glee.

No one makes TV shows about blue-collar teenagers who do arty stuff. People make TV shows about blue-collar teenagers who do football, basketball, somesuch town-pride-saving sport. TV Shows about Arty Teens are reserved for the upper-crusty, and maybe the retarded. But normal folk trying a hand at singing, dancing, a heartening combo of the two? Get a fucking grip. Also: off primetime.

Being a once-upon-a-time blue-collar teenager who did arty stuff, my heart goes out to "glee." It's a dramedy from the peep behind "Nip/Tuck," and its got guts stout with dorkiness and feelings. Read: MY BAG. Even though the kids who star in it are scrubbed to within an inch of pure Hollywood perfection, the words they're saying and feelings they're swimming in seem to sound true, lower-middle-classian depths.

I go crazy for mass media that deigns to plumb the world beyond Real Housewives and High School Musicals made in Hills Heaven. Mostly because it's a world most of us live in. It's not rough & tumble. It's not carefree and provided for, either. It's a socioeconomic bracket where people have cell phones and insurmountable, petty debt. People live paycheck-to-paycheck. People "aspire" to low-end mall department store heights. And while people are not what money they make or products they buy, we live in a culture that wants us to be. And no one wants to be cut-rate. We try to be bigger, better, but we're realistic. We limit our aspirations to the most practical and easily achievable. We don't do Art. It's for Snobs: the only thing worse than being low-class. That caste of people who get everything they want and more without ever trying. Who waste time on celebrating themselves and "exploring" the unneccessary. Who rub their luxury to do so in in everyone else's face.

One of Jane Lynch's lines from the pilot is "You can have your little glee club, but make sure those kids don't think they're something they're not."

Hats off to a show, and its tandem group of makers, who are throwing out a signal that says doing what you love doesn't just amount to killing time. That you are whatever the fuck you think you are. That's the kind of sentiment that can make a town proud. Don't stop believin.

Watch glee: