YOU TUBING

I'm a bit wary of  most internet social media platforms and 99.999 percent of all Apps but find that Google Blogger and YouTube cater to some of my needs. YouTube is great for those nights when sleep is interrupted as it was for me last night. For a few hours between 3 and 6 AM I trawled through to find music clips, US political satire and, yes, I admit it those idiotic 'blunder' clips where unfortunate souls and idiots cock up something . (A warning to the uninitiated - when searching YouTube or any part of the internet DO NOT enter 'cock-up' into the search engine).

Like anything pleasurable and (purportedly) free you have to be careful neither to overindulge nor to broadcast too much personal information about yourself. Setting up the right safeguards on the settings is critical. Now I'm too old a dog to have a naive belief that 'setting up the right safeguards on the settings'  on any of the social media platforms is of any use. They are there merely as a panacea to nervous watchers and the gullible. I know, I know. I'm also of an age that I really don't give a fuck. As long as they don't steal what little money I have and don't 'out' and shame me for any little peccadillos then I'm OK with it. I'm not one of those silly old fogeys who have a paranoiac aversion to the internet and who believe all the stories about internet trolls coming to get them.

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We have a 'smart' TV in the lounge but no aerial on the house and don't subscribe to SKY TV so don't get 'regular' television. I like to think that we then don't have TV after weaning ourselves off it a few years ago when we went overseas for a while but I am deluding myself. We have unlimited Broadband internet in the house which enables me to access viewing via the internet - Freeview, Lightbox (free via Spark), Netflix (small monthly subscription) and of course YouTube. 

That said though I only turn the screen on when there is something I particularly want to watch so we don't have a TV blaring away all the time like some households do. I tend to watch quality drama series avoiding all of the 'reality' crap and I guess watch between an hour and two hours a day.

At present while I pre-prepared dinner (beef stir fry) and while I'm writing this post I have YouTube on the TV screen playing the full album of Steely Dan's Aja.

We have a really good music system with great Tannoy speakers but the CD changer is a bit erratic and cuts off tracks in the middle (the system is about 20 years old). This frustrates me so that when the music I want to listen to isn't on The Old Girl's iPod I do a quick search on YouTube. The sound system through the TV is adequate so I'm happy. I'm not one of those HiFi nutters.

I'm really enjoying listening to Aja as I haven't listened through the entire album for some years.

I've always liked Steely Dan and I think, have all of the albums  on either vinyl or CD. I'm not a musician but I do appreciate good music (I think) across many genres. I like the seamless blend of jazz and rock with Steely Dan. They have (had - Becker is dead) such a focus on quality that is very evident in the production of all of their albums.

I saw Walter Becker and Donald Fagan (with a superb supporting band) playing in Auckland a while back. I was gobsmacked. The sound that they produced  (given that they were a bit OCD when it came to recording studios) was clear and very, very reminiscent of the albums that I'd enjoyed. It rates as one of the best concerts I've been to.

STEELY DAN

So, why Steely Dan?

Well, when I was awake in the middle of the night I received another update email from the excellent Open Culture subscription (free) I have:

OPEN CULTURE

Waiting to later in the morning (because Richard had been out late the night before and I didn't want to wake the poor old guy too early) I sent the link to Richard. I hope he had a chance to read and watch it as it was a really interesting essay on the way that Becker and Fagan put together the track 'Peg' on the Aja album.

I've got to go and finish cooking my dinner now.

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This post has been supported by Steely Dan's Aja and Squawking Magpie 2016 Hawkes Bay Gimblett Gravels Chardonnay (with a label). Blame them for errors and omissions.