I have something to confess...

Some time ago, maybe a year or so, my brother approached me very seriously and said "I have something to confess".

Of course, when someone says they're going to confess something, it's got the connotation of something deeply, possibly darkly, secret. The wheels started turning in my head as I considered the possibilities. What could he possibly be getting ready to come clean about? Had he stolen something? Had he taken a job in Alaska? Had he won the lottery? Had he just found out he was the father of an Olympian? A myriad of confession-worthy items flew through my head in the three seconds it took me to say "Really. What's up?"

"I watch Glee" he whispered.

"What?" it wasn't disbelief, I seriously hadn't heard him.
Though clearly uncomfortable, he repeated himself. Not just because I hadn't heard of the show at that time but because I couldn't make his statement make sense, I repeated MYself while the possibilities started mixing themselves up in my head. Had he stolen a job in Alaska after winning the father where he found out he was the lottery of an Olympian?

"You know - the show, Glee?" He asked, his face beet red with embarassment.
To buy myself time, I said "What is it?" and then proceeded to NOT listen to anything he said as I worked feverishly to figure out what the hell he was talking about. Clearly this was an important conversation, right? Clearly, there was a deep meaning here. I mean, he was confessing something. Pouring his heart and soul out to someone he trusted. Me.


"It's a show about High School kids in Glee club".
All I could think was 'Are you kidding me? This is about Beverly Hills 90210?' I must have rolled my eyes and made some noise because he headed for the sales pitch.

Let me explain the sales pitch. Growing up, we were three kids. Two older brothers and me. Our oldest brother is a passionate person at the very least. Since a very young age, he has been passionate especially about music. He frequently felt the need to share his interest and passion in various aspects of music until he felt you 'got' what he was saying. This was fine and he really does know his stuff but when you're a kid, you really don't want to spend an hour or more listening to records or tapes or, God forbid, rhetoric on how the Moog synthesizer is the most pivotal tool in modern music. Hence, the sales pitch.

My other brother (the one confessing) and I learned how to get through these encounters as quickly and painlessly as possible. It was simply a matter of screwing up your face with the appropriate level of (apparent) concentration, finished off with an eye popping 'Ohhh, NOW I see!' statement of realization.

Timing was important too. If you tried to rush the process too much, he caught on and simply started over, using a different approach. It took years to perfect the technique and decades before we could even joke about it with him.

Clearly, the brother in front of me saw this childhood ghost cross my face.

"No, no!!" he pleaded. "It's not like that - It's really good! It's like a bunch of misfits and they sing songs and it's really good." By this time, he was edging his way towards his computer and I knew what he was going to do. Though PCs weren't around when we were little, I'd been subject to a variation on this maneuver many times before with record players, cassette players and various musical instruments. I shivered as he sat down and navigated to "You Tube".

"Just watch this clip, it's really good". That was it. I was done for. Might as well stand there and deal with it for...how long is this clip? Three minutes. I could do three minutes...

What happened next was so predictable it should have been part of a sitcom. I got sucked in. Glee is like an irresistable hybrid of Broadway Musicals meets The Island of Misfit Toys. The impact was immediate and long lasting. I had to watch every episode, to date, and now have a standing 'date' with my daughters to watch every new episode of Glee on Tuesday nights where I have wept openly more than once. I own two or three of the "Glee" CDs. I can't get enough of the music, the characters and Brittany's one liners. I'm pathetic enough to finally realize I needed to tell someone so....


"I have something to confess..."