New York Times, Monday, July 25, 2016

I built the first grid for a HEY JOE puzzle in August 2011. The theme answers I used at the time had some issues:

• JACKSON HOLE … I wasn't sure if all solvers would be familiar with Joe Jackson. He's a British musician who did songs such as "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" and "Steppin' Out." (There's also Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball player, but Joe Jackson the musician was the one I had in mind.)
• LOUIS AND CLARK … This one was confusing (is it Joe Louis, Joe Clark, or both?).
• COCKER SPANIEL … I felt this was a strong theme answer, and still do. Cocker spaniels are awesome. Joe Cocker is awesome. This theme answer was a winner.
• MONTANA FLAG … I'm a huge fan of Joe Montana, and he was the original inspiration for the theme idea, but MONTANA FLAG is weak as a theme answer, and I couldn't find a MONTANA* answer that I liked.

So I did what I've done with about 50 other grids I've built over the years … I let the grid sit on my hard disk without clues and never finished it.

I ran the HEY JOE idea by Brad Wilber and asked him if he could figure out how to fix it. Brad suggested coming up with theme answers based on Joe's who aren't real people, such as Joe Blow, Joe Boxer, Joe Camel, Joe Cool, Joe Mamma, Joe Six-Pack, etc. I didn't like losing Joe Cocker and Joe Montana, but I liked Brad's idea, so I went with it.

Brad and I started off collaborating on this puzzle, but then ended up not because he got too busy. I'm glad I get to give him partial credit here. Thanks Brad for your help!

HEY JOE hints at four colorful JOE ___ phrases: JOE BOXER, JOE CAMEL, JOE COOL, and JOE BLOW. It would have been neat to have SIX PACK ABS as a themer, and I'm sure there are others, but these ones were fun.

Loved BOXER REBELLION, COOL BEANS, and BLOW HOT AND COLD, all snazzy phrases worth featuring. CAMEL CASE … it was interesting to learn about. I never knew there was a term for "capitalizing a word within a phrase" like PowerPoint. And it's grown on me since, as a middle capital does kind of look like a camel's hump! Cool beans indeed. (Apologies to all the young people who just groaned at my usage of that phrase.)

Some interesting mid-to-long fill, BAD LUCK my favorite. As a Seahawks fan, I cannot abide having the hated STEELERS in my grid, but I suppose it's good fill. Bah! DUE NORTH and ASEXUAL elevate the solving experience too.

ALL WORK … boy, that sounds like a partial to me. When would you ever say that by itself? Maybe ALL WORK AND NO PLAY, clued in parallel structure as ["You gotta leave the office sometime or you'll have zero life …"].

I have a strong preference for Monday puzzles to be particularly smooth, to draw in newbie solvers. There wasn't anything really egregious except the heavily crosswordy ETUI (just imagine a newbie solving this puzzle and staring at the completed grid, wondering what mistake he/she made to end up with the weird E T U I sequence), but with CANER, APER, ALAR, and URAL, it felt like too much for me. I appreciate Kevin's effort, though, as incorporating a few pieces of snappy fill often comes at a price. Seems like ETUI was the price to pay for BAD LUCK, for example.

Glad that 1-Down, HEY, didn't totally give away the game. I would still have preferred to see HEY / JOE across the middle in order to delay the reveal, but it was nice to still nice to not know what the puzzle was about until the end.