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.
“I made plans out of hope, expectation, desire, and duct tape, and I broke those plans with my bare hands.”
“I don’t understand people who don’t touch their pets. Their cat or dog is called a pet for a reason. ”
“If a handicapped woman says she wants to be friends with benefits, I always ask her if that includes parking.”
“I’d rather be the fastest runner than the best fighter. But then I am a supreme coward.”
“If my doctor told me I only had five minutes to live, I’d probably change all the clocks in my house, because they’re all five minutes fast and I want to know exactly how much time I have left so I can use it wisely.”
“Music can elevate man to new heights. Especially elevator music.”
“People should be heard, and music should be listened to.”
“I’m not a consumer, because consumers are consumed with shopping. No, I prefer shoplifting.”
“I remember one time some guy put caviar in my omelet, and I had to complain saying, “Excuse me, you idiot, but there are eggs in my omelet.” He didn’t know how to respond, probably because he felt so foolish. ”
“Music has the power to shake society, especially if the bass is turned way up.”
“Most writers might as well write in invisible ink, because if what they’re writing is forgettable, it might as well be invisible too.”
“I’m older now, which I can’t help, but I’m also fatter, thanks to all the extra helpings.”
“I’m not selfish. I’d gladly give someone’s life, a more valuable life than my own, while I humbly preserve and keep my own meager life for myself.”
“I want to get married. But first I need to get a divorce.”
“The world needs more laws. I say this only because I believe the world needs more lawyers. If everybody was a lawyer, there’d be no unemployment, because the economy would be like a great lawsuit factory. Farmers in this utopia wouldn’t raise crops, they’d raise suspicion.”
“I’ve only been with my girlfriend for three days, but it feels like a lifetime—the lifetime of a gnat.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea how babies are born, probably because I fainted on the day I was born.”
“My goal is to have the most and the best of what I desire. And since I desire clones, I have to be the best me first.”
“Writing is hard, but I don’t want to kill myself trying to write. Not unless I’m writing a suicide note.”
“If the status quo came carbonated in a can, I’d shake things up.”
“I both made the knife-fighting team, and I got cut. If only love were so easy to understand.”
“I like great music, but who doesn’t? Oh yeah, deaf people.”
“Do onto others what others won’t do for themselves. If they won’t save their money, I’ll save their money for them.”
“I know great art when someone doesn’t wash their hands after making it. And not only did Duchamp not wash his hands, but he didn’t even flush!”
“People always see me writing and ask me if they can read my writing. The answer is yes, after I publish it and they pay for it.”
“If anybody ever tells me to face them like a man, I’ll get offended, because my face can’t grow a beard.”
“What more proof do you need to illustrate how America is the land of the free than the fact that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world? ”
“I plan on leaving my mark on this world, in ink, with a pen spill that’ll make all the oil spills combined look like literature.”
“I know what it means to be alone, especially in a large group of clones.”
“Of all things possible, the impossible is the only one worth skipping sex for.”
“According to me I have hypochondria. So if I say I suffer from a condition where a person thinks they suffer from everything, it’s a giant loop! Nobody can say I don’t suffer from it because just by saying I suffer from it I am showing the symptoms of suffering from it.”
“Age is just a number. So is my area code. ”
“Boil your drinking water, and drink the water surrounding you in your bathtub.”
“Every night I pray I whisper into a megaphone, not only so God is sure to hear, but also my neighbors, because I pray to God He’ll deliver pestilence and plague to the residents next door. I even tell God the exact address, as if He can’t read my heart. But it’s not for His benefit, it’s for my neighbors’.”
“If I could fly, life would be amazing. But paraplegic people say the same thing about walking, and I freaking hate walking. Somebody might ask me, “Hey, do you want to go for a walk?” and I’ll reply, “Nope. But I do want to have a seat on a chair with wheels and roll along with you.” So maybe flight isn’t so cool after all. Possibly birds get pissed off they have to fly everywhere. ”
“Shakespeare asked what’s in a name. Well, each of my clones won’t be named the same as me, but they’ll be me and just as sweet.”
“Of all the ways to murder someone, slowly, over the course of about 75 years or so, is the best way to not get caught. Nobody, not even Sherlock Holmes, would suspect a thing.”
“If coffee meant vagina, I’d ask you if you wanted cream in your coffee. But it doesn’t mean that, so I’ll just sit here and continue sipping my mug full of steaming vagina.”
“The dolphin is a mammal, but it can’t walk. However, it can hitchhike.”
“His thin accusation hung thick in the air like fog smoking a cigarette.”
“Like a vibrator bolted on a bulldozer, I’m a regular sex machine.”
“Who leads the world in consumption? America! Who has more lawyers per capita? America! Who has the highest incarceration rate? America! What is the greatest country on earth? America!”
“I’m wise when it comes to your issues, and a fool when it comes to mine. Emotion is the blindfold we cannot see or feel we’re wearing.”
“When congratulations are in order, I like to wait until they’re out of order to offer a high five or enthusiastic pat on the back.”
“My love is a flower shaped like a snowflake. It won’t melt, so perhaps ice cream should be made out of it.”
“I wasn’t very far away from figuring out the secret to love, no more than two miles or so, when my camel broke down and I got shot at by a pack of cigarettes.”
“I prefer physical books to eBooks, because an eBook can’t be the solution to a wobbly chair like a real book can.”
“I like to see cats tumble around, but I wish they wouldn’t meow so much when I shove them in the dryer.”
“America’s been ruined by one word: Bankers. No, two words: Bankers and lawyers. Make that three words. Add politicians to that list. Oh, and don’t forget the lobbyists.”
“My grandma came over yesterday, and I had just jumped out of the shower, so I answered the door in my towel. I know it was a little indecent, but I didn’t have time to dry off and change out of my wetsuit.”