I’d Like to Think That All of This Constant Interaction is Just the Kind to Make You Drive Yourself Away

Wednesday. It's been another busy day around here, but yet still completely devoid of any excitement. The highlight of my day so far has been when I called a financial manager this morning and she immediately thanked me for speaking up during a teleconference a few days ago and basically telling the Big Boss Lady that one of her proposed changes for the financial department would not be wise decision. After she thanked me for saying what everybody else was thinking but didn't want to say, I realized that this was the second time in about 3 days that I have vocally countered the opinion of upper management. Although both times my stance has "won," I really don't like being in this position. I've been here before in past jobs, and I have found out that you don't often get rewarded for your insight and honesty. Instead, I have found out that telling the emperor that he (or in this case, she) wears no clothes is far more likely to get you disliked, left out, and unpromoted. Next time I'm just going to agree to whatever plans she presents. Sure, my day-to-day job will most likely get 5 times worse, but hey, at least she'll like me...

Since my post yesterday centered so heavily on the bass guitar, I thought it would be interesting (yeah, right. Who am I foolin'?) to do a review in the opposite direction and instead talk about a band with no bass. So, today I chose Elephant by The White Stripes. I was curious to see what the big deal was with this group. They tend to get a whole lot of hype. They certainly weren't the first to go bass-less. I mean The Doors didn't have a bass player (which always made me wonder what they did when they played Peace Frog in concert. Did they bring out a guy for just one tune?). There had to be a bigger reason for their popularity than the fact that Jack White was briefly married to Renee Zellweger. I decided to investigate closer and find out.

So, about three years after everyone else in the world, I secured a couple White Stripes albums with the intent to see if they were really as good as everyone says. After listening to Elephant on the way in, I have to admit I liked it. I don't know if it was mind-blowingly phenomenal, but it didn't make my ears bleed in the first few opening notes like some bands have done in the past. One of the main reasons I liked it was because there wasn't any catchy, poppy tunes or hooks, there wasn't any gimmicks (beyond the no-bass thing), no over-production or extraneous background electronica, no "hey we play mainstream pop songs but since we have purple hair and a nose ring we call ourselves 'punk.'" They played straight rock and roll but in a distinct style all their own. I don't know yet if they are deserving of all of the hype, but I would have to say that after only one listen I was impressed. I will definitely have to hear more though before I commit myself and jump on the bandwagon. I'll give the other White Stripes album a listen tomorrow and see what I think about that one. Until then, I hesitantly recommend Elephant unless you are an aspiring bass player who after listening to it might fear being phased out in rock's future.