Earlier this year, the New York Times seemed obsessed with the annals of animal sex. Rapt, we read about horse sex, duck dicks, turtles cumming and chicks having a hard time getting laid. As time passed and the summer heated up, that meme fell out of favor. So what's replaced it? Tales from the intersection of rock n' roll and middle agedness.

It started off with Katie Hafner's June 17th article, The Boys in the Band are in AARP, an uplifting anthem of 40 year-old Palo Alto dads from the Style section. In that same section on July 17th, party-pooper Stephanie Rosenbloom explored the darker side of middle-aged rock with her piece The Day the Music Died, a bracing exposé about how when one listens to music really loud one goes deaf. Pat Benatar had a lot to say. She rules.

This past weekend, we were happy to meet Kevin Doyle and Ivan Wine, a software consultant and graphic designer, in Katie Zizema's piece Virtual Frets, Actual Sweat. The two are fans of Guitar Hero, a videogame in which those who aren't yet old enough to have their own band in a three-car garage resort to playing a fake guitar.

What interesting facet of not-quite-rock-n-roll will the Times explore next? How about a bad present-tense anecdotal lead for Suburban White Dudes Who Really Like the Blues Brothers movie?

ABINGTON, PA-In his faux-wood paneled basement, Robert Mills, 53, is fingering an old Gibson. Above him, Jon Belushi and Dan Akroyd stare out from a tattered poster; their eyes obscured by the dark sunglasses that have become synonymous with their characters, The Blues Brothers.

Mills, an engineer, muddles through a I-IV-V blues progression. "Baby, don't you wanna go?" he asks in a slightly nasal tenor. Though he may not be the next Robert Johnson or Sleepy John Estes, Robert Mills is among the rising number of affluent white men to embrace the blues.

Well, Maybe. But maybe not.