"Hey, guy, its Friday!"
How many times have you heard that in a bar, or on the street, or on the subway on a beautiful Friday morning when the doors open and everyone is smiling and waving and listening to your favorite song as loud as possible on their headphones? (That last one happens to me everyday so its not really a strictly Friday thing) I’m sure the answer is a lot. Either that or you hear one of the worst but most popular phrases of all time “T.G.I.F.”
People love Friday. It’s a fact of life. We hate work and, even if we don't hate work, we don't like being in offices or at a place of work and we want to kick back. We like Fridays because we get to sleep in on Saturday and Sunday; unless you are some overachieving health nut who doesn't drink or who likes to go to a yoga class or go hiking or just like to wake up before noon on a day when you don't have to.
Let's face it: Friday is the gateway to the weekend and the weekends are just better than the weekdays (this statement doesn't take into account the Mad Men theme/syndrome of not knowing what to do with your life outside of the office). Movies come out on Fridays; schools and families have “Pizza Day” on Friday; couples revolve their sex lives around Fridays. To paraphrase Marlo from The Wire, “My Friday is my Friday!”
Even though Friday is properly rated and properly appreciated, it seems just on the Catholic holy day of Good Friday (and the first night of Passover—I’m not Jewish so it gets the parentheses) to take a visual and video tour through the different ways that the day Friday has entered our cultural consciousness over the centuries. And, what the hell, I need some more “viral-esque” content on this heady site and you’ve got nothing better to do. So, sit back, relax, maybe go to the movies, buy a large popcorn and soda, leave, go back to your apartment or office, sit back in front of your computer and let Puddles do the rest of the work.
We'll get the first cultural touchstone out of the way right up front. This clip, set to a "song" called "Lead Me to the Cross" by Hillsong United, pieces together clips from The Passion of the Christ that more or less show the progression of Good Friday. This is NSFW and please view at your own discretion.
OK, now moving on.
When I think of the day Friday, I think of the movie Friday starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. This movie had an extremely formative effect on me as a young boy. I first watched it with my dad when I was 11 and I've loved it ever since. The neighborhood or "hood" humor, really struck a chord with my own, waterside, Long Island upbringing. Recently, the above scene has really resonated with me.
Ah, and then of course it wouldn't have been 2011 without the viral hate of "Friday" by Rebecca Black. I have actually never listened to this song. You can debate if that statement is true or not, but I'll tell you right now that it is true.
Then, there was this clip—a glorious fourteen seconds (does anyone have the FULL intro?) that any pious child of the 90's worshipped at each and every Friday night. Such was ABC's T.G.I.F line-up. We have never seen its like since.
Have Fridays every been the same since this haunting title theme and film came out in 1979? Let's just say I hate scary movies; and let's just say I hate Friday the 13th.
When that semi-viral video of Lindsay Lohan aging unleashed itself on the Internet yesterday (was it yesterday? Or was it Wednesday? It's so hard to discern actual days on the Internet these days) I couldn't help but be digusted. After my disgust subsided, I thought back to a simpler time. A time when Lindsay Lohan wasn't in Playboy and wasn't in jail and wasn't friends with Paris Hilton and wasn't a punchline; back to a time when we were wondering if and not when Lindsay Lohan would ever appear naked. And in that time, Lindsay Lohan teamed up with Jamie Lee Curtis to star in a remake of Freaky Friday. I'm sure it was bad or at the very least "cute-mediocre." In any case, the frightening aging video reminded me of it.
We've already established that movies come out on Fridays and seeing the first Mission Impossible is one of the most distinct memories I have of seeing a movie in the theatre when I was about 11 years old. I saw it in this old run-down Loews movie theater with my friends Jeff, Dan and Jeremy. My dad took as and I had already read the book version of the movie that the studio hired a writer to write to make extra money on the film. I believe that was strictly a 90's phenomenon. Anyway, I saw the movie on a Friday, it was pre-crazy Tom Cruise, it was Mission Impossible, it was the 90's, it was all huge.
Ah, and just for the hell of it, this will come out on a Friday too. C'mon. You know its going to be amazing. Don't be a nerd; don't be jaded.
And, of course, we wouldn't value Friday so much, if there wasn't going to be another Monday that would inevitably follow. So, after you are finished celebrating your Fridays, take a listen to this song and do the best to shield yourself against the inevitability of Monday, knowing full well that, no matter how anxious you feel, its never going to be that bad.
Happy Good Friday/Passover/Easter, my Puddlers.
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