… ’cause, you know, it’s not like this entire website isn’t already one big shrine to shameless self-promotion, right?

Anyhoo … armed with the delusion that my life thus far has been interesting enough that other people might actually care to read about it (once again, as evidenced by this site), I entered a memoir-writing contest. The Memoirists Collective, which is the group that organized the contest, will hand pick four finalists who will advance to a second round of competition. Additionally, a fifth finalist will be chosen by an online reader’s poll, which just started, and which you can find HERE.

You know what would be really swell? It’d be really swell if you could click on the link to the reader’s poll and, once there, scroll down until you find the entry titled “K-9 Handler to Rock Journalist” (I didn’t tag it that; they did), beneath which my name appears, and above which a little button appears. (I’m currently seeing it in the far-right column, seventh entry up from the bottom.) It is this button that I would like you to click on, and then scroll further down the page until you see the “Submit” button, which I would also like you to click on, thereby logging your vote for me, moi, myself and I.

Feel free to recruit your friends, your enemies, your acquaintances, your family members, the mailman, and anyone else whom you think might be willing and able to vote for me, as well.

The polling page also includes a link to all of the submissions … but, unless you have a MySpace.com account, you won’t be able to view them. Thus, I shall include for you here a copy of the submission I entered. The rules were: 800-word excerpt of an in-progress memoir, preceded by a short, one-sentence synopsis.

Synopsis: How I went from being a U.S. Army Military Police K-9 Handler who planned on a career in law enforcement to being a long-haired, earring-wearing music journalist who hung out with rock stars.

Excerpt: I am face down in Alabama doing pushups in the wet, 90-degree July heat when it occurs to me—and not for the first time—that this might not have been such a great idea after all. My arms are shaking and sweat is dripping off of my nose onto the red-clay earth beneath me as I struggle back up from the ground into the starting position.

“How many is that, rock?” bellows the hulking, square-jawed drill sergeant leaning over me. His last name is Maggard, but I couldn’t tell you his first name. He goes by “drill sergeant” pretty exclusively, and calling him anything otherwise is sure to result in more of the torture I am currently enduring. “You better sound off or I’ll make your ass start back at one, private!”

“Forty, drill sergeant!” I shout as I finish pushing up and lock my elbows. I pause for a moment to catch my breath before attempting to lower myself back to the ground. Maggard is not pleased by the delay.

“Did I tell you to stop, private?! Keep going until I get tired!”

“Yes, drill sergeant!” I holler. I lower my skinny, shaking, teenage body back to the ground and then do something that more closely resembles a worm in the throes of death than a guy doing a pushup. I repeat my dying-worm method several more times, loudly counting off after each one. Thankfully, by the time I reach 44, Maggard finally tires of the game.

“That was the most sorry-ass pushup I’ve ever seen, son! On your feet!”

My relief at no longer having to do pushups far outweighs my pain over his insult about the “sorry-ass” fashion with which I’d executed that last one, so I decide to let it slide. Instead, I stand up and assume the position of attention: arms straight at my sides, head and eyes facing forward, heels together, toes pointing out at a slight angle away from each other. Maggard steps toward me and stands just to the left of my gaze. I shift my eyes to look at him. Bad move.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, private?! Did I tell you to look at me? You’re standin’ at the position of attention, son! That means your head and eyes are facin’ front!”

I contemplate asking him to stand directly in front of me, if that’s the case, but I instead fix my gaze upon an imaginary spot somewhere on the horizon while he continues his tirade.

He has, for the past couple of minutes, been hollering at me and implementing this impromptu workout session because I made the grave error of forgetting to fasten one of the buttons on the side pocket of my camouflage pants; army dress-code standards require that all buttons be fastened. I am trying to emote a profound sense of shame for committing this egregious sin, but that is hard to do while standing bolt upright, staring expressionlessly at nothing.

He rants on, I keep gazing into space, and then, finally, I hear him ask, “Do you understand me, private?”

Assuming that this might signal the end of his barrage, I shout, “Yes, drill sergeant!”

Much to my relief, it’s the right answer.

“Good, ” he says. “Now get back in formation.”

I turn and jog a few short paces back to my platoon-mates, who are assembled in four rows and who are all standing at the position of attention themselves. Each row consists of 10 men standing side by side. The first spot in the last row is mine, the other nine men in the row standing to my left. I fall in and again assume the position of attention. My mind registers some slight joy over having the back of someone’s head to focus on this time.

Standing around in silence as long and as often as I have been these past few days has given me ample opportunity to realize that, a mere week ago, I had the world by the balls, but it is a realization that has come at least a week too late. So, instead of spending yet another day basking in the glow of my recently (and narrowly) obtained high school diploma while seated in a floating lounge chair atop the clear, cool waters of my friend Mark’s beautiful in-ground pool, doing some underage drinking from a cold can of domestic beer as Van Halen blasts from the poolside speakers, I now have a bald-shaven head and am experiencing such delights as being awoken at 3:30 a.m. by a drill sergeant smashing an aluminum garbage-can lid against the metal bars at the head of my bunk bed (I sleep on the bottom bunk—which, it turns out, is the perfect height for absorbing the majority of the garbage-can-lid impact).

As I stare at the stubble-covered, camouflage-hat-wearing head of the recruit in front of me, I try to recall why in god’s name I actually volunteered to be here. What the hell was I thinking?

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