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.
“If all the centenarians formed their own country, they’d be both the youngest country in the world, and the oldest.”
“Why do old people drive slow? They have the least amount of time left on earth, so you’d think they’d drive the fastest, to make the best use of what little time they have.”
“No matter how hard I try, I can’t grow facial hair on my chest.”
“I sent him a silent message with my body language, but he must be deaf—or, rather, blind.”
“My clone will have my mind, but I don’t mind. Two heads are better than one—especially when those two are one and the same.”
“There’s cat feces in my Batman costume, and all the lines in my screenplay were snorted by the neighborhood cokehead. Ah, but that’s life, no?”
“The locked door in my house is just a diversion. The real valuable items are out in the open, where they are hidden from the unimaginative.”
“A counterfeit is a knock off. A cat’s tail swiping a knickknack placed perilously close to the edge of a shelf is also a knock off. How do you think my heart got broken?”
“When you’re a cartographer, having to make maps sort of comes with the territory.”
“The morning came pouring down on my night, but luckily I was able to convert my erection into an umbrella.”
“To take another person’s life for personal gain is the most selfish act imaginable. Especially when that other person is your clone.”
“My brain is an amazing machine. Too bad I can’t take credit for it. As brilliant as I am, think how profound the Designer that created me is.”
“She had lips like two wavy slices of crisp bacon, and her kisses felt like gravy on my scrambled eggs tongue. We made love like we made breakfast—and then we made brunch like rabbits.”
“My car rides smooth like I’m driving a cloud. If I park it at your house, I may get rainwater on your living room carpet.”
“A fan can be used as a listening device, pushing sound waves towards your ears, along with cool air. I listen harder than a hurricane, and that’s why I have a vacant and evacuated expression.”
“I sell black markers on the black market. I am personally responsible for 50% of all truck stop urinal poetry.”
“I oft go to a loft aloft in the sky. I go alone, because I enjoy the company of a lofty intellect.”
“I’m lyrically illiterate. Actually, more accurately, I can’t read music.”
“I’m a poor worker. The quality of work I do is excellent, but I make no money.”
“You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to read the body language that people’s homes present.”
“I sell Ziploc bags. They’re not empty—they’re full of hope.”
“My future, it almost looks like Christmas—red and green—stop and go.”
“I want an ocean job, but they’re hard to land.”
“The glove compartment of my car is empty, but one of these days, I’m going to fill it with an assortment of gloves—everything from boxing gloves to the oven mitts I used when I burned my last bridge.”
“Every man has a soul, but will every man’s clone have a soul? No, because me and some scientists will have sucked them out in the lab. Why sell your soul to the devil, when you can sell your clone’s soul?”
“Enjoy a life of poverty. Become a poet.”
“You may not have said anything, but you’re right—silence is the best response.”
“They call alcohol spirits, because it’s the spirit turned liquid. Would you drink my soul if you knew I’d use it to get inside of you? After all, most men buy women alcohol so they can get inside them too.”
“I’m in great shape. I’m 30 years old, and I feel like I’m 29.”
“I can throw an orange like a baseball, but I can’t eat a baseball like an orange. Let that be a life lesson for you.”
“Did you know you can drink food? It’s true! It’s called soup, and I eat it with a fork. I’m as efficient as the government. ”
“I am my own tornado. Instead of panicking, I run in circles and scream.”
“I tried telling him without telling him, through body language, and I observed he was unobservant.”
“I’d run 26.2 miles to eat a Marathon candy bar.”
“There’s a faint whiff of feces wafting up my nostrils. But that’s natural, because I just walked past a politician.”
“I can smell a trap. It smells like my ass.”
“I’d make a good groom, if my last name were McBride.”
“The old me is younger than the new me, the me now.”
“Would you rather have sight, or insight? I’d rather have a double cheeseburger.”
“Instead of breaking people down, try building them up. Every person is a brick, and if you are a successful builder, you’ll have a formidable wall, and few people willing to oppose you.”
“I snagged a good parking spot. I also snagged my sweater in the process.”
“I’d rather ride a unicorn than a unicycle. But my enemies, they could all ride a unicycle with a horn instead of a seat.”
“I’m like Casanova meets Henry Ford. My reproduction methods are more like production methods one might see in a factory, complete with conveyer belts, mechanical assistance, and cheap labor.”
“You may be dying, but I’m going to have a picnic and enjoy this glorious day. I won’t let your impending death spoil my afternoon.”
“I never stopped loving you. I never did. I never loved you, not: I never did stop loving you.”
“He said he thinks he’s God, and I said, In that case, I’m an atheist.”
“If you take away my office, how will I get no work done?”
“Sword and words—same letters, and same ability to cut down.”
“When you use your pen to think, you’re never wasting ink.”
“I was able to preserve my integrity, in jars along with strawberries.”