Jarod Kintz
This is it, this is my biography. The story of Jarod Kintz begins now.
Let’s knock out the trivial first. I was born in Salt Lake City on March 5th. Now that you know my birthday, please feel free to get me birthday presents. Notice how I used the plural, presents? More than one gift would be greatly appreciated. Appropriate gifts include gold coins, bars of silver, and large tracts of land (preferably beachfront property). Or you could just buy me a drink—soda, natural, because I don’t drink either alcohol or high fructose corn syrup.
Skipping ahead a few years, and a few hundred miles, we come to Denver, Colorado. For a few years I attended Mackintosh Academy. In the second grade, along with English, I studied French, Spanish, and Japanese. Out of all those language classes, I remember one word: Andrea. That was my girlfriend at the time, the one who left me for my best friend. I guess I remember two words, as I remember his name too, but his name is almost sacred, as a name that shall never be uttered.
Right after second grade ended my family moved to Jacksonville, Florida. It was Jacksonville that I would come to know as home, and would attend the rest of my schooling until college.
At this point I was a mediocre student. I believe I had a perfect 2.0 grade point average from third grade until I graduated from high school. My favorite classes were art, P.E., and lunch. Oh, is one of those not a class? No way—I believe art is still considered a class.
When not cracking jokes in class, I would be doing one of three things: drawing, passing notes, or sleeping. In high school I started to not only be mentally absent from class, but physically gone too. I’d skip class like a flat rock skips across a pond.
After high school, it was on to college. In all I have attended six colleges. I bounced around like a dodgeball on a trampoline. If you count the college classes I took starting my junior year of high school, then I got my four-year degree in nine years. And if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it at least twice as well as everybody else—or at least at least twice as long.
I graduated with an English degree from the University of Florida, but I took creative writing classes from both UF and Florida State University. All though college I fancied myself a fancy man, because I was an aspiring writer. Mostly I wrote t-shirt slogans and other pithy things. In the spring of 2005 I did manage to sell a line of t-shirts to Urban Outfitters.
That is my lone success in life. Seriously. Well, so far anyway. But my story is just beginning. I plan on failing my way to success. I have been rejected by literary agents, publishers, MFA programs, all sorts of women. But still I keep writing.
I have written many “books,” and I use the term books loosely. Mostly they are just compilations of my random thoughts and one-liners. But I like writing them, and people seem to like reading them. and that’s what it’s all about, right?
All my books are self-published, either through iUniverse or the wonderful Amazon Kindle program. I encourage everybody to write. Share yourself with the world. If there is one thing I like to impress upon people, it’s that you can do it, even if you can’t. Just keep can’ting until eventually you can. And you can quote me on that.
“You know what really chokes me up? Being strangled.”
“I’ll watch the Final Four when there are three teams playing at once for two titles and one large bag of regrets. That bag is mostly full of air, like a bag of potato chips, only harder to chew.”
“My hand inside a glove is like a painting in a frame, and should be insured as such. The things my hand makes have immense value, so how much more valuable is the thing that makes the things?”
“I want to write an unreliable narrator. In fact, he’ll be so unreliable that I’m not even sure he’ll show up to narrate.”
“I stood under the umbrella for hours before I folded it up and started walking. Umbrellas can block the sun, shield the rain, and if you flip an open one over, it can also be used as a large coffee cup.”
“When I was growing up, I’d walk to school in the snow. In Florida. Uphill all three ways.”
“I can’t get car parts at Lowes, the home improvement store? If I lived in my car, my car would be my home.”
“I waste more time trying to save time than I would if I were merely inefficient. One woman told me I make love like a fish in the desert, and I believed her, because she looked like a dry fish fucker to me.”
“Getting a rejection letter from a place you’ve been thinking about is bad enough, but how shitty do I feel getting a rejection letter from some place I don’t even remember applying to? That’s like a homeless person walking up to me and saying, “You don’t know me, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’re a loser.”
“I had an arranged marriage. If I didn’t, how would anybody know when and where to show up?”
“I found a note I wrote that said “Doctor’s Appointment Tomorrow.” Well, that note is wrong, because that appointment was yesterday.”
“I’m looking for a full-time portable heat generator. Must be willing to travel. If you don’t snuggle, you must cuddle—at a world champion level.”
“I stand to inherit a lot from my father, including high cholesterol and diabetes. Oh, and maybe a few Beatles records. Actually, the first two don’t sound bad compared to the last one.”
“This world is nothing more than fresh white underwear, and I’m going to leave my mark on it.”
“Nothing says I forgive you like a punch in the face.”
“A hammer alone on a coffee table doesn’t kill someone. But a man in a business suit with hemorrhoids might. How that business suit got hemorrhoids I have no idea.”
“You like vodka, and I like carpet cleaner. You should try it. It’ll put hair on your chest—really clean hair. Grandpa said it would make me a better lover, but I made me a better lover—and I made it out of clay.”
“Dinner is served. It’s chicken lo mein. Oh and by the way, your cat is missing.”
“The patrons aren’t patronizing the store, and it’s not just the economy that’s keeping them out—it’s that nobody here likes to be patronized.”
“On Halloween I like to scare up business the old fashioned way: with flyers, business cards, and electroshock therapy while wearing spooky masks.”
“It was a blustery winter night, back in the summer of 2009. That’s when we met, and that’s when I knew it was love, two years before.”
“From where I live now I can walk to the beach, if I have about three weeks.”
“I am Orafoura and he is me. And he is not me. And I am not me. Or him. And I am in love and not in love, and all at once—and twice.”
“If I only had one eye, I’d look at my other eyeball with my good eye. It would be in a jar on the dresser, of course, right next to my detachable penis.”
“The word "the" is 2/3rds he. I'm not being sexist, merely statistical.”
“Seeking a woman who looks like a feminized version of L. Ron Hubbard to help me decode intergalactic messages that I might receive on my Alien Communication Helmet. And after we receive and decode the messages, this female friend could help me make spaghetti with my aforementioned Alien Communication Helmet (it's basically a strainer with antennas). Please don’t send me telepathic thoughts, as it might disrupt transmissions from other galaxies. E-mail only if interested.”
“I asked her out on a date, and she said, “Sorry, I can’t see you.” “That’s no problem,” I replied, “I won’t wear my invisible cloak.”
“I am the food of love. And do you know what food that is? Distilled barley.”
“I need either a small coffee or a large nap.”
“My TV’s remote control didn’t have a source of energy, so I poured coffee in it. Now I can read any book I want.”
“The picture is bad because the photographer was poor. I took the picture myself, and you can clearly tell I have no money.”
“I don’t call watches watches, I call them grasps, because one, they grasp onto your wrist, and two, time isn’t something you can watch; it’s a concept you have to grasp.”
“The zipper on my crotch is an air vent. I need some way to cool down my hot coffee.”
“My rules are as follows: don’t follow, unless there’s a fire. And in that case, follow from the front.”
“I think a funny picture would have a caption that read, “Believe in yourself,” with an accompanying image of a wilting flower.”
“When I see a cop’s lights behind me at two in the morning, and I have my disco ball dangling from my rearview mirror, it’s like, Hey, a party! Especially if I’ve been drinking.”
“Business idea: Merge a billiard table with a golf course, and make the pockets as deep as a typical politician's pants.”
“We danced together. We didn’t look graceful, but how could we? She only had one leg and I had my eyes on her friend the whole night. Sure, her friend couldn’t dance either, and literally had two left feet, but I’ll take two left feet over one left foot any day.”
“I’ll dine on apple flesh and cinnamon, while feeding you one line after another. Some lines will have salmon hooked on at the end. Then we’ll make love like two bears who’ve just discovered honey.”
“I didn’t have time to bury the money. All my precious time was taken up burying the body. I should have left the body and hid the cash. Damn! Now I’ve got no body, but no money, and nobody to blame but myself.”
“At five in the morning, I was half asleep. The whole left side of my body was taking a nap. Seems I’m also always half in love, from my waist down.”
“I did a face plant. Ivy was her name.”
“Looking at you in a mirror makes you more of an ally than an opponent, because I’m standing next to you, rather than across from you. In fact, you are across from you, so you are your own opponent. And I’ll gladly stand by your side and help you defeat yourself.”
“I dreamt it in my dream. You tried to steal my dream—the whole thing. But even though it was a dream, it was still too heavy for you to lift.”
“I’m always 15 minutes early for everything. In fact, I was born 15 minutes early. That’s why my love is always a bit premature. But don’t worry; just give our relationship a minute—plus fourteen more.”
“She had a forehead like a dance floor. You should have seen the way the sun danced on her face in the middle of the night. I never actually saw it because I was always asleep in the middle of the night, but I’ll bet it looked unbelievable.”
“I like my eggs sunny side up at midnight, and I wear sunglasses when I eat them because they are so bright. They’re almost as blinding as my love for you, only not as runny.”
“Some people say I look like my mom, while others say I look more like my dad. I guess it all depends on what I’m wearing.”
“I’ll stab you with a pointy thingy. Not a sword, a knife, or even a mountaintop. No, I’ll use my index finger—and just to make a point about violence.”
“My high school principal, Mr. Heisenberg, was the uncertain principal.”