Apparently not the original Ray Charles version but still pretty good…Buster.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pymDDd7mOd8&feature=related

As I prepare myself (and everyone else) for my trip to California on Thursday and Ben’s graduation from Pomona College (Yay Ben!), I have time to ponder why I chose to book a one way plane ticket. I dont think this is just some morbid premonition or a false notion that I am going to be able to “save money” and drive Ben’s “piece of shit” car back from Claremont. My usual efforts to save money, as my family well knows, usually result in another major home renovation to replace something gone horribly wrong or leads me to sell (at a loss) a broken used car whose shiny front grill sneers at me as if to say, “What did you expect, you cheap ass goniff?” I am, in my estimation, the world’s greatest therapist and the world’s worst businessman. It is not a point of pride. However, in recent days I have taken to a kind of introspection that borders on radical acceptance. I dont know, maybe it’s the Lexapro. Alot of things in life that we said we are completely against or would never do, we end up later doing, or at least trying. It’s good to have a strong set of values and principles, but it’s better to be open-minded and admit it when you are wrong. Easier said then done, dont you agree? Most of us really get off on being right. I personally specialize in wanting people to adamantly admit it when they are wrong and/or apologize to me for their crazy, nasty behavior. Somehow its much harder to see and admit to my own crazy nasty behavior. I seem to always have good excuses or “rational reasons” for that part of my shadow self.

The older one gets generally the harder it is to own ones shit, altho karma and consequences seem to knock at every metaphoric window and door, psychologically speaking. All the “you reap what you sow” biblical passages are useless if one is unable to accept their inherent imperfections and fallibility. Somewhere on my crowded bookshelf, among my zillion books is one called, “The Spirituality of Imperfection”. Maybe I’ll find it and take it with me on my road trip along with alot of good CD’s and my AAA card with guaranteed  24 hour Roadside Assistance. Anybody in the market for a cool looking, completely inoperable 1993 Mazda Miata convertible?  P.S. I’m still not sorry for chasing down the punkass teenager in 1997 in the Jeep who flicked a lit cigarette into my car. That dipshit deserved having his sunglasses crushed like grapes and tossed into the bushes…..