What's the first line in your autobiography?

Being that no matter how hard I fight upstream. To think differently. Walk to a different tune, it is no use. One day, my children will run on the green grass of a soccer feild, and I will have become a soccer mom.

Inspiring the opening lines of my soon to be released autobiography, " My Life In A Nutshell." (Coma Books, $24.95)

"On September 5th, 2006, I became a cliche. I didn’t mean it to happen. It just did and it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Giving up a slice of my personal identity to become another mindless drone was not the world wide event that I thought it would be when I was younger and more self absorbed than I am right now."

I fully expect such hacks like Ike, Eve, Milossarian and Wally to be checking in on this. I know it’s only 7am, I know the java hasn’t kicked in yet, but dammit, I thought this was a fun thread title.

“Call me Ishmael.”

“I was born naked and started out as a child.”

I thought it was normal to take a liking to small, oiled up farm animals, but it turns out that it is viewed as a rather unacceptable practice in public places. Thus, my story begins.

“Unfortunately, I made my first mistake shortly after birth, when I survived my childhood diseases.”

“I was born a poor black child.”

David Copperfield meets the local deviate. I like it.

“No matter how long I begged and explained it was all a joke that got slightly out of hand, they would not let me off the hook. It sure took the fun away from my otherwise flawless Salman Rushdie impersonation. How the heel was I supposed to know that Iranian Customs Officers have no sense of humour?”

What a cruel joke it is that God plays on us. I am sure that the happiest years I shall ever experiance were my earliest, and I am equally sure that the likelyhood of that pure, unbridled enthusiam for living recurring at some point in my later years is quite low. So I shall begin at a time when magic was palpable in the air, the monkeybars were my Everest, and a creamsicle was my manna.

Having been blessed with a good memory I am able to remember some of the earliest days of my life.

The very first thing that I can remember is swimming around with a bunch of friends. Swimming kind of aimlessly (after all it was dark) and hearing this male voice say, “I promise I won’t…”

It all began with a scream, the scream of terror from my mother let me know that from this day forward, the challenge was out, red feather head had been challenged to wreak havoc…

not bad… 37 years later I’m still at it.

“What hath God wrought?”

“I’ve got a weird middle name. But I’ll tell you all about that in Chapter Two…”

I was born on a cold and rainy morning in October of 1973. I’m still waiting for something else interesting to happen.

It really is just mind over matter. The biodoctors have been able to duplicate my feat, but only with the most openminded individuals. Let me relate to you my first three hundred years. If you listen carefully perhaps you too can attain immortality.

I guess my first inkling was when I was kidnapped. They cut off my finger and sent it. When my Dad demanded more proof, I began to suspect that I was an unwanted child. I guess I should have realized it earlier. My Mom wouldn’t breast feed me because she said she needed the milk for the cats.

I was never very popular as I was growing up, although in high school a pretty girl phoned me once. She said, “Come on over. Nobody’s home.”

When I got there, no one was home. I still wonder about that.

I met the Surgeon General once. He offered me a cigarette. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t vote for him.

Then I met Wanda…

I have been told by my mother, who I consider to be a reliable witness, that I was born on the twenty-fourth day of July in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy three. I was preceded into this world by two brothers - neither of whom are truly worth the time it takes to mention them. Virgil was the eldest, however, and was six years my senior. Agamemnon preceded me by three years. Mother was nothing if not regular.

"Well, you’ve obviously got the book or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I don’t know why you have it but I’ll wager you didn’t pay for it. My guess is that it was a gift from a cheap friend who stole it from a second rate bookstore in one of the seedier parts of town. Probably for your birtday, people always give cheaper gifts for birthdays than they do for Christmas. In any case, I won’t be making my car payment on time again this month.

Since you’re here anyway and I certainly have nothing better to do (and no money to do it with, thanks to your larcenous friend), sit down a while and we’ll talk about me."

My mother always wondered where she went wrong with me. I suspect it was in February, 1942. I was born in November that same year.