Music – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sounding Off On Apple’s Consistently Inconsistent Sound Routing Issues

The sounds of confusion

The one thing most of us strive for in life is some measure of consistency. The sphere of life doesn’t matter. When we can achieve some modicum of consistency in an inconsistent and inconstant world it’s a plus. That’s certainly true with whatever tech we surround ourselves with. Sadly, sometimes comically, the inconsistency is the only constant thing in these days of rapid technology changes. I’m not a fan.

A pair of white AirPods and a White HomePod mini

While this post is mostly about Apple sound issues relating to AirPods and HomePods, let me first point out a quote from this excellent post by Sean Heber called Where Are We Going?

So much of what I like(d) about computers is how or why they worked. The algorithms were clever. The “why” of many things could be reasoned about and understood if you knew the deeper principles upon which everything else was built. I had faith that the unknowable parts were still knowable even if I didn’t always have the will to dig that deeply myself. I trusted that anything I might need to know someday could be found and mastered if truly necessary.

As time has gone on, though, that faith has been tested and now, perhaps, it is truly broken.

I don’t think anyone knows how anything works anymore. Not really. The scale exceeds human comprehension.

Sums it up nicely in my opinion.

On to those AirPod and HomePod issues. I really enjoy my AirPods Pro 3. I use them all the time and have used every generation of AirPods since the first one. But how they connect and reconnect through my devices is has been an increasingly constant source of inconsistency and frustration.

I’ll go several weeks when everything works as magically as they are supposed to work, switching between devices effortlessly. Then all of a sudden that just stops. Connections will jump inexplicably from one device to another at the oddest times, or fail to connect with no rhyme or reason. Then, after some indeterminate period things will right themselves again.

Like Mr. Heber I don’t think anyone knows how any of this is supposed to work anymore. I highly suspect Apple doesn’t either.

My hunch doesn’t explain the reason for the inconsistent behavior, but I do believe it’s because we live in a perpetual beta season with changes constantly happening on our devices and behind the scenes that users are unaware of, can’t track down, and that any support source, including Apple’s, can keep up with.

I wrote this post for two reasons.

First, this morning I needed to set a timer. I was wearing my AirPods and Apple Watch and told Siri to do so. My AirPods told me the timer was set. The timer completed as intended. But the expired timer didn’t show on my Apple Watch, my iPhone, or my Mac. It was still chiming when my wife tracked it down on my iPad Pro at the other end of our apartment, which I hadn’t used since Saturday. Like I said, sometimes it’s comical.

Once I silenced the expired timer and was back at my desk I was scrolling through my feeds and noticed this review by Jennifer Pattison on The Verge of the HomePod mini 2. She mentions that the signature feature of being able to use HomePods as default speakers for a Mac was not working for her as designed.

Following that I stumbled on this MacRumors article by Tim Hardwick that some users are returning newly purchased HomePod mini 2s for the same problem Pattison experienced.

These are not new issues. HomePod users have reported AirPlay issues prior to all of the changes Apple is introducing this year. I have personally experienced these kind of connection issues with AirPods prior to any of this year’s rollouts. And that’s the problem. These changes are supposedly designed to make things work together seamlessly, but for some time now Apple’s sound routing issues with HomePods and AirPods inconsistently keep baring all of the seams in a system that’s great when it works, but keeps tripping over itself when it doesn’t.

I will say this. In my early days of using AirPods before things supposedly got better I experienced far fewer issues, though there were far fewer bells and whistles.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask to consistently hear bells or whistles where I asked them to be piped into my ears or the way they are advertised.

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Sunday Morning Reading

“Cowardice is stronger than common sense.”

Another Sunday with yet another stab a sharing some Sunday Morning Reading. What caught my eye this week revolved around history, featuring fiddle players, photography, and a bit of Chekov among other topics. Rosin up the bow and enjoy.

Guillaume gryn_dvs kv5v3 Yh _M unsplash. Black-and-white close-up of an older man playing a violin, wearing a light fedora with a dark band and a patterned shirt, focused with an expressive, open-mouthed expression as he draws the bow across the strings.

Kicking things off are two great pieces from Robin Ince. He jump starts the first with a well worn quote from James Baldwin:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

I think we’ve all been gaslit a time or two in our lives. Even if you think you haven’t you should give both The Gaslight Years — Part One and To The End — Gaslighting Part Two a read. I think the fact that Baldwin wrote “hates” in the plural tells a tale.

“Agreement is cheap. Challenge is expensive.” So, says JA Westenberg in The Intellectual Circle Jerk And Why We Can’t Stop. Regardless of the hit to the pocketbook, both come with a cost.

We’ve always fought over history, even while we’re making it. Fine to fight over it, because history teaches us you can’t erase it, no matter how hard you try. Kelsey Ables takes a look at The New History Wars.

Speaking of history, Alan Palazon looks into The Forgotten Photographer Who Put A US President In The White House — And Pioneered Photographic Branding.

Harrison Smith tells the story of Violet Hensley. She Set Aside The Fiddle To Raise Children. At 99, She Made Her Opry Debut. Ms. Hensley recently passed away. Rest in peace.

I’m glad to see that Natasha MH keeps pursuing her art and her writing about it. Check out In The Canvas Grotto.

And to close, here’s a piece from 2018 that Neil Steinberg pulled out of his archives to highlight again this week. Glad he did. The title is a famous quote from Anton Chekov. Cowardice Is Stronger Than Common Sense. Maybe history does just rhyme after all.

(Image from Guillaume Gryn DVS on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

Sunday Morning Reading

Revelate

Still on the road for summer travels, but this week offered a few moments to do some reading when not toodling along listening to the music of Glen Hansard. So time to share a few good pieces of writing and good reads in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Kick things off with a piece by Robert P. George called The Two Great Threats To Truth. He questions whether there really is a difference between moral relativism and fantacism, if in the end they yield the same result. The piece will make you think. If thinking is your thing.

Claire Stapelton rose through the ranks at Google. From reading The Voice Of Google, it sounds like she saw it all, and she’s telling quite a bit of it.

“Government Efficiency and Death by Indifference” is the subhead to Anton Shekhovtsov’s The Techno-Oligarchy’s First “Holocaust.” It’s quite a dire piece, but certainly worth your time.

Speaking of oligarchs, a trio of NY Times writers take a look at Larry Ellison and his bet on AI. Check out Jonathan Mahler, Jim Rutenberg and Kirsten Grind’s story, Larry Ellision Bet It All on the A.I. Boom. Will He Be The Face of the A.I. Bubble? At some point this bubble has to pop, right?

David Todd McCarthy says There Is A Crack In Everything. Truth and beauty lie in the imperfections, not in the perfect.

The world is certainly an imperfect place. Rachel Yoder’s short story, The Promise perfectly reveals that.

Alex Skopic flushes out some thoughts on the failed state in Diarrhea In Every Pot and A Gun In Every Mailbox. When you break things down to “shooting and shitting” you might be on to something.

There’s nothing obligatory about Jeff Johnson’s piece The Obligatory AI Post. Make it obligatory reading.

To close out this week, a sad one when we lost one of the good ones in Glen Hansard, give a read to Sophia Stewart’s tribute, The People’s Troubador. If you don’t know the music, you should.

Revelate.

(Image from Samuel Couto on Unsplash)

Bette Midler Updates Woody Guthrie’s ‘All You Fascists Bound To Lose’

Let’s turn the screws, you perverts bound to lose

Add Bette Midler to the growing ranks of musical artists offering up protest songs for our current crisis.

Midler has updated Woody Guthrie’s classic, All You Fascists Bound To Lose, with new lyrics hitting many of headlines and moments we’re all living through under the current administration. Here’s a sample:

We’ll battle ICE together until they cut and run
Just like in Minneapolis and when the midterms come
You’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose

All you fascists bound to lose
All you fascists bound to lose
I said all you fascists bound to lose
You’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose

To hell with all the cowards who hide behind their masks
We’re gonna win the midterms, we’re coming for his ass!
He knows it too, that bastard’s bound to lose

Trying to distract us from the Epstein files
You gas and beat and murder us, protectin’ pedophiles
Let’s turn the screws, you perverts bound to lose

Give it a listen. Share it around. The fascists may be bound to lose, but everyone has something to gain when they do

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Farewell Country Joe McDonald

Gone, not forgotten. Perhaps rekindled.

Country Joe McDonald, née Joseph Allen McDonald, passed away last week at the age of 84, taking another page out of the songbook of my early life with him. The good thing about music is that the songs and the impressions they make never die.

My father used to hate that I played his music over and over. Which of course led me to play his music over and over even more during those years of America’s war in Vietnam.

And as we all know, or one day find out, what was will always be again.

In the wake of Country Joe’s passing another generation is discovering songs of his especially The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m Fixing- To-Die-Rag, which McDonald wrote in 20 minutes or so for an anti-Vietnam War play. About the song, he’s quoted as saying he “was inspired to write a song about how soldiers have no choice in the matter, but to follow orders, but with the irreverence of rock n’ roll. It was essentially punk rock before punk existed.”

It’s a damn shame we actually have to go through terrible times again to re-discover the music that helped us through them once before. But here we are.

U2 Joins Parade of Musicians Meeting the Moment

American Obituary, a tribute to Renee Good

Slowly the jukebox is beginning to fill up. U2 has joined the list of musicians releasing songs of protest agains the Trump regime’s horrors with a new song, American Obituary, now available on a six-cut EP titled Days of Ash.

American Obituary features lyrics paying tribute to Renee Good, who was horribly murdered in Minneapolis. According to U2 frontman Bono the album, released on Ash Wednesday, contains “reactions to present day anxieties.”

Let’s hope this catalog of protest songs keeps growing, because what we’re protesting about sure shows no sign of slowing down.

Minnesota by The Marsh Family

Haunting and defining with resonances of our past

As one who has been saying for quite some time that we need more of our musicians to stand up and sing about the moments we’re all living through, I’m glad to see that happening as other musicians are singing about the occupation and murders in Minneapolis.

I linked to Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis earlier this week and today I’m linking to the Marsh Family’s new effort, Minnesota. It’s an adaptation of San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair,) that kinda became the counterculture anthem of an earlier moment in American history. This new adaptation is just as simple, straightforward, and haunting. It’s also just as defining.

Share it.

Bruce Springsteen Meets The Moment With New Song: Streets Of Minneapolis

We need more of this from musicians

Meeting the moment in music is what it’s all about. Or should be. Bruce Springsteen has done so with a new song, Streets of Minneapolis. CleanShot 2026-01-28 at 11.13.36@2x.

There’s no metaphors. There’s no guessing. He cuts right to the point and the heart. The way musicians always do when they have a mind to. We need more of this and I’d love to hear this song live at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

Give it a listen and spread it around.

The Subtle Difference Between Making Noise and Making Music

Strike up the band

Young kids are great at making noise. If you pay attention, you discover that even while doing so with toy musical instruments (or anything else they can lay their hands on) they might actually have a predisposition to eventually making music. Or at least that they have a sense of rhythm.

Or maybe not.

Living in the Past with Apple Music Replay

Musical time warps

I listen to music but I’m not a voracious listener like some are. Fact is, I spend most of my listening time with podcasts and audio books. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see what music I did spend my time listening to. Apple Music, like other music services, offers a feature to summarize what tunes you’ve tuned into over the year called Apple Music Replay.

CleanShot 2025-12-02 at 08.48.09@2x.

Given all that’s going on in the U.S currently I shouldn’t find it surprising that I spent most of my time reliving parts of my youth that were just as tumultuous as our present, revisiting a lot of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Grateful Dead as well as the musical Girl From the North Country that features the music of Bob Dylan. (I spent considerably more time with that selection last year.)

It’s also interesting to me that when I do listen to music I do so through a couple of very eclectic playlists that range over quite a few genres. I never see that reflected in these generated mixes, only artists or albums I’ve selected specifically, which tells me these lists are mostly made up from selections you’re searching for. Perhaps that explains why when I ask Siri to cue up a playlist it fails as much as it succeeds. But then again, most of those playlists contain mostly music from my past, more than contemporary selections.

Seems to me, we could all do with a little more music these days that is speaking directly to these days.