Ben Tausig Answer In Own Puzzle

Here's an Onion article you'll never see (I hear they don't take submissions):

BEN TAUSIG ANSWER IN OWN PUZZLE

The answer for 33 Across in today's The Onion crossword puzzle is "Ben Tausig."

"What makes The Onion crossword puzzle so rad is that I make the answers!" explained puzzle editor Ben Tausig, who wrote himself as the answer to the clue, "Lord across the puniverse."

According to Tausig, who staunchly defends his use of puns in his work, wordplay keeps the player on her toes."Too many people Google-cheat their way through the pop culture references and this is my stand against it," said Tausig, shuffling a Scrabble dictionary under some paper on the desk. He believes that by manufacturing a pun, especially one that doesn't make sense, he adds a layer of difficulty for the uninitiated player, creating a unique "cross-sword (sic)" identity.

The answer for 12 Down is "Seventytogo."

"Get it?" he prodded. "Twelve down, seventy to go? There are eighty-two clues in the puzzle."

When reminded there are actually eighty-nine clues in today's puzzle, he responded that "seventyseventogo wouldn't fit."

Tausig's use of obscure three-letter words is at an all-time high today.

"It's hard," said Tausig. "You try coming up with forty-five three letter words to bind my puns together."

When stuck for clues, Tausig recharges by lighting candles and listening to linguistically flexible country music, followed by viewing back to back episodes of Jeopardy! By then he has worked his mind into "a froth, excited and percolating like the proverbial Dance of the Shiva. Oh, that's a good one for next week. The clue could be Turkish McIntyre, the answer: Dance of the Reba."

When told that clue was out of bounds and didn't make enough sense, Tausig replied, "If my crosswords are too hard, then go back to your New York Times, conservative literati!"

When told his attitude was now out of bounds as well, Tausig replied, "You want an easier clue? How about: How many fingers am I holding up?"The answer was "one." Look for it next week.

Literary Fiber; Semicolon Blow

In keeping with the spirit of the Book and its issues with bathrooms, I began a cleanse.

That's not news. Nobody cares. Even I barely care. But, it's inspired a rant, a release of marketing pressure that had been building in my media-saturated brain.

It begins with the cleanse's brochure, in which every sentence of the 16 page foldout ends in an asterisk, because, apparently, it's against FDA law to make any of these claims of detoxification and health without one. It also features a woman in the throes of ecstasy, looking up and into the distance with a gaped smile, with three seasonal colors radiating from her head- burnt orange, icy blue, and spring emerald. I wonder what color they had passed on for summer.

"New Season, New You!" the brochure screams.

I'm always bothered by the randomly out-of-place and ecstatic actor propped up in a marketing campaign, especially when the message is that she just can't contain her joy after crapping her guts out for two weeks straight.

This reminds me of a recent television commercial for sour cream, the one set in a backyard BBQ or birthday party or something, the one with little kids in Easter dresses running by with streamers in their hands. Everybody's dancing and gleeful because a "dollop of Daisy" made it a party. Thank God for that glop of spoiled milk.

In my fight against infinite regression, I've succumbed to comparing this all to the barrage of ED commercials we're subjected to on the Science Channel (I wonder if too many documentaries about the solar system correlates to lessened genital blood flow; the commercial now acting as an anti-promo for the channel), where getting it up is equated to riding a bike with your wife or walking with her through the park in your golden years.

But my buck stops here because, besides the implication that non-ED inflicted men will retain the talent to keep their wives at their side, I think the point is these men aren't thinking about the product being peddled. They've moved on.

With the cleanse model and the dairy children, it's implied their happiness is erupting right now, as they can't contain their joy. I make poop. There's a tub of sour cream melting and gathering bugs on the picnic table.

Weeeeee!!! Yaaaaay!!!