Get To Know Your FiPS Writers: Jess & Ben

Ever read a great FiPS post and think to yourself, Hot damn. I'm in lurrrve with this writer (see also: I fucking haaaate this writer). Well for the next few months we're going to give you an insight into the writing staff here at FiPS. Contributors were paired together and asked to come up with some burning questions for each other so that you guys can learn a little more about the minds behind this FiPS-tastic blog. Because when it comes down to it, we're fucked in Park Slope JUST LIKE THE REST OF YOU SUCKERS. 

So far we've given you Erica & Ursula. Next up: Ben & Jess (spoiler - it involves butt-related sex stuff)!

How did you hear of / Join fips?

JESS: I had just got fired from my bartending job (the day after my birthday!) and my boyfriend and I broke up shortly after; day in and day out I was basically wallowing in self pity at my apartment writing in my journal asking it questions like "when did it all go wrong??" A friend of mine was trying to cheer me up and sent me a link from fips about the honey badger. I thought it was funny and started reading more articles on the site, eventually I made it to the section where you can submit a story to become a contributor. I sent in some thing I had wrote about the one bastard fly in my apartment that never dies and my antics trying to catch him, two months later Erica responded and asked for something park slope based. I chose to write about the goose genocide in prospect park and was then berated by every comment on the piece; I was successfully initiated. 

BEN: I started FIPS with Erica in 2008 - we met in the comments section of my old blog, and decided that we were so good at inflaming people that we should start a Park Slope blog together. There were NO good park slope blogs - you should have seen what passed for a park slope blog. It was like someone took the back pages of a northhampton newspaper - the "Auxiliary Police Activity" section, took a dump on it, and made it judgmental. 

It worked! We started by making it inflammatory, drawing attention to it, being interesting and honest and BOOM, its trajectory was set. I bailed to write more manly, hipsterry trash, and Erica stayed on tirelessly expanding, adding writers and ads and shit. Yay!

What are your GO TO staples for ordering-in and take-out?

JESS: There are three sets of things I always order depending on how I feel:  

• "I feel Asian" - Spicy yellowtail crunchy roll & Kani salad
• "I feel like hating myself later" - Pepperoni & Pineapple pizza, well done--very important to achieve perfect pepperoni crispiness/curling of the edges
• "I want fried cheese but don't want to hate myself later...I'll eat a salad too so it seems healthy" - Greek salad & Mozzarella sticks 

BEN:

• Red hot: Sesame Tofu & Shrimp
• Hunan Delight: Walnut Shrimp
• Yamato: Sushi Deluxe, SUNSHINE ROLL, singapore noodles, Beef bird's nest fuckin thing.
• Beet: Indy Chicken Burrito (RIP?) Pad see you, massaman curry
• Bare Burger: These things fucking SUCK! SoggyBurger.net! Toast the fucking bunsI I call bullshit.
• Anthony's Pizza: Mushroom & Pepperoni fucking yes.

How do you feel about doing it in the butt?

JESS: Nearly every guy I've been with wants to put at least SOMETHING up there, what is that about? I usually don't like to knock things until I've tried them, so I've done it a couple times to test it out. I was not impressed--it's painful, and even when you start to get used to it, it still doesn't feel good. I'm a team player though, so if someone wants to try something I'll hear them out. I have rules now though. You want to put it in my ass? I get to put something of equal size in yours in return. You may scoff at the idea, but the challenge HAS been accepted.

BEN: I'll tell ya, I'm bummed because I feel like I missed the 2nd sexual revolution. Not only did I grow up right smack in the middle of aids death fear where I didn't have sex without protection until I was married, but I also missed the whole "in the butt" thing. EVERY 20-something I know has tons of anal sex and posts in on the internet. They laugh at condoms and dial-up connections. I grew up with a 2400-baud modem, AOL, and the missionary position.

On the receiving end, I am a HUGE fan of taking big dumps - like, the bigger the better. The day after Yom Kippur is my favorite day of the year, because STUFFED with a day's worth of carbohydrates that were BULK ingested during a 2 hour break-fast, I drink a large amount of coffee and evacuate what can only be described as Mike Tyson's horse's penis. I love the feeling of it coming out of me, and according to American Psychiatric Association's 1972 DSM classification, this technically makes me gay.

What are your biggest fear(s)?

JESS: I don't have one, I have several:

• Sharks - Ever since that one time as a kid when there was a baby shark in the ocean with me. I got on a buoy and wouldn't get off so my dad left me at the beach and had his friend pick me up on his boat later. When in a pool I'll still get random bouts of fear because for a split second my brain will think I'm in the ocean.
• Flying cockroaches - I've always thought cockroaches were gross, but the day I saw that some could fly...was...one of the worst days of my life. Those things are fucked up in the head dude, they'll fly at your fuckin' face. That shit is scary.
• Getting my teeth knocked out - I didn't really realize this one until I moved to NY and started regularly using stairs at high speeds while being pushed by people. I grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, everything's flat and spread out so stairs are few and far between. I've tripped on the stairs a couple times while leaving the subway and each time I was grateful that I remembered I have hands to block my teeth from being blasted out of my mouth. 

BEN: Biggest fears since birth:

• Puff the magic Dragon
• Nicodemus from 'Secret of Nimh'
• Kid from Mask
• Flying
• AIDS
• Terrorism

Then I had kids, and all I worry about is them.

What's your toilet protocol? (e.g. Magazine, watch something on your phone, etc.)

JESS: I hate shitting, I like to get in there and get it over with. If I'm in there for longer than two minutes, I'm probably struggling and going to be pretty cranky when I come out.

BEN: Not to be a douche, but I've written an entire series on my answer to this, which can be located by googling you should dump standing up.

Short answer: Dump standing up, ONE and only one toilet paper BLOT, not wipe, and then wet wipes until clean.

What was your worst sexual encounter?

JESS: When I first moved to NY, my friend and I were regulars at this bar in Flatiron. There was this one bartender that had been trying to hook up with me for like a year; I never gave in because he was a few years younger than me and, due to some bad experiences, I had previously made a pact with myself that younger guys are out of the question. He was cute, but pretty annoying. One night, I thought what the hell, just for fun I'll hook up with him. I took him back to my apartment and we...kind of had sex? His annoying nature translated into the bedroom. He would not. shut. the fuck. up. The poor guy was apologizing every 5 seconds for basically nothing, so we'd stop to address the situation and I'd just have to keep saying, "It's fine, What are you talking about?! Just do it!" At one point I was so irritated I was basically yelling at him. Needless to say, we stopped without either of us finishing. The worst part of it all is, from that point on things were weird when I went to the bar, so I stopped going. Guess you're not supposed to shit where you drink either.

BEN: I was once fondled to completion by a woman with a harelip. I was like John Cusack and this was my "Sure Thing" - I didn't know what she looked like before I arrived at the scene of the crime, and by the time I saw her I couldn't leave without committing a massive social faux-pas. FORTUNATELY, guys are such predictable, chemically-enslaved scumbags that all it takes is a heartbeat, if that, and thus I was still able to finish when she attacked me with her dry scaly hands. After I was done, she pranced around the room triumphantly for a bit, lanky and boney and maybe disabled. It was horrible and I feel sick and exploited even typing it.