WEEK OF OCTOBER 30, 2005

Elderly Deily: apparently, no shortage of opinions. (AP)

Ben Announces Bold Stance Against "This Crap The Kids Today Call Music."

"Principled opposition" draws on ignorance, crankiness, encroaching middle-age.

EAST BAY--In a move sure to prompt both controversy and politely-stifled yawns, Ben Deily today announced his contempt for a laundry-list of contemporary musical artists, or what Deily referred to as "f*cking poseur top 40 alterna-crap."

"I can't believe this stuff I'm seeing on the TV these days," ranted the livid, aging Deily in an impromptu living-room rant. "Who the hell ARE these bands? All I know is, they suck. For chrissakes, I don't need to LISTEN to them to know that much."

Swiftian "savage indignation" lacerates Deily's breast. (AP)

Sorting through and discarding dozens of "long-playing" vinyl records from a disorganized heap, Deily startled observers by suddenly leaping to his feet and brandishing a handful of the antique phonograph discs. "You see these, sonny?" snarled Deily, "Huh? Well, this is the best music that ever was. All this stuff today? Noise. Crap. Everyone knows that the last great songs in the history of the world were written in the late 80s."

"Well," he added after a thoughtful pause, "early 90s, maybe."

A distracted Deily then proceeded to pace and murmur a stream of curses, occasionally gesturing obscenely at a television on which a music video was in progress.

"'Good Charlotte'?" muttered the distracted late-30-something, plucking at the front of his "GERMS: GI" t-shirt. "'Good' for what? For s***ing my d**k, that's what. Stupid b*llshit sell-out phony Wal-Mart dreck."

Buzzcocks, Squirrelbait among few permissible bands. (UPI)

Better-informed music enthusiasts expressed disappointment, if not surprise, at Deily's overstated and unwarranted contempt for virtually every current band mining the deep vein of critically-revered, but often commercially-overlooked, music of the previous four decades.

"Actually, there are many wonderful artists working today within the genre that has become known by the catch-all phrase of 'alternative rock'," explained music critic Eric Hayden. "It's a shame that Mr. Deily's personal insecurities, long-buried resentments and advancing age prevent him from enjoying the countless dozens of first-rate new bands in existence today."

"Alas, Mr. Deily stubborn refusal to listen to any new music has left him in the position of condemning bands like Interpol or American Hi-Fi with the same ferocity with which he reviles Nickelback and Sum 41. This kind of bigotry is sad...but after all, he is getting on in years."

"Middle-aged and proud of it." So it would seem. (AP)

Music journalist Laura Koyama concurs. "Mr. Deily's discomfort seems to have much less to do with the quality of today's music, than with the fact that it no longer represents the nexus of transgressive 'outsider' signification that Ben's younger self believed it conferred upon him and his adolescent friends. It's too bad. I mean, it's his loss."

Deily remained angrily unrepentant in the face of such criticism. "You go tell the music cognoscenti to turn the iPods sideways and shove 'em up their [expletive deleted]."

Collapsing in a battered wing-back chair, he added: "I got your 'New Found Glory' right here. Stupid f*cking kids. God, I really need a nap."

As of press time, Deily could be observed watering plants on his front porch while blasting Southern California punk band Agent Orange's 1981 song "Everything Turns Grey" through open windows. (The sound was reportedly audible to a distance of two suburban blocks. No word was available regarding possible noise complaints.)

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