What are you doing Sirius?

I get into the car, turn the engine on and…

I’m suddenly listening to George Michael crooning.

I do not own any George Michael music. None, Nada, Zilch!

There were a couple of songs that I’d hear back in the day but they were never interesting enough for me to buy an entire album and as I transitioned to pretty much all digital music I’ve never felt the need to include any of George’s work in my library.

So this is not coming from my phone…

I jab the number 1 preset on the dash console, there’s a pause and then George Michael resumes playing. 

The Number 1 preset is Sirius “Spa”, it’s what I prefer to listen to while driving because it’s calming and keeps my foot out of the gas tank in Southern California traffic.

Oh, I think Sirius has once again updated all their stations so I spend some time trying to locate Spa’s new station number. It’s not there, Spa is gone.  Grrrr!!!!!!

I flip around to try to find something else that I want to listen to. No Joy! I don’t feel like listening to anything currently on my iPhone. I turn the music system off and drive in silence.

While I’m driving, I realize that Spa is the only station I really listen to on Sirius. Then I think, “Why don’t I listen to NPR or one of the Canadian channels?” It occurs to me that I don’t listen to any of the news channels, or any of the talk radio channels, and I’m not listening to any of the local news channels either.

I can tell you why. Two Words. Donald Trump.

If you listen to NPR or virtually any of the talk radio stations, You get Trump Bad, Trump Evil, Trump did this or that and it’s this constant wailing and gnashing of teeth about how absolutely awful everything is because of Trump. On the other side of the coin you can listen to conservative talk radio. There, all you hear is how rotten, corrupt, shitty, or screwed up the Democrats, ANTIFI, other countries, or whatever. There’s little if anything that I’ve found that is moderate for those of us who are not yet ready to burn the country down.

Neither of these options is going to enhance my calm while driving. In fact listening to stuff like that can put me in a foul mood all day long. 

As it turns out, George Michael will go away tomorrow which is just fine with me. 

However, before I found out that this wasn’t a permanent change I’d investigated the options that my iPhone provides. I’ve found that with almost no trouble at all, I can switch entirely to music from the iPhone and not miss Sirius Satellite at all.

So as previously noted…

When it comes time for me to re-up on Sirius Satellite, I won’t.

Apple Music (which I’m paying for anyway) is more than sufficient.

Welcome to the new age.