Headgear for knight / SUN 1-27-19 / Okinawa port / Bob 1968 record-setting long jumper / Royal Charlotte's father / Two-masted sailing vessel

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (11:31)

THEME:"Unemployment Lines" — I don't even know how to describe this ... so themers are nonsense phrases, where first word has an apparently but not always actually negative prefix like DIS- or DE- and second word is a kind of profession ... and then the clue is [Unemployed [synonym for the second word]?] and then the verb that follows the negative prefix is somehow related to the profession, in different ways for each theme answer, dear lord, this theme is a mess...

Theme answers:

• DISTRESSED HAIRDRESSER (22A: Unemployed salon worker?)
• DEFILED MANICURIST (29A: Unemployed nail polisher?)
• DISPATCHED TAILOR (46A: Unemployed men's clothier?) (why "men's"?)
• DEGRADED TEACHER (63A: Unemployed educator?)
• DISTRUSTED BANKER (83A: Unemployed loan officer?)
• DERANGED CATTLEMAN (100A: Unemployed rancher?)
• DISILLUSIONED MAGICIAN (111A: Unemployed prestidigitator?)

Word of the Day: PUT (71A: Wall Street order) —

A put is an option which gives the owner the right, but not the obligation, to sell an asset at a pre-determined price within a given time period. (Wall Street Oasis) (?)

DISCARDED DEALER? DEMORALIZED PREACHER? DISBANDED SINGER? DISCOVERED SPY? Am I doing this right? Who even knows? What a disaster this is. It took me forever to get even a single complete theme answer because I kept expecting actual phrases, or twists on actual phrases, to materialize, And They Never Did. The wordplay involved here is so loose and messy and convoluted, I don't even know how this cleared standards. Grading is what a teacher *does*, a *tress* is a thing a hairdresser works *on*, a range is place *where* a cattleman works. I don't even know *what* a banker's relation to trust is supposed to be, exactly. He/she works there? And with the prefixes ... it's DIS-, or it's DE- ... but is the DIS- in DISPATCHED even negative? Can you be patched? I'm tired of wondering aloud about this thing. Grinding, grueling, joyless work, this one. Never got a rhythm going, never hit an answer I genuinely liked, got stuck over and over on lousy fill. Oh, MISS ME!? I like (72A: Question after "I'm back"). Ha! Said a nice thing! And I do enjoy some CASEY KASEM whenever I get the chance (his old shows are in various places online). Some of the other long Downs are also OK. But hoooo boy no to *all* of the theme stuff and most of the rest of it.


Here is the large patch of grid where I just died ... like ... dead calm, no wind, no real idea what was happening:

ATTHAT ... means "In addition"??? Er ... OK ... I must never or almost never use that phrase. I just couldn't parse it at all. Had AS PIE for 11D: Easy ___ (ASABC). THIEU, LOL, no. I just am not up on my Vietnam War-era presidents that are not US presidents (12D: President during the Vietnam War). RARE GEM (24D: Beauty that's seldom seen) makes me GROAN. ADMIRED is not the same as [Used as a role model]. I ADMIRED Ted Williams, but role model? No. Forgot Bob BEAMON existed (27A: Bob ___, 1968 record-setting long jumper), possibly because, like THIEU and the overall cultural center of gravity of this puzzle, he is from the Vietnam era. So so so rough. Also rough: BEEPERS (lol) / PUT (what the?). I ran the alphabet at that crossing once and came up with *nothing*. Only on the second run did BEEPERS make any sense to me. That clue, ugh (53D: You can page through them). BEEPERS does deserve some praise, at least, for being hella modern compared to the rest of this grid. Did they have BEEPERS when THIEU and BEAMON were knocking around? I like to think of BEAMON just paging THIEU every once in a while, just to see what's up. They were good friends, in my imagination. As I was typing the last sentence, this Tweet popped into my feed:

And lastly, ARMET (103D: Headgear for a knight). ARMET. ARMET. ARMET. That's a word. There it is. You can't deny its wordlike qualities. Put it on. Try it out. Wear it on your head. ARMET. Did you know the ARMET originated in NAHA? (31D: Okinawa port) Well, it didn't. I just wanted to work NAHA into the conversation. NAHAHAHAHA bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]