Stuck in traffic
2005-03-22, 9:45 a.m.

The sign in front of a business dubiously named �Burgers�:
�God Bless Our Troops
We Have Fish�

The sign in front of an established San Antonio burger joint:
�Now Serving Fish
And Ice Cream Shakes!�

The sign in front of the real estate office:
�3/2/2 imaculate�

You can see the irony in a word that means �as close to perfect as you can get� being misspelled, can�t you?

Traffic wasn�t just a bitch this morning; it was a cluster fuck. Where did all these people come from? Why did the same route at the same time yesterday take 30 minutes, while today it took an hour? The traffic situation did allow me to listen to my new cd lineup in my car. I had grown to hate all the music previously in my car with a white-hot passion. You need to shake up the car cd selection more often than every three years. Today�s selection�the soundtrack from �The Wedding Singer�. Here are some of the songs that took me back in time.

First, The Smiths, and the angsty self-absorption of Morrissey. My favorite line? �So you go and you stand on your oooown�and you leave on your ooooown�and you go home, and you cry, and you want to die.� That always make me giggle. Just a little over the top there, Morrissey.

Next, Billy Idol�s White Wedding. This song and its video were INTENSE. The battered, tattered child bride, the bloody wedding ring forced on her finger. I wanted to be Billy Idol�s tattered bride, but settled for perfecting an Idol sneer.

David Bowie�s China Girl. This is the song that convinced me to quit smoking. You know, when the China Girl is running on the beach with the flag? I realized at 20 or 21 that I could never run on a beach for David Bowie. I�d collapse in a wheezing heap before I�d gone 10 yards. So, yes, I quit smoking for David Bowie. Doesn�t it sound like, at the one point in the song, that China Girl says �Oh, baby, just you shut your mouse�? You shut your mouse!

New Order�s Blue Monday. It starts out making you want to do a swaying head jerk kind of dance, and then explodes into a full-body thrash and flail. I can�t not dance to this song, and keep the Best of New Order cd in my office, because I am the consummate professional. Tap tap tap BOOM

Adam Sandler himself, singing �But it all was bullshit! It was a goddamn joke! Whenever I think of you, Linda, I hope you fucking choke!� I can�t even tell you how much I love that song, and his preface to beware � he�d been listening to a lot of the Cure when he wrote it.

This is such good stuff, infused with all kinds of irony, self-parody, and wannabe darkness. I wonder what my kid thinks of this music? Is my 80�s dance-n-angst music to him, what Rock Around the Clock is to me? Kind of cute and silly and old-fashioned? Like his mother?