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.
“Being in love is like being lit on fire and having your loved one morph into a marshmallow as she runs to embrace you. But not being in love feels so much worse, possibly like being a tax collector. Actually, nothing compares to the lowliness of a tax collector. ”
“Somebody needs to pet me, and I guess that somebody is me. My cat is busy sleeping.”
“I am a caged lion living like a free-range lamb.”
“There are an infinite number of reasons to say no. Instead, try to focus on one good reason to say yes.”
“By day I’m a dishwasher in a suit. By night I’m a dishwasher in pajamas.”
“A farm is a business, and I ran mine into the ground. The next year it grew back.”
“I don’t have a blue-collar job. It’s more of a green collar, because of all the yellow sweat stains mixing in.”
“Neighbors, I’m on the fence about them.”
“If Warren Buffet made chocolate, I’ll bet it’d be really rich. And corrupt.”
“My goal is to do the most with the least—get the maximum output with the minimum input.”
“Courage is the chiaroscuro of characteristics. By that I mean I don’t know what I mean.”
“You can’t help who your parents are or aren’t. My parents aren’t—they don’t exist and have never existed.”
“I speak the language of love. That’s right, I speak Russian.”
“I’m a nail biter. Not when I’m nervous, but when I misplace my hammer.”
“If I had a street named after me, I’d carry that around instead of a driver’s license for ID. You are what’s named after you.”
“I cried so hard after I put my cat to sleep. I guess I shouldn’t have cried so hard, because with all my sobbing, I ended up waking it up.”
“If love played an instrument, I’ll bet it would be the piano. 88 keys, double infinity, and the ability to chop down trees with a sharpened mustache. ”
“Love is 3:33 am plus 360 degrees plus 365 days, minus 12:34 pm. I ought to know, because I weighed it myself.”
“A wink and a smirk walk into a bar, and the bartender asked them what they were drinking, when all of the sudden a mustache in a cowboy hat riding a vagina runs through the door, and right there I have to stop the joke, because not only does it not have a punch line, but that punch line was kidnapped, and if it’s ever found, it will probably be rated Not Safe For Work. ”
“I want to go to Sing Sing prison. I’ll bet they’ve got a good chorus.”
“I’ll never go hungry, because I’m a pet owner and a meat eater. I used to own broccoli, but taking it for a walk in the park didn’t work out so well. ”
“-Hey, neighbor, is your wife free for a date today? -No, I’m taking her out this afternoon? -Great! Then you won’t mind if I come over and mow your lawn. Sucker!”
“Loyalty is for the dogs. Count me among the cats. And count me twice—once for each of my faces.”
“We all have to have something to hold on to, even if it’s our own torso.”
“A priest, a politician, and a philosopher walk into a bar, and the bartender stabs one of them. Which one did he stab? (Hint: the shortest one.)”
“My rule of thumb for hitchhiking is: stick it up straight and proud and make if visible to all drivers.”
“I don’t like tit for tat. I like tit for tit. Bring on the boobies!”
“I’ve got lots of pictures of the four years I spent in collage.”
“Don’t be jealous if I spend 50% of my time with you, and 50% of my time with others, because you get 100% of 50%, while all the others have to share that other 50%.” This is the speech I’ve prepared to tell my wife in the future, when I’m spending a majority minus one percent of my time with my clones.”
“My fingernail itches. I need to scratch it with my skin.”
“I’m single, like a cheese slice individually wrapped in plastic.”
“There are lots of great ideas in my book, but as a cohesive unit, my book is only held together with glue at the spine. Or it would be, if it weren’t an ebook.”
“Is there a word halfway between hello and goodbye? Because that’s the word my soul is trying to say.”
“When I wear sunglasses, the day turns shades of night, and it’s as if the blocking of the sun to my eyes cools down my body too.”
“Embossed letters represent the topography of typography.”
“Love rules the world. Like a tyrant. ”
“I let the feeling wash over me, and then I dried off with a fur coat and went for a walk on my unicycle.”
“I want my writing to be as smooth as drinking a glass of water—pool water, with piss in it.”
“I can’t fly with one wing. But I can’t go hungry either, and I already ate both the legs, the breasts, and the other wing.”
“Maybe one day I could fly all over the world and meet other interesting birds.”
“If my love were a bagel, I’d put cream cheese on it. But it’s not a bagel, so I just put cheddar on top. Would you like to try a sample?”
“I just baked a cake in the shape of a door. Somebody’s knocking now, so let me get that.”
“When I get to heaven, and I see a being of light, I’m going to ask him if he’s the urologist.”
“It’s your ass on the line. Grab it thinly.”
“I wish my erection pointed inwards. But it doesn’t, it points directly at you.”
“The best part about a superhero’s cape is it doubles as a blanket when your nemesis uses his freeze gun on you.”
“I keep my love in the trunk. And I drive slowly over speed bumps, so she doesn’t bump her head around.”
“Her legs are so long and sexy that I can see them 26.2 miles away. Gatorade. ”
“On the frozen tundra, I milked a cow and pumped out ice cream. Strangely, it had chunks of strawberries in it.”
“I’d like touch screens better if they were furry, like cats.”