"Chain Gang" - August 2, 2019

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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Louwers
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#161

Post by Louwers »

Safely ashore! Looking forward to the BBQ!
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FrankH
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#162

Post by FrankH »

Out of the names found in the theme entries, I only got one of the full names correctly initially - Guy Fawkes, so I didn't have a clear way to the meta after completing the grid. I made a mistake of thinking about Lionel Richie, and I remembered Fieri from TV but not his full name. The other two I had no idea. So only after consulting Mr. G on Fieri did I realize my mistake with Ritchie, and I quickly confirmed the other two. It would have been easier for me if the names included Charbonneau, Lafleur or Lapointe.
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Bob cruise director
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#163

Post by Bob cruise director »

For the benefit of someone who has barely heard of the chain Five Guys, much less been there, who are Richie, Fieri, Pearce, Fawkes and Smiley? I saw Guy Fawkes but had no idea what he had to do with a fast food chain. At least a 5 on the Kas scale.
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BethA
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#164

Post by BethA »

I thought the Guy names hidden were pretty diverse, to give a sporting chance to many! For fun, I thought about some other Guys...

Clue: Hebrew greeting to La Vérité’s Brigitte.

And I can never remember the name of this tennis player Guy... 😉
steveb
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#165

Post by steveb »

Because of the food connection, I first thought that the hidden names would be famous chefs, and indeed they are: Graeme Ritchie, Guy Fieri, Andrew Pearce, Kevin Fawkes and Chef Smiley (aka Lamont Moses). I spent some time in that rabbit hole, which of course led nowhere. Since there are no coincidences in these puzzles, I credit Matt Gaffney with a clever bit of misdirection there.

Eventually, clued in by Guy Fawkes, the only other name that rang a bell with me (yeah, I'm old and I don't watch much TV), I figured out the real connection.
Last edited by steveb on Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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billkatz
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#166

Post by billkatz »

Living in the North Bay, Guy Fieri is almost local. (Diana is even closer) There was a big news story several years ago about the high school kid who broke into the Lamboghini dealership in San Francisco, rappelled through a skylight, and stole Guy Fieri's yellow Lamborghini. He was eventually caught after shooting at a romantic rival.
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FrankH
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#167

Post by FrankH »

Bob cruise director wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 12:29 am For the benefit of someone who has barely heard of the chain Five Guys, much less been there, who are Richie, Fieri, Pearce, Fawkes and Smiley? I saw Guy Fawkes but had no idea what he had to do with a fast food chain. At least a 5 on the Kas scale.
None of those names by themselves have anything to do with any fast food chain. It is just that those are five "famous" people with first name Guy.
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Joe Ross
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#168

Post by Joe Ross »

A "gang", so to speak.
Whole blood, platelets, or plasma: Donate 4 in 2024

PLATELET 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
𝟰𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰,
𝟯𝟬% 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰,
𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
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Joe Ross
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#169

Post by Joe Ross »

I rabbit-holed on GU(F)FAWKES for a few minutes, thinking that the "GANG" would be first & last names of people or characters. Each would have a transposed letter, those letters being the fast food franchise. I had to take a life-break involving dinner & drinks with friends.

Waking in the night, like now, I refilled the grid on my phone. In looking for names in the wonky theme answers, I saw PEARCE, then RITCHIE, but not first names nor transposed letters. Plodding-on with last names, SMILEY threw me a litttle, since I could only think "Have a Nice Day!". When I finally divined FIERI, I thought "Guy", immediately got Guy Ritchie & Guy Fawkes, then Guy Smiley. A search on "Guy Pearce" verified the fifth.
Whole blood, platelets, or plasma: Donate 4 in 2024

PLATELET 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
𝟰𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰,
𝟯𝟬% 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰,
𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
MaineMarge
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#170

Post by MaineMarge »

Here’s what KAS 5 means to me: Kinda Sorry I spent even 5 minutes on this meta. Funny, because I would have hailed Mary with Five Guys if the lights hadn’t gone out early last night. It was my first back solve try because of the “gang” title. All the rabbit holes there belonged to girls, not guys. I did not have/take time to google the Ritchie or PEARCE names I saw. My bad. IHOP had me hopping over all the letter i’s. Not pretty.
On the upside, I love 💕 those guys! Best burgers going, as is their cheese veggie sandwich.
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Randy
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#171

Post by Randy »

Never heard of any of those chefs. I thought of Guy Fawkes the criminal and started looking for criminals. There was a famous Pearce criminal. Didn't find a Ritchie criminal. I don't think I would ever have solved this. Hat's off to those who can.
For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?
- Mr Bennet
Emmaa
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#172

Post by Emmaa »

Here’s where one can wind up after being LAS for 3-4 days with Isaac, listening to Sam Cooke, on what began to feel like a never ending journey. Chefs never entered my mind, though the food industry sure did! It’s Monday AM now and time to wake up and smell the coffee. I’m still looking for answers, feeling oddly like I’m lost somewhere in O Brother, Where Art Thou, with someone hitting the FF and RR buttons when we’re in play mode.

Forgive me, if I sound disappointed, but the loads of M & M I chewed on all weekend is having a backfiring, or BILE effect on me. There’s an unexplained GAP here. The last ORR and ORE you threw me - well I must’ve missed the safety drill, so I was unsure how to use them. I’m having a little weekend sailing remorse and unsure how the TAGAMET, YARN, and ACA are supposed to help either. Maybe it’s time for one of those, whatchacall, ER... uh...Spirit-chiefs...to come on board and give me a morale boost. Anyone else catching my drift, or feeling my PAYNE?

Using the idea of a chain being dropped on the grid, I found fascinating, if not helpful, clues.
All letters of the name CHRISTOPHER on row 3 and PAYNE in the 25 squares of the right upper quadrant (columns 9-14). That is the name of the DOORDASH COO who is reported in the WSJ 7/15 & 16/19 to have worked out the food delivery industry-changing deal with McDonald’s. DOORDASH (rows 13 & 14) was recently valued at $13B in the booming 1 million subscribers food delivery service in Houston - with plans to go National soon if Houston is a success - to do DELIVERIES (column 13, 14, 15) of McDonalds through a $9.99 subscription service - $12 minimum order, starting July 29, a blow to UBER EATS (columns 1, 2, & 3). The McD founder RAY CROC (columns 6, 7, & 8 - note a misspelling of actual name Crok). MCDONALDS can be found in a series of North to South diagonals on the grid.

JAMES ELY, a brilliant Vanderbilt PhD/employment and property rights lawyer can be found easily on row 7. I bet he’d be useful with the ins and outs of all those $25/hr. taxi/delivery drivers.

WAITR, competitor to Doordash and UBER, can be found on row 12.
ARISTA, one of the largest data cloud computing companies, capable of tracking all of this, is also on row 12.

WHERE’S MY ORDER (rows 13 & 14), BURGER (rows 1, 2, & 3), FRIES (row 5), and SHAKE (row 11). STORE, DELI, CELL PHONE, EMAIL, RTE and ETA are all there. No kidding.
On row 15, you can ROGER DAT TOO!

BTW, (Row 8) SPEAR’s CELLAR is listed on Google as a restaurant on E 17th and Gramercy, next to NYU (Row 9) in Manhattan. It is no food chain.

In case you care to join me, I’ll return now to listening to the sounds of Pink Floyd/Money and The Beatles/Yellow Submarine (forward, instead of backwards this time) to drown out the sounds and the memories of working on the Chain Gang, and dream of one day solving a meta.


Sent from my iPad
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MarkL
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#173

Post by MarkL »

Randy wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 7:28 am Never heard of any of those chefs. I thought of Guy Fawkes the criminal and started looking for criminals. There was a famous Pearce criminal. Didn't find a Ritchie criminal. I don't think I would ever have solved this. Hat's off to those who can.
Fieri is the only 'chef.' Simply a list of five reasonably recognizable guys named Guy who, to the best of my knowledge, have/had no criminal intents.
'tis... A lovely day for a Guinness!
martimeryard
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#174

Post by martimeryard »

So close. I saw Fieri, Pearce, and Ritchie but couldn't make the jump to five Guys. Coincidentally though, Five Guys was going to be my guess submission, but it would have been for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't get away from the curious way 'MET' was used in the bottom left and similarly 'AIL' in the top left. Then there seemed to be a spattering of baseball related clues: MET, including ROGER at the bottom and RAMIS —> anagrams to Maris (Roger Maris), CHIEF + WAHOO was the old Cleveland Indians mascot. Too many rabbit holes for me this week.
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OGuyDave
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#175

Post by OGuyDave »

Here's the one closest to us in North Naples. We rented for five years, and the front door of the store was about a third of a mile away, as the crow flies. In all this time, only been there once. Funny, as I found the burger was really tasty.
DDDarrah_20190805_0728_001.jpg

On another note, I didn't realize that part of my handle was 20% of the solution until early this morning (Monday)!


I luckily guessed early on that "chain" meant that there was a "link" between the two words of the long answers. It fell into place pretty quickly after that.
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Tom Shea
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#176

Post by Tom Shea »

Guy Fawkes was the first tumbler to click. After that I started looking for other Guy's and had heard of Guy Ritchie, so it was all downhill from there.
Rufus T. Firefly
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Jim and Anita
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#177

Post by Jim and Anita »

Though our efforts wound up as 3 down—“failed”—we want to assure Matt that we faithfully fed the many rabbit colonies he started throughout the grid, learning much about food chains in the process. We thought Pearce was John Ed Pearce who wrote the biography of Colonel Sanders and that Ritchie was either the bassist Brian Ritchie who was involved in the Wendy’s commercial controversy or the food writer Tori Ritchie. Smiley we took to be Pulitzer Prize Winning author Jane Smiley who has written about the corporatization of food. And while we saw Guy Fawkes we thought the name Kesha was so unusual in 53 across that it led us to author Kesha Ratliff. We also explored homophones because of the “hoo” in 55 down, the “aah” in 7 down and the two “says” in 18 down and 52 down, leading us to the chain gang lyrics “say hooh aah.” You left us with much food for thought and fingers well exercised from Google searches but no meta solve. Bon Appetit!
mflaminio
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#178

Post by mflaminio »

Well, I got it a different way. Found 5 males names in the grid ( Ben, Bob, Roger, Ritchie and Rod) 5 Guys! Was Matt helping the people who never heard of those famous Guys?!
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ImOnToo
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#179

Post by ImOnToo »

Tom Shea wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:22 am Guy Fawkes was the first tumbler to click. After that I started looking for other Guy's and had heard of Guy Ritchie, so it was all downhill from there.
That was my first,“Hang on a second”, clue as well.
Konnie
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CPJohnson
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#180

Post by CPJohnson »

I spent a long time looking for a chain of letters through the grid that would yield the answer (like the 7-13-18 puzzle Wood Winds, that had a chain of trees through the grid). Then, I saw Ritchie and thought (incorrectly) of Nicole Richie. Then, I remembered Guy Ritchie, saw Fieri, and was on my way. I'd heard of Guy Fawkes....remembered Guy Smiley after I looked him up (Sesame Street was a long time ago), and learned about Guy Pearce, who was unknown to me.
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