Last spring I canceled my satellite and I watch more TV today than ever. Do I have rabbit ears? No. I have the Internet. I figured out that I had literally spent thousands on cable then satellite paying for shows that I never really got to see. Two years ago I bought my first CSI subscription from iTunes. Then one day about 18 months ago I discovered that CBS rebroadcasts many of its TV shows online. I picked up a Mac Mini and plugged it into my new LCD TV. I began streaming programs directly to my new TV. Since the Internet rebroadcasts air after the official network broadcasts, all I really needed was the discipline to watch my “shows” at odd times. The money I’ve saved by not paying for cable or satellite actually paid for my Mac Mini. Somehow I found Glee while surfing the FOX website. I had put off watching it despite the rave reviews from my friends because I thought, hey I’m middle-aged. This show is for kids. But I was once a kid.
When I was a kid I was in choir. My teacher was Mrs. Bridges we won our “Regionals” but I never competed at “Nationals”, we moved. I was a geek as a kid and had few friends. In junior high had a tendency to want to hang out with the popular kids and that really got me nowhere. I used to lock myself in basement and sing for hours. I got a bit smarter in high school about picking my friends. Friends I could watch Rod Stewart sing “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” with and scream like a crazy woman or hold hands with in the dark while Mike Meyers went on a killing spree or friends who would cover for me when I sneaked out to meet the forbidden boyfriend. I was still a geek, though, lugging every school book I owned in a big red bag knocking people aside as I went to class. The red bag of courage what what my classmates used to call that bag.
I ignored Glee until the “Single Ladies” episode. Then I was hooked. Something about being a misfit but wanting to be accepted resonated with me. Every week I find myself swaying on the couch singing. I’d hold up a lighter while swaying on the couch if I wasn’t so worried about the fire hazard. I sing in my home more now than I have in the last decade. My voice is no longer the solid reasonably trained alto that it was; it has more cracks in it than a windshield in New Mexico, but I sing none-the-less.
The Glee Finale featured three songs that I love and own. Journey’s “Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin” and Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” both on 45 and Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” featuring “Bohemian Rapsody” on LP. LP and 45s were, uh, lumps of vinyl that music used to be recorded on.
The Glee Journey is a journey of the Soul, from adolescence, to young adulthood, through middle age, old age to the end. Will Schuester, the club’s coach, said there really is only one beginning and one end to life and the rest is one big middle. What we stuff in that middle is really what matters.
Last night was a wonderful season wrap and there was enough substance to keep me singing until the Fall season premier. People are surprised that the show is a hit, but I’m not. FOX picked it up within 15 hours of receiving the script. I suspect that during those 15 hours the executives at FOX were transported back to their own adolescence.
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