Actor Josh who was once married to Fergie / WED 5-29-24 / Currency debut of 2002 / Magazine with cover exclamations like "Bigger Biceps!" / Avignon affirmatives

• MUDSLIDE (17A: *Vodka + coffee liqueur + Irish cream + heavy cream)
• HURRICANE (26A: *Light rum + dark rum + orange juice + passion fruit syrup)
• FLAMING / VOLCANO (36A: *With 38-Across, rum + brandy + pineapple juice + orange juice + orgeat syrup + fire)

[This Fergie, not that Fergie]

Joshua David Duhamel (/dəˈmɛl/ də-MEL; born November 14, 1972) is an American actor. After various modeling work, he made his acting debut as Leo du Pres on the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children and later starred as Danny McCoy on NBC's Las Vegas.

Duhamel has ventured into film, appearing as one of the main protagonists in four of the Transformers films, most recently in the fifth entry, Transformers: The Last Knight (2017). He has also appeared in When in Rome (2010), Life as We Know It (2010), New Year's Eve (2011), Safe Haven (2013), and You're Not You (2014). In 2015, Duhamel co-starred on the short-lived CBS crime drama Battle Creek. He has also starred in several video games, most notably Call of Duty: WWII (2017). In 2018, he appeared in the coming of age film Love, Simon. In 2021, Duhamel starred in the role of Sheldon Sampson in the Netflix superhero series Jupiter's Legacy. He also played the role of Jacob Lee in the 2022 survival horror game The Callisto Protocol. [...] 

He planned to attend dental school, but dropped out one-and-a-half credits shy of his undergraduate degree. He later completed his credits, and received his degree in 2005. // Duhamel has stated, "After college, I followed an ex-girlfriend to northern California, did a bunch of odd jobs." He won the title of Male Model of the Year in an International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) competition in 1997 (the runner-up was actor Ashton Kutcher). [...] In 2005, he became the co-owner of 10 North Main, a restaurant in Minot, North Dakota.

Duhamel is a spokesman for North Dakota tourism and has appeared in promotional videos for the state over the past decade. In 2022, Duhamel was paid $75,000 to become the face of the State’s Tourism Campaign for the next two years. // Duhamel met and began dating singer Stacy Ann Ferguson, better known by her stage name Fergie, in September 2004 after Ferguson appeared on Duhamel's show Las Vegas with her then-band The Black Eyed Peas. The couple wed on January 10, 2009, in a Catholic ceremony at the Church Estate Vineyards in Malibu, California. They have a son born in August 2013. On September 14, 2017, the couple announced that they had separated earlier in the year. On June 1, 2019, the couple filed for divorce after two years of separation. As of late-November 2019, their divorce was finalized.(wikipedia)

Sarah, Duchess of York (born Sarah Margaret Ferguson; 15 October 1959), also known by the nickname Fergie, is a British author, television personality, and member of the extended British royal family. She is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who is the second son of Queen Elizabeth II and a younger brother of King Charles III. (wikipedia)

The "Fergie" in question today is a pop star—a solo artist as well as a member of the hip-hop group the Black Eyed Peas. Would've helped (a lot) if I'd known who the hell Josh DUHAMEL is. As soon as I looked him up, I was like "oh, that guy." But like lots of handsome guys who came to fame in the aughts—like most pop culture from that entire decade, honestly—I missed him, and never managed to quite pick him up. In my head he was a fuzzy mix of Josh Brolin and ... what's that guy from Justified? ... Oh yeah, Timothy Olyphant! (who was in a movie from 1999 called Go, which also stars Sarah Polley before she became a director (and Oscar-winning screenplay writer), and which I tried to watch but it made me dizzy and a little bored so I stopped—might try again, though). OK, so ... DUHAMEL. Isn't that a sauce? No, that's béchamel. Anyway, he is much more famous than I thought he was, possibly because I thought "is marrying a duchess really the thing he's best known for?" (to reiterate, he never actually married a duchess—just a pop star who shares a nickname with a duchess ... and who also named her first album The Dutchess what the hell!?) Just as it seems kinda demeaning to clue accomplished women via their more famous husbands, so it seems demeaning to do the reverse, as this clue does. Clue the guy via his work or don't clue him, thank you. You learned this lesson with AMAL Clooney, now apply it writ large.

As for the rest of the puzzle ... I guess there are several cocktails named after natural disasters. That is my takeaway today. Is there supposed to be a secondary implication that these drinks will f*** you up? That they will be "disasters" for you (the next day) if you have one too many? Because if not, my question is "why do all the recipes involve liquor?" Why aren't there other kinds of "recipes?" Probably because most foodstuffs do not have elaborate metaphorical names (except "toad in the hole," that's a good one). My point is, I feel like there's a low-key "severe drunkenness / hangover" theme here, but I can't prove it. So let's just say the "disaster" refers solely to the drink names. That's safest. I love cocktails but hate the overly sweet nonsense that tends to dominate bar menus, fussy concoctions for people who want to get drunk but don't actually like the taste of liquor. So while I've had scores of different mixed drinks, these "disasters" are not among them. Never even heard of the FLAMING / VOLCANO. As far as I'm concerned, there's only on "flaming" cocktail, and it's fictional, and its secret ingredient is ... cough syrup.

The grid is varied and bouncy enough (not to mention clean enough) to keep the solving experience interesting, even if drinks are not your thing. I LOL'd at THEEURO (7D: Currency debut of 2002), mostly because I was thinking about how all the people who complained about THEEU a few days ago were really gonna lose it today. I too am not a big fan of random definite articles, and don't like the "THE" here much at all (any more than I'd like THEDOLLAR), but I am a fan of comments section meltdowns, so THEEURO ended me up making me laugh rather than wince. Now I'm imagining a romantic comedy set in Elizabethan England entitled "THEE, URO" (people are named URO, right?). Think of it as a prequel to the Josh DUHAMEL movie Love, Simon.

Only a couple of write-overs today—ROLL (!) before SELL (41A: Pitch) and DRY before WRY (22D: Droll). Let's go to the Bullet Points:

Bullet Points:

• 1A: "For ___" (greeting card section) (HIM) — who's HIM? Is it God? No? Is it Santa? Gotta say, "For HIM" sounds like a sex thing, but I may just be influenced by those (old?) ads for condoms that are ribbed, "for HER (pleasure)." Or by the men's sexual health company Hims. 
• 11D: Believer in the principle of "I and I," for the physical and spiritual selves (RASTA) — cool trivia. Better than most RASTA clues. I double dog dare you to put IANDI in a puzzle, constructors. Come on—looks good, doesn't it. Tempting. You're salivating like a cartoon wolf right now, you know it.
• 50A: Losing tic-tac-toe line (OXO)— this clue is for OOX, XOO, XOX, XXO, OXX—all the terrible three-letter combinations that can't be clued any other way. This clue is not for OXO, which can be clued multiple other ways, most notably as the kitchenware brand. Also, the band I saw open for Hall & Oates in 1983. But unless it's Saturday and you're really trying to mess with solvers, the kitchenware brand is probably the way you wanna go.

[OXO is also an impact crater on the dwarf planet Ceres]

• 24D: "Ungula" is Latin for this word, hence "ungulate" ("What is HOOF, Alex?") — seriously, this is some "Jeopardy!"-ass cluing. 
• 30D: Magazine with cover exclamations like "Bigger Biceps!" (MEN'S HEALTH) — [whispers rapidly]"please let him be on the cover of MEN'S HEALTH please let him be on the cover of MEN'S HEALTH..." Ha ha ha, yesssss! That's the stuff! The DUHAMEL / MEN'S HEALTH crossing, irl, baby!:

[2,143 tips! Start reading, boys!]

And again!

[234 ways! You thought there were only 216, because you're weak!]

Did you know DUHAMEL anagrams to "MALE—DUH!"? It's true. Also HAM DUEL. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]