Winners Go to Glee in Concert

I WON tickets to go see Glee in concert tomorrow night!

Truthfully, the emphasis and excitement rests more on the word "won" than the concert itself, but I will gladly reap the reward.

A couple of months ago, Stacy told me that she was excited to see Glee in concert. The conversation proceeded something like this:
Me: "Really?"
Stacy: "Yeah. You wouldn't want to see that?"
Me: "I don't know. I guess I'd see it if it were free, but I'd never pay for that."

That is what former English teachers like myself call foreshadowing.

While browsing Entertainment Weekly's website yesterday, I saw a contest to win tickets to the show in LA on Thursday. If it were a sweepstakes, I would have just overlooked it altogether, but since it was a writing contest, I thought that might be fun and read the specifics. As it turned out, the objective was to write an original insult that Sue Sylvester might deliver to one of the other characters. Not only is that fun, I knew I could win at that.

I have Sue's dialogue down to a science. She says something mean, then shows her egotistical side by going off on a tangent about herself and how awesome she is even though most people would interpret what she brags about as insane. To be clear, I don't mean to say her lines are predictable. Actually, Jane Lynch, who plays Sue, is easily the best part of Glee. If anything, I call it a science because she always gets it right. Plus she delivers the dialogue so quickly that you don't have time to predict where it's going before she's done and you're laughing. Following the format, I banged out this: (For the uninitiated, Quinn is the former teen cheerleader who is currently knocked up.)

To Quinn: Listen, Bristol Palin, you say "pregnant," but I say "fat." You're a push-over as long as you allow that parasite you call a baby to live in there without paying rent. I have a strict policy against freeloaders. When my cousin stayed in my guest room last weekend, I charged her a reasonable rate and made it clear that I expected a mint on MY pillow.

Look, I don't get cocky often. I'm underemployed and have little self-esteem, but as soon as I submitted that, I started clearing my Thursday night. I just knew. Plus, I was able to see the other entries, and while some of them were good, most of them were about Will's hair. Though a deserved target, not original.

Within a couple of hours, I heard the news officially, and I contacted Stacy. I was more excited for Stacy than myself, truthfully. But she told me she can't go! I probably wouldn't have even entered if I knew that up front. And all of the sudden I had this "Oh my gosh, I am an adult male with two Glee tickets and a dilemma." They're expensive tickets to a sold-out show, so naturally I considered hawking them, but a large part of me also wanted to experience the prize. I won a humor-related creative writing contest, which is what I want to do with my life, so it would be nice to experience the reward, no matter how cheesy the event ends up being. Fortunately, Alice agreed to accompany me, so we'll go be losers together. She also agreed to bring some earplugs from her costume shop, because you just know there are going to be a lot of screaming pre-teens. My one hope is that Justin Bieber dies earlier in the day so that a lot of the kids stay home in mourning.

This morning, I caught up on some Glee episodes since I've been behind; Tuesday nights are for Lost, obviously. When Glee first came out, it was one of my favorite shows because it was ridiculous and included some biting satire and a lot of karaoke. Yes, I consider the show to be karaoke. I don't care that some of the stars have been on Broadway, they're still singing popular songs in an exaggerated manner. Karaoke.

Look, I want to still like Glee like I once did, but lately they try to make every episode as sappy and melodramatic as possible. Where is the humor? Where is the insightful social commentary?

I was distracted by the latest episode for a couple of reasons. Recently Chris Kelly wrote a popular Tumblr post with a list of complaints about Glee including this:

I know - I JUST FUCKING KNOW - you’re eventually going to have a dream sequence episode where that wheelchair kid is going to imagine he’s not crippled, and he’s going to get out of that chair and tap dance. And let me just tell you right now: I do NOT want to see that shit. It’s clear as day that this show’s going to be on until the world ends, and this actor - who can walk in real life - is going to bitch to the executive producer about how he wants to show off his dancing skillz, and then we’re all gonna have to watch him dance-masturbate for an at least an entire episode.

And then this happened:


It's like he had read the upcoming script! I couldn't believe it, and at the same time I couldn't help but notice the interior of the mall during the wheelchair kid's dancing scene. It looked just look my local mall! Granted, I've barely been in any malls lately, I avoid malls as much as possible, call it a lifestyle choice. But it distracted me so much, that I did some research, and found that they did film that scene at my local mall.

Now first of all, you might not recognize it because they packed it full of extras. No one goes to the Eagle Rock Plaza. If it weren't bookended by a Target and a Chucky Cheese's, no one would go there at all. I think if you added up all of the people who visited that place in a month, it still wouldn't be as many as they had in the background of that scene. If the question, "What if there were a flash mob and no one was there to witness it?" were a commonly used hypothetical, it could be put to the test at Eagle Rock Plaza. I bet they didn't even have to shut the place down or film at night just to get this scene without interrupting anything. Even if there were some people there, Tina wouldn't be one of the few Asian people. Nearly every store space inside that mall has been vacated, except for the Asian Seafood Supermarket, right across from where they filmed. Let me tell you, it stinks and attracts a very specific crowd.

That said, I did get excited at thinking, wow, the Glee kids filmed at my mall! I can walk there! Granted, it's a few miles away, but I have walked there, so yeah. Maybe this means I will be more excited to see them in concert than I thought. But I hope the concert won't feature the wheelchair kid dancing. And I also hope, again, that Bieber will be dead.