bus in Israel right after I graduated college.  When I got back home after vacation, I popped on a copy of Sly and the Family Stone’s Dance To the Music while I cleaned my room and remembered being at overnight camp cleaning my bunk before visiting day in 1996.

The book and the album meant totally different things for me when I first read and listened to when I re-read and re-listened.  I was searching for direction and constantly doubting myself when I graduated college.  I was shy and underestimated my potential when I was going into 6th grade.  I’m not saying I have all the answers or have become the most outgoing person in the world, but the “re” experience helped me see my growth as a person and instantaneously bring hope for where I’m headed.

What sparked this was seeing Wye Oak featured on the Spotify’s What’s New homescreen for their Strangers (Kinks)/Mother (Danzig) covers EP.  Listening to their raw and soulful re-imagination of Strangers, a lyric jumped out of the speakers

Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two we are one

For me, this is easily one of the best lines Dave Davies ever wrote.  Similar to any song, book, movie, or other piece of art I enjoy, I won’t bother to think about what the artist meant.  That’ll lead to too much unnecessary debate that, in most cases, will never have an answer.  Rather, I choose to reflect on what it means to me.

All too often we distance ourselves from others and don’t lend a hand.  For example, Wednesday after work, I took the subway home like most days.  More often than not, if anyone asks me to swipe them in after I’ve gotten off, I usually say yes.  I have an unlimited pass, so it’s no loss to me if I help them out and greater help to them.  In that moment, I was irritated with the amount of work I had to do over Thanksgiving, so instead of helping him out, I walked by in frustration.  Immediately, I saw my life splitting into two:  the one I was on and the one where I helped out that guy.

Ironically, an hour later when I went to my car, I discovered that I had a flat tire and had to buy a new one.  I’m not saying that that guy knew where I lived and popped my tire; that would be completely ludicrous.  However, it reminded me that the world has a way of balancing out, so I laughed instead of getting mad or crying.  Those 10 seconds of helping someone else out cost me 2 hours of my time and $95 for a new tire.

We are all on the same road, so help people out in any way you can within your day to day life.  Not everyone can pick up and go to New Orleans or Japan to aid in the aftermath of natural disasters or donate thousands of dollars to UNICEF.  However, listen to Mr. Davies.  We are one, so do something to help another even if it’s something as small as swiping someone else into the subway (but hopefully more than that).  However, the real test, as Davies indicates is, “if I feel tomorrow like I feel today.”

Instead, I will be writing about more about my thoughts, philosophies, experiences, problems, and solutions as well as music, food, technology, books, movies, beer, and other things about which I’m passionate.  A little more “serious” than the music business, but I’m not fresh out of college and going for the dream that being successful in the music industry will complete me.  I’m much more than that.  I hope anyone who is reading that knows me will agree.