Neophyte, informally / SUN 12-10-23 / The Coyotes, on N.H.L. scoreboards / Beverage brand with antioxidants / Foe in the Elder Scrolls video game / Fifth-brightest star in the night sky / Insurance giant acquired by CVS in 2019 / Event that might have "mutton busting" / Inner self in Jungian philosophy

Constructor: Zachary David Levy and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Political Pun-Ditry" — political ... puns (related to various non-political professions, god knows why):

Theme answers:

• ALONG PARTY LINES (21A: The club's bouncer earned a living ...)
• HOT BUTTON ISSUES (30A: The fashion magazine editor focused on fasteners in her ...)
• LAME-DUCK BILLS (40A: The veterinarian specialized in mending ...)
• SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE (62A: The sound engineer was obsessed with the ...)
• GRASS ROOTS MOVEMENT (71A: The groundskeeper spent years studying ...)
• CAMPAIGN CHAIR (94A: The weary general sat in his ...)
• CABINET POSITION (105A: The carpenter measured twice for the ideal ...)
• AN ACT OF CONGRESS (120A: The paid escort was fined for ...)

Word of the Day: BAI (31D: Beverage brand with antioxidants) —

a yellow mist occurring in eastern China and Japan during the spring and fall, caused by dust from the interior of China (collinsdictionary.com)

Also 

Bai Brands is a beverage company founded in 2009 in Princeton, New Jersey, by entrepreneur Ben Weiss. Weiss started Bai after he learned about the coffeefruit – the fruit that surrounds the outside of the coffee bean — and decided to use it to create a new brand of beverages. The company offers a line of low-calorie soft drinks (including sodas, bottled water, iced tea, and non-carbonated fruit-flavored drinks) sweetened with erythritol and rebaudioside A (stevia leaf extract), ascorbic acid, and extract from coffea fruit harvested in Indonesia; its flavors typically are identified by the name of an exotic locale along with the natural fruit flavor used. Its flagship product is Bai Antioxidant Infusions. In 2015, it launched a brand of bottled water called Bai Antiwater.

By 2015, Bai was named one of “America’s Most Promising Companies” by Forbes. In 2016, entertainer Justin Timberlake invested in Bai and became the brand’s “chief flavor officer.” On November 22, 2016, it was announced that Dr Pepper Snapple Bottling Group had made a cash purchase of Bai Brands for $1.7 billion. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is the kind of puzzle that makes me rethink my position (decidedly negative) on themeless Sundays. Because though I think themeless Sundays are a waste of time, there's no doubt that last Sunday's offering was decidedly more interesting to solve than this exercise in groanolatry. Political puns ... yep, that's what these are. Why are we getting them delivered in this way, as if they were specialties of other, non-political professions? Who knows? I don't. So ... "party" is not political party but woohoo party, "issues" are not political issues but magazine issues, "speakers" are not ... well, you get the picture. It goes on like this. For eight long answers. There's a bunch of non-thematic fill in there too, most of it short, too much of it stale. I think the final themer, AN ACT OF CONGRESS, is supposed to be the real punchline, the coup de grace, the kicker at the end, but the clue on that one just feels creepy, frankly (120A: The paid escort was fined for ...). Punishing sex workers ... for your humorous finale? ... ha ha? Yes, you did your little "Congress" pun, congrats on that, yes yes, "sexual congress," good one. But still, the cluing, yuck. The whole concept here is very last-century remedial. Total 180 from yesterday, when every other answer was knocking my socks off. Today ... absolute blah.

BAI CLIC SOPOR USONE MUDCAT ... this was the kind of gunk yesterday didn't have and today has in spades. There is So Much 3-4-5-letter fill in this thing, and when you do occasionally get a 7+ non-theme answer, it ends up being something like ON A STAR or OBOE SOLO. Or a PIANO SEAT (not the PIANO BENCH, as you might (reasonably) expect). I don't dislike DROP NAMES or VENTURED OUT or even RACING BIKES, but none of them have enough sizzle to make up for the dreariness of the theme. So many 3s. So many 4s. So many 5s. This isn't even bad in interesting ways. It's just dull. Some weak puns and a lot of filler. Hard even to know what to write about. I got so annoyed that SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE was in the plural (???) that I just gave up at that point and hurried to the end so I could go downstairs and have whisky and my dinner ASAP. What are you supposed to say about OAT OLE TEL EEL ELI ELOI MRI ANIMA OMANI MONAMI CST CRU TEE ISTO ONTO ICEPOP CAY OSHA IVE IRE ISP RBI AETNA NONOS and on and on??? I like SAWBUCK, insofar as I like olde-timey slang you might see in crime stories, or in the prose of hardboiled newspaper writers of old (19A: Ten-spot). But beyond that, there are no real high points for me. And no fantastic lows. No particularly tough parts. Just a 21x21 slog through punville. There's just not enough coherence, or sass, or contemporary relevance, or anything to make the theme pop. Dutiful, straightforward puns, imagined as the activities of non-politicians for god knows why. It's a little dispiriting, honestly.

I had one moment of uncertainty while solving. I guess I've seen BAI before, but I can never remember it because who drinks that junk? Also, if I think of 3-letter drinks with dubious "antioxidant" claims, I think of POM. After that, shrug. So I had to get every cross to get BAI, which was not that easy where ARI was concerned (38A: The Coyotes, on N.H.L. scoreboards). Still not used to the idea that they have ice hockey in Phoenix, frankly. If it never freezes in your city, you should not be allowed to have a hockey team. No beach volleyball in Winnipeg, no ice hockey in Phoenix, these are my demands.

I gotta let this one go. The more I think about it, the more it's taking me out of the Christmas spirit. We got a tree and put lights in our outdoor bushes and everything, for once (we're usually pretty lazy about such things). Gonna decorate the tree now, I think, if the cats let us. Does this look like the face of someone who will let us?

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Grand CRU (98D: Grand finale?) is a wine classification, indicating the good stuff

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