Don’t be deceived by Chana Jaffe-Walt’s This American Life / Planet Money piece on Federal Disability

Addendum (3/25/13): Since this was posted two days ago, someone at TAL / PM has made changes to the web supplement. An original version of the story that circulated on the TAL website can be found here. Two instances of the changes are pointed out here and here.

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This American Life and Planet Money are two very trusted brands on public radio. On a standard Saturday afternoon, you’ll find me nursing a post-dim sum food coma and folding laundry listening to Ira Glass and friends. I looked to Planet Money to break down the subprime crisis for me into easily digestible nuggets. And I’ve opened my wallet for $10 donations to fund the TAL podcast.

It’s with this sense of trust, that I must now turn to Chana Joffe-Walt’s biased take down of SSDI and SSI for This American Life and Planet money. I read it on my commute to work yesterday at a non-profit that focuses on helping very sick adults with HIV and/or mental health issues obtain access to these benefits. This is a very difficult job and my compensation is pocket change compared to my old big firm law gig, but it’s rewarding in other ways.  I’m part of a web of social workers, doctors, nurses, and case managers trying to stabilize the most vulnerable members of our community. My clients do not want to be disabled. Many want to work and work up to the point when their symptoms become too severe for them to continue.  The SSA is a bureaucracy, and sometimes, analysts there will miss or ignore key medical evidence, and an appeal can delay a client’s benefits for 3 or 4 years, depending on how many levels of appeal are necessary. Helping these clients get onto SSI/SSDI serves a public health purpose because once they are on benefits, they can work on stabilizing their health and gain access to affordable housing programs. Almost any public interest attorney in my area could tell you what I’m saying in this paragraph (and most people who apply for these benefits, if they are lucky enough to have an attorney at all, rely on public interest attorneys, not private firms). Although Ms. Joffe-Walt said that she’s researched this issue for “6 months” there’s not a quote or a data point from a single public interest / legal aid attorney anywhere in her piece.

A have a lot of little nits to pick with Ms. Joffe-Walt’s print story, but one of the things that irks me the most is the deceptive beauty of its design and layout. “It’s just so pretty, it must be true!” is one of the easy takeaways the standard TAL audience can have from scanning through this piece. It’s so convincing in its simplicity, that I’m worried that the parts of TAL – Planet Money audience who work with my clients will be more hesitant to write letters of support for my clients because they will be too worried about the growth of disability programs in the U.S. As Jeff Deeney pointed out on Twitter, “@planetmoney @itschana Getting benefits for severely mentally ill clients who can’t apply themselves is really hard. You aren’t helping us.”

The most infuriating thing is how Ms. Joffe-Walt groups in the entire 14 million people on SSDI/SSI benefits into one giant, tax dollar sucking mass.  She gives them an agency that they do not have. As another person (sorry, I forgot who) pointed out, she writes the following:

But going on disability means you will not work, you will not get a raise, you will not get whatever meaning people get from work. Going on disability means, assuming you rely only on those disability payments, you will be poor for the rest of your life. That’s the deal. And it’s a deal 14 million Americans have chosen for themselves. (Emphasis added). [See addendum above this language been subsequently edited by TAL / PM / HJW].

While there are a few bad apples who are gaming the system out there, the vast majority of the 14 million people receiving these benefits are legitimately disabled and cannot work.  Some are dying from fast-advancing cancer. My very own younger sister, who is in her 30′s, receives these benefits because her cognitive age is 2-years-old. 2-years-old! There is no way that she can ever work, let alone be left by herself for a single moment of the day.  But because of sloppy and biased reporting like Ms. Joffe-Walt’s (and Fox News), there are members of my extended family who look at my sister as a horrible tax burden on society, rather than as a vulnerable person who cannot fend for herself. My sister did not choose to be born with this brain damage. My clients do not choose to be sick. The agency that Ms. Joffe-Walt ascribes to this group further magnifies the extreme stigma people with disabilities already face.

While my practice does not include children who receive SSI, parents of children with disabilities have an incredibly difficult time obtaining these services. Part of my motivation to practice this area of law stemmed from my single mother’s experience. She struggled to raise us, and my sister did not obtain SSI until she was an adult. My sister never received her rightful childhood benefits because no social worker or lawyer ever guided my mother in that direction when my sister was still a minor.  My mother did not know these benefits even existed. This story is much more common than the anecdotes fed to us by Ms. Jaffe-Walt. And Media Matters has done an excellent, detailed debunking of the other Child SSI benefit “facts” in Ms. Jaffe-Walt’s piece.

Also, the disabled in America are one of the most stepped upon groups in our society, and do not make up a nefarious “disability-industrial complex.” There isn’t a strong lobby for parents of disabled children. Every year, there are budgetary fights over cuts to essential programs that help keep disabled people in their homes, instead of ending up in institutions. And the real travesty of SSI is that the resource cap to receive SSI has been set at $2000 for an individual since 1989, and has not been raised or adjusted for inflation since that time. That means that someone on SSI must live a perilous existence, without even the ability to have an emergency fund or to save up enough money for an apartment deposit. They are forced to live check-to-check due to these extremely low resource limits.

Finally, I work in direct services, not public policy in this area, so I will point you to the policy-oriented discussion on this story taking shape on Rebecca Vallas’s Twitter stream. I realize that Twitter is ephemeral, so here are a few tweets to archive on this topic.

Best Shows of 2012

This annual round up is just about the only remaining item of consistency on this blog. Over the past few years, the formula for my show-going frequency has followed a pattern of n-3, where n= the number of shows I went to the previous year (i.e. 28 shows in 2010, 25 shows in 2011, and 22 shows in 2012), so my best of list is getting shorter. This post is an amalgam of best shows and interesting things that I saw at shows (through the hazy filter of Instagram, of course).

I started out the concert year in Seoul, where I was very entertained by the innovative coat check at the city’s electronic music festival, and my friend’s friend’s Korean Justice banner. I also made it a point to see a few favorites again (Radiohead, Washed Out), but surprisingly, these shows did not make much of an impression on me. I can’t fault Radiohead; I think that even with floor tickets, the HP Pavilion is not the ideal place to see them. For the first time, I saw a few acts on my “must see” list, the Flaming Lips at the Bridge School Benefit, and Fiona Apple on her Idler Wheel tour, but similarly these do not demand more than a footnote. As J’s sidekick, I also saw a few of his favorite bands, Spiritualized, Animal Collective, and Metallica (where ash and soot from the pyrotechnics had me blowing out black snot from my nose the next day).

Here are the 6 “top,” aka notable shows, of 2012 (from very good to best):

6.  M83 at NSSN – I saw M83 twice this year, but I have very little memory of the first time that I saw them at the Fillmore.  While a Live 105 show is not my ideal concert experience, they were excellent at NSSN (the true headliner), and like other French electronic bands, they were more of a “jam band,” when performing live.

5.  Cat Power at the Fox Theatre – This was the election night party in Oakland. I was pretty surprised by this show because Chan Marshall came out with a cropped, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo cut, instead of her trademark straight across bangs and long-hair. Cat Power’s music was angrier than I expected and matched her look (and perhaps her health and financial woes). Cat Power is crazy; and for her music, this is a good thing.

4.  Tamaryn at the Independent – The band’s music is strong and their new album was on heavy rotation in my playlist this year. Live, Tamaryn has the whole moody blond-hair covering her face, midriff bearing aesthetic rocker look down.

3.  The Weeknd at the Warfield – I was hooked on the Weeknd the first time that I heard a Flunk sample in one of his songs. Seeing him live, I am convinced that he’s the next Michael, the next Prince, and that this was the last chance to see him in a non-arena sized venue. J commented that R&B shows were weird because the audience was a sea of smartphone video screens for the duration of the show. His opener, Nosaj Thing, was the best opener of the year, and someone that I look forward to seeing again.

2.  Philip Glass, Tim Fain, and Joanna Newsom at the Warfield (benefit show for the Henry Miller Library) – The most civilized show of the year; a seated show at the Warfield. My favorite part was Glass’s performance of this work, featuring Allen Ginsberg:

1.  Pulp at the Warfield – Back when I saw them in April, I knew that this would be number 1, since it is easily one of my top 5 concerts ever. So, I did a full write-up to memorialize the experience back then.

Overall, I’m a bit surprised that the top 3 slots were very different acts at the same venue, the Warfield. Then again, the Warfield’s similarity in terms of layout, age, and beauty to the Fox Theatre in Oakland, highlights how atrociously bad the sound system is at the Fox. Every year, I vow to not see shows at the Fox, since they manage to make great bands sound terrible, but I find myself back at the Fox for a show or two. My concert-going wish for 2013 is that the Fox puts some money into upgrading / fixing their sound.

‘Til next year, EC

A Starbucks in Every Hood

Even though I concur that Starbucks coffee tastes burnt, I’ve never been as down on Starbucks as other coffee snobs are wont to do. But my jaw drop 15 minutes ago when I learned that Starbucks is about to purchase the local La Boulange empire for $100 million. Part of me worries that Starbucks will mess with it, the same way it shuttered Torrefazione Italia, which used to make a pretty good latte. But the huge thing that jumped out at me was what this means for Starbucks’ real estate holdings in SF.

The La Boulange web is everywhere in the City, from the Crocker Galleria Farmer’s Market to the original location on Pine St.  Starbucks will now own all of these. For some locations, such as Pac Heights, or the FiDi, or Laurel Village, this won’t matter much, because Starbucks already has a presence in the neighborhood.  But there are bunch of locations, including Hayes Valley, Cole Valley, and the Lower Haight, that have fought a little bit harder to preserve their neighborhood character and to keep Starbucks out.  In one stroke, Starbucks now has a toe-hold in these ‘hoods. I must admit that this is a huge coup for Starbucks, but it’s akin to Amazon buying out Amoeba records.

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Addendum: Business people used to always cite La Boulange / Bay Bread as an example of a local business hurt by San Francisco’s anti-chain ordinance. This purchase shows how attractive a local chain can be to a major national corporation, looking to make their way into SF. There’s nothing stopping McDonald’s from purchasing the SF Soup Company.

Addendum 2: I completely forgot to list North Beach on the list above of anti-Starbucks neighborhoods, but a comment on this InsideScoop piece reminded me of this notable omission.

Yeah…Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Normally, I save my concert reviews for year-end one-sentence summaries. But by the time December comes around, my memory grows hazy, and it’s hard to reconstruct my feelings about a show based on a single Flickr upload. I’m breaking from routine, and giving Pulp a full review now because I’m pretty sure that last night’s show will garner the top spot on my 2012 Best Show list.

Last fall, when Portishead played the Greek, I was pretty ready to retire from show going because I thought there was nothing left. Essentially, if I got to see Radiohead live every two years or so, I thought that I’d be happy. Well, I was wrong.  For my birthday, J got me general admission Radiohead tickets for last week’s show at HP Pavilion, and for a few weeks, I was happy. Then, I missed the Pulp ticket sale by an hour, and walked away empty handed when I acted on a rumor and tried the Warfield box office that night.

I checked Stubhub and Craiglist religiously and one of my friends added me to a “Help everyone get to see PULP at the Warfield!” group on Facebook, and in the end, everything worked out. J’s roommate ended up having a pair of extra tickets, and I let out a squeal of delight when she nonchalantly offered them to me without knowing of my quest.

Thus, even before yesterday’s show, I was pretty psyched. I spent an entire hour clockwatching while sitting through a lecture on Biophilic cities right before the show. And for once, the show, ended up exceeding my keyed up expectations.

Jarvis Cocker, at age 48, may be the best showman that I’ve EVER seen.  He likely arranged the opening green laser messages that added up to the build up of the band coming on stage. He read out facts about Isak Dineson, whose birthday was yesterday. He threw out to the audience a book of poetry that he bought at City Lights that afternoon. He handed a beer to someone in the front audience, and told them to share it. He did this again with a couple of glasses of wine (Greg, who patiently waited hours to secure a front spot, deservedly got one of these glasses). But most of all, in playing Pulp’s hits, he alternated from a writhing dorky-sexy rockstar to a guide who gently coaxed me to re-live my awkward adolescence in verse. He owned the entire audience.

Yesterday’s show also answered the mystery of why I hadn’t seen Pulp live before. The last time they played in San Francisco was at Bimbo’s when I was in high school. I wasn’t even old enough back then to make it through ID check.

The concert gods have blessed the Bay Area this week. Pulp matched Radiohead’s two-plus-hour set with double encores, with their own two-hour set with double encores, albeit shorter double encores. By the end, Jarvis sweated through his dress shirt a la Morrissey and looked a bit misshapen as he performed Misshapes. But everyone left smiling as they sweetly ended with Pulp’s earliest song.

A Simple Life

This movie made me cry.

This movie made my friend Angela turn to me and say, “This is the saddest movie of all time.”

This movie made me respond with, “This movie is sadder than the film that J picked the night before.”

This movie made me relive all of the time that I spent with my grandmother at her assisted living facility, and later, hospice.

But in many ways, this movie wasn’t sad. You know from the outset that if a old woman has a stroke and goes into a nursing home, she’s not going to last to the end of the movie, so death doesn’t come as a shock. Instead, this was a movie about respecting one’s elders. A movie a about human dignity. In so many ways, this movie was the opposite of The Help. After the family maid, Ah Tao, becomes ill and has to retire, she’s not forgotten. Instead, her longtime employer, Roger, who she raised from birth, becomes her god son and visits her at her nursing home and makes her his red carpet date to a film premier. Both Roger and Ah Tao are two of the humblest characters ever. Roger is played by Andy Lau, who is Hong Kong’s equivalent to George Clooney, and his character is a film producer, but he dresses so casually that he’s mistaken for an air conditioning repairman. Likewise, Ah Tao winds up in the nursing home not because Roger wants to put her there, but because she wants to go there, as to not burden him.

This wasn’t a spectacular film (even though it swept Hong Kong’s Film Awards this week), but it was an honest film.* I don’t think that a similar project could get green lighted in the States, since American audiences don’t like to dwell on one’s possible decline from limping about to being strapped into a wheelchair. But for anyone who doesn’t flinch from aging or caring for aging parents or grandparents, I’d recommend this film.

*”Honest” deserves some qualification here. Angela did remark that this movie made its main characters too saintly, too perfect.

Oh where, oh where, is my photo lair?

Last week, I went to see Professors Zittain and Lessig in conversation about the Dilemmas of Open Knowledge at the Harvard 375 roadshow in San Francisco. In response to a question about data and consumer privacy, Zittrain added on to the old maxim that if you were getting something for free online, you were paying for it with your data. Now, he said, even if you were paying for a service, a company was likely making money with your data too.

I’ve been thinking about Zittrain’s words all day following the Insta-Facebook announcement. One of the reasons that I like Instagram is that I hate giving my data to Facebook. I recognize the utility of Facebook as my de facto digital address book and as an event notifier, but I feel powerless when it comes to my data on Facebook. Even though I wiped out bands and movies that I like from Facebook years ago (I’m thinking it has been at least 4 years since I “deleted” this info), I still get Facebook ads related to this old data. And I hate that even though I disabled publishing of location and status tags on Facebook, my friends and family report additional data about me to Facebook. Even if it’s “private,” Facebook still knows it. Even if I hit ignore, Facebook still knows it.

Thus, I embrace Facebook alternatives, and I’m saddened when Facebook acquires these alternatives. With Beluga, I was sad because it was highly functional, and Facebook shut it down to force me to use Facebook messaging instead (I resisted). With Friendfeed, I nuked my own account. And now, as the Atlantic has posed, the billion dollar question is, “Will Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram cause an exodus?“

For now, I’m not nuking my Instagram account / app from my phone, because there simply isn’t a good alternative that I can think of off the the top of my head. Harking back to Zittrain’s words at the beginning of this post, one of the very few web services that I pay for is Flickr Pro, but given all of the churn at both Flickr and Yahoo lately, I have no idea what’s going with my data over there. Now, I mainly view Flickr as my backup for old family photos should an earthquake destroy all of our albums.* I swore off Picasa years ago because Google creeps me out as much as Facebook.  So, I now feel that when it comes to posting photos online, I’m homeless. The only photo houses available are rigged with CCTV cams inside, so what am I to do?

*My backup method does not feel foolproof to me given Yahoo’s recent woes. I constantly worry about Yahoo sunsetting Flickr.

Siri, Remind Me Later

In the spirit of this brief, earlier post, I want to memorialize the winter of 2011-2012 that’s about to end (even though it feels like that it’s already over).

This was the winter where San Francisco had an L.A. winter. There were a few, scattered cold days, but there were far too many sunny days, even in the Outer Sunset, where the fog usually reigns. This was the winter when I did not bother to go up to Tahoe even once, since there was no snow. This was the beautiful, warm, dry winter that will lead us to ration water later this year, or next. This is the winter when it did not rain on my birthday, even though it always rains on my birthday.

A Leap Day Funeral for Redevelopment Agencies in California

Today, I attended SPUR’s fantastic lunchtime forum on the Death of Redevelopment (agencies) in California. By way of background, last year, Governor Brown pushed through the legislature, AB 26, a bill that abolished the 400-plus redevelopment agencies in California to free up money for the state budget. Municipalities challenged AB 26 in the courts, but the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State, and the redevelopment agencies in California were abolished on February 1, 2012.

The panel focused on how San Francisco and Oakland had different approaches to dealing with the end of the redevelopment agencies, which provided a powerful funding tool for affordable housing and economic development projects through tax increment financing (where proceeds from property tax increases are funneled to a specific geographic area).  Tiffany Bohee, the ED for the successor agency to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, and Fred Blackwell, the Assistant City Administrator for the City of Oakland spoke on the panel.  A summary of their talk is organized below into 3 sections: 1. San Francisco’s approach, 2. Oakland’s approach, and 3. interesting bits on redevelopment in California as a whole.

San Francisco:

After the abolition of SF’s Redevelopment Agency (SFRA), the Mayor’s Office of Housing absorbed all of the housing units in the SFRA’s purview, including the existing pipeline. All of the SFRA staff was transferred to the City Administrator’s office. San Francisco got the lone carve out to AB 26, a 7-person oversight board, where the Mayor’s office has 4 appointees, and the taxing entities have 3 appointees. This oversight board has 2 roles, a fiduciary role to oversee the wind down of the SFRA and a land-use authority role.

In terms of on-going projects, it will be more difficult to do the mid-Market revitalization, with loans to small businesses. For instance, the type of redevelopment agency loan that allowed Pearl’s Burgers to open on 6th and Market is no longer available.

Ms. Bohee was unsure what the future affordable housing mechanism would be, but commented that it would likely be decided at the ballot box. Funding options include bonds, transfer taxes, lease revenues, and certificates of preference and participation.

For economic development, multiple levels of financing are required. New market tax credits will provide $40 million in federal financing for distressed projects. Special tax districts and infrastructure financing districts, such as the ones used for Mission Bay and Transbay, were other financing options.

Oakland:

The structure of Oakland’s Redevelopment Agency (ORA) was radically different from the SFRA. In Oakland, there was no firewall between the ORA and the City, the ORA staff was integrated into the city staff, and Oakland used ORA money to fund part of the mayor’s salary and the police. When AB 26 passed, Oakland scrambled to reorganize the city financing structure in 2-3 weeks to make up for the lost funds.

Projects such as the Oakland Army base redevelopment project and affordable housing already in the pipeline will continue to go forward. Other development projects, such as facade improvement on commercial corridors in Oakland’s flatlands would go away, due to lack of funding.

Oakland also transferred $800 million in property from the ORA to the city during the short 2-3 week reorganization period. This led to speculation about the liabilities Oakland assumed along with this property.

The state redevelopment agency laws also provided a legislative framework for affordable housing in Oakland, and this framework is no longer in place. While San Francisco has inclusionary zoning for affordable housing, Oakland relied on the state laws that required 20% of the tax increment financing money to go towards affordable housing.

Before the abolition of the ORA, Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency had very little power. Now, the City Administrator’s office has the general fund and the Economic Development Agency is within its control. Mr. Blackwell stated that now that redevelopment money is no longer earmarked for poor areas, there may be more class and geographic in-fighting within Oakland for these general funds.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Redevelopment Agencies in California:

• The moderator (whose full name I did not catch) introduced the talk by comparing the abolition of redevelopment agencies to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978; city budgets were restructured overnight.
• Without redevelopment offices, city planning offices need to step up, but the moderator pointed out that “Planners plan, and redevelopment agencies do.” The entrepreneurial spirit of redevelopment agencies may be lost, but the Mayor’s economic development office may fill the role of the redevelopment agencies.
• With the abolition of the redevelopment agencies, an entire industry has gone away. “People didn’t just lose jobs, they’ve lost careers.”
• In the Q&A, Mr. Blackwell offered this 5 reason post-mortem for why California got rid of its redevelopment agencies:

1. There were too many redevelopment agencies; over 400 in the state, and LA County alone had 70!
2. Redevelopment agencies were created to eliminate “blight,” which in and of itself is a loaded and political term.
3. There were some abuses within redevelopment agencies.
4. This was a $2 billion fiscal issue for the state, where the state had to make up the shortfall to funding schools, when property taxes were allocated to redevelopment districts. (Personally, I believe this was the bullet that killed off the redevelopment agencies).
5. We’ve never been able to answer the question, “Would redevelopment have happened without the redevelopment agency?” This is the “but for” causation question.

A Closed Letter Turned Open Letter to My Boomer Parent

As my mom’s eldest child, the question that I hear the most from her, is “When can I retire?” My response always revolves around her savings, the mortgage that we share, and budgeting her expenses out for post-retirement life. She wants to retire earlier that what I think is currently feasible, and I try to emphasize that there may be no money left in my wallet, when she’s in her 80′s and her grandchildren de-camp for college at $422,000 a pop.  She seems to believe that she only needs to plan until she’s 85 (and to be fair, the average life expectancy in the States for a Chinese American woman is 86.1 years).

There have been a couple of essays circulating lately written by Boomers taking care of their Greatest Generation parents, and even though I dislike the tone of these articles, I think about them pretty often. The writers’ parents thought they too would go quickly and cheaply, but this was not the case. My own grandmother spent nearly 2 years in hospice care at the price of $10,000+/month.

I see these essays and my grandmother’s case as cautionary tales for what happens when you live beyond of the number of years that you anticipate. Thus, I sent my mom the brief email below (I purposely put the Sandra Tsing Loh essay first, thinking my mom would identify with her more easily):

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From: E Chan

To: H_____

Subject: Long term planning

Here are a couple of essays written by children of elderly parents who are around your age. I think you will find them interesting. You need to plan for 90.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/daddy-issues/8890/

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/features/story.aspx?ID=1629702

Love,

EC

Best Shows of 2011

In keeping with my tradition of annual round-ups, here are my noteworthy shows of 2011, a year, where I saw everyone from Prince to St*rF*ck*r, and Arcade Fire twice. I didn’t cry tears of emotional joy at any of the 2011 shows, but the band that took the top spot very nearly put me into concert retirement with their performance at the Greek Theatre.  So, in ascending order of how much I enjoyed myself:

8.  Cut Copy at the Regency - This is the runner-up in the dance party category, simply because it was the most energetic. It took me forever to steady my phone to take a picture because people were jumping so hard on the dance floor. Oonce oonce oonce.

7.  The Kings of Convenience at the Fillmore – Based on Erlend Oye’s past work with Royksopp, this show was in some ways a companion piece to entry #5 below.  This was a two-man acoustic guitar and vocal set, which definitely emphasized, loud audience aside, that quiet is the new loud.

6.  Thao and the Get Down Stay Down – Miss Thao always gives her all, in her full messy glory for her shows. She’s definitely my favorite local musician.

5.  Royksopp at the Regency – This won the dance party category by the sheer force of Royksopp’s sound.

4.  Foster the People at Outsidelands – I went to the festival for Arcade Fire, but on day one, Foster the People stole the show. I didn’t think of them their album as all that dance-y beforehand, but I had fun doing the indie bop in Golden Gate Park during their set. Plus, it helps that like everyone else on Spotify, I spent a few weeks listening to their album non-stop.

3.  Fitz and the Tantrums at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass – Such stage presence! I boogied! I shook! Hands down my favorite act of HSB. Thank you, Mr. Hellman.

2.  Erasure at the Fox – Oh, L’amour, I broke out my gold suspenders for this show, and it was worth it.

1.  Portishead at the Greek – Half of the number 1 spot was earned through anticipation alone, but Beth Gibbons’s and her haunting presence earned the rest. It was nice to see that they moved beyond the screaming banshee rendition of Sour Times, into a more jazzy, lounge-y mode.  After waiting over a dozen years for this show (and after having checked off all of the other acts on my list), I felt very satisfied after this show to enter into concert semi-retirement (I had a very long post-Portishead show lull in ticket purchases). In 2012, I’ll probably halve, if not quarter, my show going habit, but I’m looking forward to Radiohead and M83 at Fauxchella.

Other honorable mentions:

Washed Out at the Great American - This originally made the list above, but I couldn’t remember anything from this show, other than it was good.

Ellie Goulding at Outsidelands - Her music is not quite my cup of tea, but an excellent set, plus the sunglass scramble added to the fun.

Best Coast at the Regency - Along with Thao, this goes into the messy, drunken, emotional vocalist category, and I mean this in a good way.

Beach House at the Fillmore - I was worried about this show because Toastyken had told me that seeing Beach House live was one of his least enjoyable concert experiences, but despite the droning vocals, I liked this show, and the teepee stars were a neat touch.