how come no one told me about this terrific Daniel Nester poem?
"ARRAIGNMENT OF A BEACH BOY
Mike Love has ruined America. He has made ours a primitive boring land,
Censoring Brian Wilson, our country's only attempt at art song.
And now Mike Love rests comfortably in California, hawking Kokomo burgers
With his orangutan eyes, orange Republican beard, and fake west coast Alan Watts Buddhism.
He has deprived us of songs beautiful enough to mark our conception,
Thus making us all less intelligent. He has exiled our Mozart to a room with quarts of chicken fried rice.
Mike Love, who blundered Beach Boy harmonies all his life,
Who toured the world with comb-over hairdos and Andy Cap hats.
I condemn him for slurring this century's only true melodist,
Now writhing at a piano with a stroke victim voice.
Mike Love, who sang exactly what he was told for five years, then rebelled,
Exiled his god to a quarter century of carbohydrates, mind control, air filters,
This is the traitor to the state, this is the war criminal who rhymed vibrations with the excitations,
Ruining a symphony, who fucked up the theramin part in Germany,
Mike Love rests comfortably, like some dictator in his dotage.
Who will accuse the happy goat on the cover of Pet Sounds
For not serving its country, biting the hands off the second guy from the right?
These were the hands of a man who turned the knobs down in the studio,
Who asked a genius, What's the bottom note? What's the bottom note? What's the bottom note?
And now Mike Love rides the gravy train to state fairs, Desert Storm rallies,
Endless Summer greatest hits packages, duets with The Fat Boys and John Stamos.
For ruining America, I summon the spirit of William Carlos Williams,
Who endured Eliot, the wasteland that set American poetry back 20 years.
I summon Santayana, who exposed our fake gentility with queeny aplomb.
I order every long-haired Englishman who jacks up the price of vinyl
To repent. I call Mike Love to a tribunal, assembled to condemn his quashing sins,
All the songs that could have been written after Mike Love, all the babies born stupid after him,
All those fallen asleep to his misdeeds."