Speaking of Fridays...

We’ve all got our favorite personal soundtracks, right? Favorite songs to wake up to or fall asleep to, favorite songs to drive to, to work out to, do drugs to, rock out or make out to. Well, I’ve also always had my favorite songs to leave work to. Like all my other favorite situational songs, they’re constantly moving in and out of heavy rotation and, for whatever reason, tend to appear on or near weekends.
As a high school lad in Orlando, I’d burn rubber away from Little Caesar’s Pizza in my 1980 Firebird with damn near any song from The Lemonheads damn near perfect punk-rock-lite album, Hate Your Friends. On the short ride home from work, I'd breathe deep and fill my teenage lungs with the intoxicating air of temporary freedom (and no doubt an unhealthy dose of carbon monoxide from the cracked exhaust line).
In college, I’d zip through the crowded Gainesville streets on my skateboard, sweaty and usually sticky, covered in some combination of cheese, beans and salsa. The cassette walkman could have been playing anything, but more often than not, I’d fly out of EL Indio high on adrenaline, Jarritos and any of a half a dozen songs by Japanese rock-and-roll freak out act, The Ruins.
As always, the list keeps changing, but right now, this minute at the very ass end of the work week, I’m all over Rocky Erickson’s, I Think of Demons. It still holds up as one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever written. And, at least for today, it seems like the perfect soundtrack for flying out of cubicle town, down eleven flights, onto the train and off along the greatest urban theme park ride in the country, eagerly anticipating the comfortable me-ness of home.