Happy New Year. I’m off to a bumpy start despite a strong feeling the year ahead will be a good one.

I lost my only set of keys Wednesday night.

I never lose my keys.

But as Mom always says: “Try to retrace your steps.”

The hour was late when I discovered my problem on the upper West side of Manhattan, so retracing wasn’t practical.

I was sure I left them at Luke’s on Amsterdam Avenue. I used the bottle opener on the key chain to pop the top on a bottle of soda served with dinner. In my mind, a clear picture emerged. I left the keys on the table at Luke’s before going further uptown to the Columbia/Colgate men’s hoops game.

After the game, I went to the Ding Dong Lounge for a couple rounds. Later, as I walked toward Central Park West to get on the subway, I felt triumphant about a fun night on the town. Then suddenly an emptiness in my coat pocket. The keys!

I hustled back to the Ding Dong and got on my hands and knees. It’s dark in the Ding Dong. The keys were nowhere to be found. I called Luke’s and the guy on the phone was about to close the place down. He didn’t see any keys but said I should check in the morning when the store’s early shift was there.

I didn’t bother calling or going back to Columbia because it seemed unlikely I lost the keys there. Even if I did somehow allow them to fall out of my coat pocket, it seemed even more unlikely the keys would be recoverable. I sat in several different sections during the game and the 881 people who watched Columbia beat Colgate 66-59 left behind little trash to attract the attention of a clean-up crew.

I was convinced my keys were at Luke’s but I had to accept their claim nothing was found.

For the first time in my fifteen years in New York, I was locked out of my apartment. I called my pal Marc. It was much later than he’d normally pick up but sure enough there he was on the first couple of rings. The conversation was short. The welcome mat was thrown down. I took the 1 to the 7 and crashed out in Marc’s basement for the night.

On Thursday morning, I went to my building’s lobby and waited until a familiar face exited and allowed me to go through the open main door. I went down to the basement and knocked on the door of my building superintendent. I avoid the guy at all costs. He’s a total grinch and I know he doesn’t like me because I long ago ceased handing him an envelope with cash at Christmas. The money I allot for these types of services goes instead to the building’s porter, the letter carrier and the newspaper delivery man. I stopped the annual cash handout to the super because he never did anything for me. He grumbled whenever I said hello to him and he blew off an early-in-my-residency request to fix a broken window latch.

So, here I was now with my fate in the hands of a building super I stiffed year after year despite an unwritten rule in this city dictating you give dough to the guy in this job no matter what. I told the super about my predicament and asked if he had a spare key to the door of my apartment. Again with the grumble.

But then he guided me to his cluttered workshop. He had three coffee cans filled with old keys. Some were labeled. Some were not. He went through them one by one. None were marked with my apartment number.

“Stay here a second,” he said in a thick Russian accent. “I have one more place to check.” He went into his apartment and emerged with the spare. He said there would be a fee of $50 for the building’s main door replacement key.

I gave him a hundred and told him the extra fifty was for bailing me out in a tough spot.

“It’s for Christmas,” he smiled.

“No, it’s for saving me from a much bigger hassle,” I said.

When I got back into my apartment, I went on the internet to find a phone number for the box office at Columbia. I called them just to make sure. By some miracle, the keys were found. I picked them up on campus Thursday afternoon. In retrospect, I should have called Columbia before resorting to the super.

I’ve never been much of a best-of-the-year list guy but 2012 was a good one for rock and roll enjoyment and so here’s a few favorites from the 12 months gone by.

Fave records:
The Babies – Our House on the Hill
Woods – Bend Beyond
Julie Doiron – So Many Days
Plants and Animals – The End of That
King Tuff – self titled
White Fence – Family Perfume Vol. 1
Guided By Voices – The Bears for Lunch
American Snakeskin – Turquoise for Hello EP

Best individual tunes:
“Still Life with Hot Deuce on Silver Platter” – Titus Andronicus
“Size Meets the Sound” – Woods
“On My Team” – The Babies
“Other Side” – Lame Drivers
“Laura” – Bat for Lashes

Best life experience of the year by far: Two days of great music at the 2012 Woodsist Festival in Big Sur, CA. I long for the smell of the redwoods and hope to return to the Miller library for the 2013 Fest (assuming it returns).

Best drinking spot revival: After a two-year dormancy, the space that long housed the Stoned Crow near Washington Square Park has re-opened for business as Formerly Crow’s. It’s been cleaned up a little but retains the character and warmth of the old place.

Most exciting NY sporting event: Game three of the ALDS. NYY vs. BAL at the Stadium. Raul (so cool) rips a game-tying, ninth-inning rope into the RF seats and then a twelfth-inning game-winning homer. Me and Double A sit in the LF bleachers and watch Yankee fans dance in the aisles and skip like kids into the Bronx night.

Best meal of the year: The chicken pozole with my Dad at the Taco Grill in Oakland, CA.

The most confounding reaction to the retirement of an inanimate object: The public’s over-the-top fascination with the mothballing of space shuttle craft in New York and California. Trees were cut to make way for the parading of the shuttle through streets of LA.

Worst rock venue visited in 2012: It’s no contest. Brooklyn Bowl is the kind of place I’ve been running away from since college. It’s a hideous place largely due to its attempt to be everything to everybody rather than something to somebody. I love bowling alley bars as much as anybody. The Fireside in Chicago is one of my favorites of all-time. This isn’t a bowling alley bar. It’s Harpo’s with lots of bouncers and lots of conflicting vibes.

Favorite current WNYU-FM disc jockey: Mary Kinney. I really enjoy her opinion-filled between-set banter and song selection.

Best piece of original television: A 30-minute deconstruction of Who’s On First by Jerry Seinfeld moderated by Bob Costas on the MLB Network.

Favorite movie: Radio Unnameable (The Movie)

Favorite acting performance: Jean-Louis Trintignant in Amour.

And looking ahead to 2013, records I’m excited about listening to include new ones from: Ducktails, Mount Moriah, Wooden Wand, Case Studies, The Mantles.

-A makeshift memorial has sprung up outside the Jackson Heights bodega near where 11-year-old neighborhood kid Miguel Torres was struck and killed by a dump truck on Northern Boulevard. Torres had purchased a bottle of Sprite and a package of pop tarts at the N & K Smart Mart a week ago Friday in advance of a scheduled winter-break field trip from his school across the street. Walking with the light, cops say Torres was run over by a truck turning right onto the boulevard from 80th Street. Torres was a sixth-grader at I-S 145, a Queens middle school with an enrollment of about 2000. His family told the News that Torres’ final resting place will be in Guadalajara, Mexico. When I walked past the Smart Mart a few days ago, the shrine built by friends and family members outside the bodega’s entrance included dozens of candles, handwritten messages and a full bottle of Sprite.