Category: QbyN – Daily Musings

If you are a certain “vintage” you will no doubt remember The Zombies, the British rock band that formed (1962) in St. Albans, a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England. Their first British and American hit was 1964’s “She’s Not There.” Other songs you might remember are, “Time of The Season,” “Tell Her No,” or “The Way I Feel Inside.” Now that I have your attention, this is not about the music group, and some of you may have clued into that fact because the title of this musing is not in italics! Two points for you! No, this is about…

…yeah, these zombies! Well, sort of.

A zombie (Haitian French: zombi; Haitian Creole: zumbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reincarnation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou. In modern media, the depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic, but rather science fictional methods such as fungi, radiation, gases, diseases, plants, bacteria, viruses, and on and on it goes. Our modern interpretation of a zombie as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people is drawn largely from George A Romero’s 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead, partly inspired by the 1954 novel, I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. The word “zombie” is not used in the film but was later applied by fans. And, judging by the number of zombie films out there (you need to scroll for quite a while to get to the bottom of Wikipedia’s list of films about zombies), the fascination with the undead is (pun intended), alive and well! You want “action” zombies, you got 28 Days Later (2002), 28 Weeks Later (2007), World War Z (2013), or Train to Busan (2016); you want “horror” zombies, you got the above mentioned Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978/2004), or [REC] (2007); you want “comedy” zombies, you got Shaun of the Dead (2004), Zombieland (2009), or Little Monsters (2019). See, something for everyone. Need something more current? Try 2025’s 28 Years Later, or the soon to be released, Return of the Living Dead.

Of course, there is also the “zombie apocalypse,” which is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society as we know it collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. In this scenario, only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living, as in The Night if the Living Dead, or the most recent example the first season of Pluribus. The zombie apocalypse has been used as a metaphor for various contemporary fears, such as global contagion (can you say COVID?), the breakdown of society (can you say…oh, never mind), and the end of the world. It has repeatedly been referenced in the media and has inspired various activities such as zombie walks, making the zombie apocalypse a dominant genre in popular culture. And now for a little more about “zombie walks,” or in this instance “zombies walking,” and what this musing is really about!

Over the past year I have been walking, on average, about four miles a day. This form of daily “exercise” has been necessitated by my body telling me that all my former types of exercise, like baseball, football, hockey, skiing, tennis, squash, jogging (okay, I never jogged a day in my life, but you get the picture), are no longer an option. My go-to route is through a portion of downtown Los Angeles, and I am always listening to music when I walk, responsibly of course, as I use bone conduction headphones so I can hear what is going on around me, like car horns and things like: “Have you got and change,” “Wanna buy some crack.” The time of day for my walks varies, depending on a variety of things, but the weekend walks are definitely the most challenging because of the amount of people walking about. It was about a week ago, on a Saturday, that I witnessed what I am calling the Zombie Apocalypse Revisited, best illustrated by the picture below.

Technically speaking, these people are not dead…yet, but if you are walking towards them…well, let’s just say I may have had some evil thoughts. I have seen these hordes scrolling and walking many times, but the other week there must have been a group of 15 to 20 walking towards me with no clue that I was walking towards them. I waited until the last second before being walked into and issued a polite, “uh hum,” which is when the lead person raised his head, with his phone still in his face, and said: “Uh, sorry,” with about as much sincerity a person can muster when they believe that you have wronged them by being in their path. So forget the movies and television shows. Just go out for a walk and you too could have a zombie experience.

Oh, I almost forgot, just before seeing this group the song that was playing in my ears was “She’s Not There,” which is what got me thinking about all of this in the first place. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways!

Los Angeles 2026

Los Angeles: November 17, 2025.

Today is a milestone day for me, and I am indulging myself by writing something personal on this, my 75^th birthday! Yup, three quarters of a century on this planet…sigh. I started thinking about writing something like this almost a year ago, when I was in Stratford, Ontario, helping my brother celebrate his 70^th birthday (our birthdays are two days apart), thinking, hmm, next year I’m going to be…That’s about as far as I got, but the seed, so to speak, was planted. I had no idea back then what I wanted to say, or even why I wanted to say it, but it was in the back of my head, and you know what that’s like.

The “event,” for lack of a better word, that helped me to be able to sit down in front of my computer this morning, was the decision to do something for myself to mark this momentous occasion, and that was to go back to school. I had already done this once before in my life at the age of 34, going back to university after a 17-year hiatus, initially to take a few courses just to see if I had it in me. As it turned out, that re-introduction to the world of academia and education lasted 34 years, until I retired in 2018. When I started to think about what I wanted to do, I realized that I missed being in an environment where learning was taking place, so I enrolled at one of the community colleges in Los Angeles to take a course on the history of rock, pop, and soul music. In other words, a course on the history of my youth. At the beginning of the course, the instructor said that we would be spending a great deal of time in the 60s and 70s, and I thought, perfect!

The idea of writing about music and memory popped (pun intended!) into my head during a class last month when the instructor was talking about some of the music that followed what is now known as the “British Invasion,” and she proceeded to play the following songs:

“Glad All Over” – The Dave Clark 5 – 1964

“Paint It Black” – The Rolling Stones – 1966

“Do You Want To Know A Secret” – 1963 (Written and also recorded by the Beatles)

“I Go to Pieces – Peter & Gordon – 1964

“Sunshine of Your Love” – Cream – 1967

“For Your Love” – The Yardbirds – 1965

“You Really Got Me” – The Kinks – 1964

“Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who – 1971

What struck me, almost immediately, while this iconic music was filling the room, was that I am listening to songs that were released when I was between the ages of 13-21, and that I hadn’t heard many of them in at least 50 years or more, yet here I was not only recognizing the songs after a few notes being played but also being able to sing along word for word for the entire song! I sat their wondering: “How the &^%& is that even possible?”

There has been a great deal of research into this kind of phenomenon, demonstrating how music and memory have a “deep-seated connection. Songs and melodies can serve as auditory ‘post it’ notes, helping us remember significant events or information,” which is the purvey of neuroscience, the scientific study of the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and the various nerve networks in the body. Music engages various areas of the brain, including those associated with “memory and emotion,” like the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. There have been many studies showing that “music doesn’t just help us retrieve stored memories, it also helps lay down new ones.” A specific tune connected to an event or information forms a kind of soundtrack, which, when replayed, can spark a recollection.

In thinking about this, it struck me that there may be other kinds of “stimulus” or even objects that might be able to trigger past memories. For example, with my dad it was cars. He had this uncanny ability, when asked if he remembered something from the past, to associate the memory with what car he had at that time, and he was always right! I fondly remember being blown away by this when I was younger, but in retrospect it makes sense, as he was a travelling salesman for most of his adult life, and his vehicles were more than just a way to get from A to B.

The phenomenon mentioned above regarding musical memories has seen application in helping dementia patients, because memory loss is a significant symptom of dementia, affecting a person’s ability to recall past events or learn new information. Remarkably, music therapy has emerged as a valuable tool to prompt recall among these individuals.

What struck me when I was pondering all this, is that the period of music that I am remembering in such exacting detail while taking this class is tied to a very specific time in my life, from my early teens to my mid-twenties – 13-25 (1963-1975), to be exact. While I certainly do have some memories of music I have heard and listened to on a regular basis after this period, I would be hard pressed to remember them in as much detail as the years mentioned above, let alone sing along word for word.

The music world has definitely changed in so many ways from those early years when I first became musically aware, given the evolution of musical genres, and, of course, technology. I have to say, I chuckled to myself somewhat when the instructor was talking in one class about the A side and B side of records, and as I looked around the room I could see some puzzled looks – A? B? Sides? What the hell is she talking about? Want to experiment? Give a 13-year-old today a rotary phone and just sit back to be amused!

All of which brings me to the second part of music and memory. While I am not the only “older” person enrolled in this class, although I am definitely the oldest by at least 40+ years, the majority of the students in the class of 50 are either 18 or 19. To put that in perspective, most of these kids’ parents hadn’t been born when this music was released. Let that sink in! So, it was with some surprise when I was paired with one of these students to work on a short in-class presentation on Sam Cooke, that this particular young man knew more about Cooke than I did, not to mention also singing along to the songs being played. My immediate thought was: “How is this even possible?” And right then, I knew I needed to find out the answer to this question. So after we finished our presentation I asked if I could interview him about this. His response was “Sure, if it means I get to talk about music, I’m in.”

Meet Josue Hernandez, born in Los Angeles, April of 2007, to Mexican immigrants. He attended high school from 2021-2025 and is a first-year student at Los Angeles City College, where he plans to spend this year and next before transferring to UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) to complete his undergraduate degree. He told me that his parents were very influential introducing him to music at a very early age, firstly Mexican music when he was around three and then the Beatles when he was five. When I asked him if he could remember a song that might represent his first musical memory, he responded right away with the Beatles song, “Come Together.” He started playing guitar and bass when he was twelve, and, for the past few years, he has become proficient on the drums as well. When I asked him about his exposure to Mexican music and how that inspired him to research and become very familiar with the music we are listening to in class, he said that his exposure through his parents to “barrio music,” which is not a genre per se, instead referring to various styles of Mexican and Latin music that is popular in urban neighborhoods, was the starting point for his wanting to immerse himself in the music of the past.  Often this barrio music reflects a call to action or to protest, and he said that he recognized similar subject matter in American and European music, which was a key factor for him wanting to learn more about this music.

I asked him about some of the music of today that he listens to, and he gave me a list of names of which I knew absolutely none.

My take away from all of this is that while music and memory are still reflective of a specific time in one’s formative years, the amount of music now available for today’s youth to create memories has expanded exponentially because of the various technological advancements, like streaming services for example, making music from previous eras much more accessible. All of which make it possible to recall “memories” in a very different way than was available to someone my age. Lastly, here is a playlist of the eight songs mentioned above.

Los Angeles 2025

As I sit down to write (3/17/25) what I hope will come across as an attempt to inject some wry commentary on what has been happening “out” there, it has been exactly 57 days since the 60^th inauguration took place in Washington, DC. I mean, why should only the late-night talk show hosts have all the fun? And boy, are they having fun, not to mention the daily onslaught of “meme porn.” More on that shortly. The fantastically enormous crowd all watched DT placing his hand on a bible, most likely his very own, which can be yours for only $59.99, or, if you’ve been recently laid off, you can use Shop Pay and get four interest-free payments. I wonder if Trump knows that Shop Pay is a subsidiary of Shopify, whose headquarters are in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the leading candidate to become the 51^st state. I wish I was making this up! I’ve heard rumors that the White House is going to extend a similar offer to Mexico to become the 52^nd  state, if only to justify the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

In case you’re wondering about this made in China bible, it is actually the “God Bless the U.S.A. Bible,” which was penned in 2021 by country music singer-songwriter, and former Member of the National Council of Arts (2008-2022), Lee Greenwood. His version follows in the footsteps, so to speak, of his signature song, “God Bless the U.S.A.” (1984). His tome contains the King James version of the Christian Bible alongside texts related to the foundation and politics of the United States. I will admit that I have not read it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that DT may have edited it further, especially the second book of the Old Testament, Exodus. Take for example Exodus 33:33:

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware (sic) unto Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, saying, unto thy seed will give it.

I imagined that it might now read like this:

And Trump said unto Biden, Depart, and go far away, you and those suckers which you insist belong here from all those “shit-hole countries,” because as I have sworn an oath to Elon, to Putin, to Don Jr., to Eric, to Barron, saying” “It’s my seed that will take the day.”

Where was I? Oh yeah… and what a 57 days it has been! Regardless of which side of the fence you’re on and, to be honest, this particular “fence” is not your Norman Rockwell, white picket fence that separates Billy Bob’s and Billy Joe’s suburban back yards. No, this is more like a wall (no, not that one) rather than a fence, perhaps more like a throwback to the Berlin Wall, the one separating two political ideals, that went up in 1961 (JFK) and came down in 1989 (HWB), signaling, as the “pundits” keep reminding us, the end of the “Cold War” two years later in 1991. I don’t know about you, but from where I sit, I would say that the “cold war” is far from over. . .different perhaps, but over, uh I don’t think so.

Why did I pick today to write this missive? Earlier in the day, I opened an email from a Canadian friend of mine, which contained a link to a YouTube video of a parody song titled, “We Will Survive” (written by Gord Moran and performed by Sonya Zaback), which is sung to the tune of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 disco hit, “I Will Survive.” Yes, it’s clever, witty, a tad predictable, but as another Canadian friend of mine pointed out to me after I sent it to him to watch: … “ironically it seems we can’t survive without using the tune from a song written and recorded by Americans!” Indeed. And that got me thinking; if that makes you nervous, it should!

While this is certainly not a new phenomenon in the “digital age,” we are being bombarded daily…no, make that hourly, with a plethora of headlines, news flashes, TV show snippets, testimonials, memes (thousands and thousands of memes), song parodies, jokes, etc., etc., etc. Now, if the “digital age” (also known as the “information age”) moniker seems like a historically quaint reminder of 50 years ago when computers first appeared on the landscape, you are not wrong. According to the “experts,” though, we are still in the “digital age”, but what is available to us today compared to the 1970s is almost difficult to comprehend. As a former teacher, I always bristled when my students would tell me that there was so much “knowledge” available to them now because of the Internet, and I would have to remind them that information is not knowledge. Information only becomes knowledge when you do something with it, process it, compare it, discuss it, etc., etc. And, it’s gotten worse, much worse. Why? Because most of that “information” that we are being bombarded with is either suspect, at best, or just downright bullshit. Now, just about everything I have been “readin’” and “watchin’” is definitely skewed towards the shock, horror, and dismay over what that _________ in the White House is doing to this country, but what I do not know, and do not want to know, is what dribble is being foisted upon those that are “readin’” and “watchin’” what’s being posted on the social networks from the other side of the fence…excuse me, wall. I was going to sign up for Truth Social, but after buying the bible, I’m short of funds!

All of what you’ve read thus far was going through my head today as I was on a morning walk, after receiving my friend’s video. I happened to be listening to some music as I walked and at some point, the following song came wafting into my ears: “Bulletproof,” by the English synth-pop duo, La Roux, from 2009. Why my mind immediately went to the failed assassination attempts, I can’t tell you, I blame it on the memes! However, immediately after having that thought, the next one that popped into my head was, I should take “Bulletproof” and re-write the lyrics. I told you to be nervous. So, without further ado, here is my re-working of that song (in red), now titled, “Nice Try.” And just in case you want to sing along…

Got to go now. Waiting for a call from the Grammy Awards!

Los Angeles 2025

For anyone reading this who knows me well, I will assume that what popped into you head after seeing my title and the accompanying photo went something like this: “Why the ^%&^$ is he writing about coffee?” Or perhaps it went: “Coffee! The dude’s never had a cup of coffee in his life!”  For those of you who don’t know me that well, listen to the first group; they know what they’re talking about.

Yes, it is somewhat true to say that I have never had a cup of coffee in my life, as the first time I attempted to indulge in this (what appears to me to be a fairly widespread addiction…uh, sorry, ritual), it was from a vending machine in 1969, at the university I was then attending. I figured it was time to be an “adult,” so I joined the line that had formed in front of the machine around 8 AM, with fellow students and faculty, all of us looking a little worse for wear, waiting to slide my quarter into the slot. I had no clue as to what all the buttons there were to push meant, so I closed my eyes and pushed away and waited. I honestly don’t remember if I gagged, or spit it out in disgust, but it was, to me at least, the most vile thing I had ever tasted. In 1969, we were still a few years away from the first Starbucks (1971, Seattle), and a few more years away from hearing: “Yes, I’ll have a double-non-fat-extra-shot-no cream-mocha-latte…whatever.” “Of course, that will be $12.59, can I get a name for it?” Yes, ridiculous.

The term “joe,” or more accurately, “cup of joe,” has been around for some time, but, as I have recently learned, its origins are unclear. Of course, there are some theories. One is that “joe” may be a shortened version of “Jamoke,” a popular nickname for coffee in the 1930s, a combination of the words “java” and “mocha,” common terms back in the day. Another theory posits that it may be linked to the slang term for “the common man,” also Joe, which first appeared in the English lexicon around 1846. Or perhaps it belongs to Joe Martinson of Martinson Coffee in New York City circa 1898, who called his coffee blend, “cup of Joe” as a marketing ploy – I like that one the best. Coffee is also known as “cuppa,” “go juice,” “bean juice,” “morning jolt” and, my personal favorite, “rocket fuel.” There are many more, but I’ll spare you.

Just because I do not drink this cultural elixir does not mean that I do not understand its importance to people and cultures around the world. As a matter of fact, my indoctrination into people’s personal relationships with coffee started at a very early age, when I became aware that if I tried to talk to my mother before she had her morning coffee, my day would not go well at all. The look on her face when I bounced into the kitchen babbling incessantly said it all: “Say one more word and you will wish you lived somewhere else!” My coffee education continued into my early teens when travelling with my dad in the summer on his sales trips. This was when I was exposed to not only coffee culture but coffeehouse culture, which is as important as the beverage itself, if not more so. It was in the small town of Cobourg, Ontario, where my dad had clients and a friend, and every morning we were there involved a short walk to the local coffee joint and a seat at the communal table which, as I would later learn, always had the same group of men, sometimes women, huddled around their steaming mugs, pontificating about everything from politics to the amount of snow that had fallen from the previous night’s storm. They were known as the Cobourg Coffee Klatch. It may not have been school, but it certainly was educational! Sometime later, when I was in my mid-twenties and working in sales myself, I would often be hosting several buyers for early morning meetings in my company’s boardroom. It was then that I was reminded of my mother’s stares. It’s 8:30 AM, the buyers are all seated around the table, and I would bounce in and start right in on my sales pitch and showing samples of our wares, when I realized I was being glared at by six sets of eyes. I stopped mid-sentence, looked around the table, when one of the group just looked at me and said: “COFFEE, NOW!” “Oh yeah, my bad.”

Coffeehouse culture is by no means a new phenomenon, as the first coffeehouses appeared in Damascus. These Ottoman establishments also appeared in Mecca, in the Arabian peninsula in the 15^th century, then spread to the Ottoman Empire’s capital, Istanbul, in the 16^th century. They became popular meeting places where people gathered to drink coffee, have conversations, play board games, such as chess and backgammon (Shesh besh), listen to stories and music, and discuss news and politics. By the 17^th century, it spread to Europe and on and on it goes.

So, why the sudden interest and urge to write about this? Fair question. Just the other morning, after driving my wife to work, I had some time to kill before starting my weekly grocery shopping, and I stopped at the Peet’s we often frequent on the weekends. It is a rare occasion when I am there on my own, but here I was at 7 AM, sipping on a tea, and just observing the groups of people, friends, acquaintances, coffee buddies, etc., at different tables deep in conversation, and the memories mentioned above washed over me. For a large part of my life, this was not at all part of my daily routine (a cocktail after work…now we’re talking!). That would change in my mid-fifties when I relocated to LA and married a coffee drinker. Over the ensuing years, I have been part of three separate “Peetnick” clans, as they are affectionately known, all replete with those “special” characters who congregate on a regular basis to indulge in their daily fix, and to develop friendships that range from fleeting to lasting. This is what I missed all those years, but I have more than made up for it, except for the coffee of course!

Los Angeles 2025