Is This Greeting the Type That’s Meant for Me? Are You Part of this Khakistocracy?

Tuesday. Things have been steady today. I spent a significant chunk of the morning putting together my pre-upload spreadsheet for the receivables website and now I am trying to track collection dollars. I have also been slammed with order forms requesting to use non-approved suppliers, a phenomenon that I have not been alone in experiencing. After months of having orders hung up by a relatively new audit process on the part of the customer (enacted after a food vendor was caught charging the customer $20/ea for 50-cent ice cube trays), things appear to finally be kicking loose. I guess now it is up to us to deal with the flood of paperwork coming in as a result. Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy to see the company making sales, but having everything hit at once can be a bit overwhelming to say the least.

Other than that, I am in the middle of a dispute between one contractor who we bid out to do work for us and one of their material suppliers who is awaiting payment. The material supplier is trying to file a mechanic's lien against us so we will strong arm the contractor into payment. I advised the freaked out sales rep who was presented this notice that the form was basically toothless since the party in dispute is a second-tier subcontractor and is not covered by the Miller Act. Plus, the lien won't stick because of the status of the entity for whom we were providing work for as a prime vendor. The sales rep said she was thankful to have me around because I knew what I was talking about. I replied "good, then all the BS I'm throwing out to blind you is working because I am just faking it as I go along." She laughed. She thinks I was joking.

I have some brand-spanking new music to review today. Yeah! I heard a song on the radio called Steady as She Goes and thought it was kind of catchy. The DJ said it was by the Raconteurs. I went home and did some investigation and apparently The Raconteurs are comprised of Jack White of the White Stripes and several members of the indy band Greenhornes. Apparently they are good friends who got together to jam and Steady as She Goes was the result. It was so well received they put together a full-length album entitled Broken Boy Soldiers. Shortly afterward I secured a copy of this album and now I am going to discuss it right here on this very site. Simply amazing how that all worked out.

First, apparently "raconteur" means "one who excels at anecdotes." I would say that I have a funny story about that, but since I'm not a raconteur myself, I will just move on. Broken Boy Soldiers sounds very Beatlesque, circa their 1968 psychedelic era. The whole thing has this late-60s rock feel to it. Each song is very listenable, though I have to say that none of the tracks appear to be very musically deep. It had kind of a poppy feel, but since it is 1960's pop you can just call it retro and render it "cool" to keep from feeling guilty for liking it. Jack White's presence is somewhat subdued, which is actually a plus. Not that I don't like the White Stripes, but I would rather hear something new than just another White Stripes record released under a different band name (which often happens with side projects). Overall I thought it was an enjoyable listen, but I don't think you'll find anything here that will change the musical landscape as we know it. This album comes off as a group of friends just having fun making music together, and I would recommend it to anyone else who thinks they would have fun as well when checking it out.