“You Can’t Fake Passion” - A Feature Story On Ben Mintz From Tim Bennz
Note From Tommy: If you missed the latest Smokes Show, I had Ben Mintz framed for a robbery and fake arrested for it. Part of that plan was having my friend James come into the Barstool office and pose as a fake journalist just hours before the robbery. I did WFUV Radio with James at Fordham so I knew he had the journalism chops to pull this off. I wanted security camera footage to show Mintz walking a stranger around the office to make it look like they were casing the place out. James sat down with Mintz for an hour long fake interview. But here is the Ben Mintz feature profile as if this was real.
“Take What You Do Seriously, But Do Not Take Yourself Too Seriously”
By Tim Bennz
Hey friends, Tim Bennz here. You may now know me as the fake journalist who helped frame the robbery of Ben Mintz. Here’s how I got there.
On the morning of December 12th, I received a phone call from Tom telling me of his plan to have me conduct this interview. I was humbled to be given the responsibility and trust to conduct this interview under the anagram Tim Bennz. I prepared my interview questions for Mintzy and awaited my call to action.
Following the Barstool/Alex Stein dilemma involving Mintzy that day, I was surprised that Ben agreed to have a magazine reporter conduct an interview that same night. I immediately gained some respect for him for not letting that day phase him. He was responsive and polite from the moment I was texting him to organize a time to meet at HQ. When I arrived, Ben asked me a couple questions about my background and the background of the magazine. I was prepared with my fake Tim Bennz backstory and survived those questions without any suspicion.
The plan was to conduct about a half hour interview, snap some photos of HQ (specifically of those eventually stolen laptops) and be on my way. I sat down in the Gambling Cave, and before I could even get to my questions, away he went. I got the hour long background of Ben Mintz’s path to Barstool. And while in the grand scheme of things, what Mintzy was actually telling me held no bearing on Tommy’s plan and I didn’t really need to listen, he delivered some great pearls of wisdom we could all learn from.
“You Can’t Fake Passion”
Mintzy dropped this one early in the interview and it stuck with me. Mintzy brought the same type of energy you see in front of the camera to this behind-the-scenes interview. I had 10 questions prepared, and I think I got to 2 of them. Say what you want about Mintzy, you can’t question if his passion is authentic.
“If you let it, this place will eat you alive”
I mean, there are a lot of people who would have a full on breakdown if this prank was pulled on them. My only reservation when Tommy asked me to do this was, how would Mintzy be able to take this? If my mind was put in an absolute pretzel in an interrogation and handcuffs were slapped on me, who knows what the reaction would be? Mintz immediately wanted to HUG Tommy when finding out it was all his prank and then apologized to HIM. There is something beautiful in that. Mintz has some thick skin and I applaud him for that.
“Take what you do seriously, but do not take yourself too seriously”
Ben nails it here. Truly. In whatever profession we choose, we should abide by this. Finding that balance of being someone who works hard but is also fun to be around and easy to work with is a great goal to have. I tried to echo that sentiment as I wrote this article under the fake name Tim Bennz. I almost googled the MLA Format to try and brush up on my writing technique.
To conclude, I want to thank Tommy and the whole Smokes Show crew (shoutout Spider) again for his faith in me to represent the Tim Bennz character. And I want to thank Mintzy for being gracious with his time for what he thought was a young reporter trying to make it in a new role and a new city. After seeing him being such an incredible sport about the fake arrest, I knew it was my obligation to at least attempt to deliver the story he thought he was going to get. Hope you enjoy.
Signing off,
Tim Bennz/Tim Beans/James Decker
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Thanks to James for his pivotal role in this. And thanks again to Ben Mintz for being a great sport about the whole ordeal and a great guy to Tim Bennz.