Wed., 5/6 Michael Dewey

[magus]

THEME:   the letters of EVEN, separated (broken) by the rest of the phase, may be found starting and ending the phrase ---
   and the three long phrases are broken in order: i.e., E…VEN; EV…EN; EVE…N
   
GOOD ONES:    
Neither ahead nor behind {& theme}   BREAKING EVEN   
   
BTW:   
Not my decision   UP TO YOU [the idiom needs "It's…" since UP TO YOU is really never said standing alone --- despite the clue's omission of "It's"]   
   
1961 Rickey Nelson hit   EVER LOVIN [hardly a hit song so clue should simply say "song"]   
   
Met or Nat   NLER [not a real word, but the Mets are ahead of the Nationals after the first month --- them Mets're amazin]   
   
Side with the ball   OFFENSE [often true, but not in baseball]   
   
   
RATING:    
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

Everlovin' reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the B-side of A Wonder Like You, which got to #11. If I had been the president of Imperial Records, I would have put the ballad on the B-side and made Everlovin' the A-side. This was the first single to be released as by "Rick Nelson" instead of "Ricky Nelson."

Today's Universal crossword included four ten-letter words which came pretty close to constituting a theme: ENTHUSIASM, EXCITEMENT, COMMOTIONS and HULLABALOO.

The 13x13 NEA crossword never fails to meet the expectations of solvers who like to see the same few words in hundreds of puzzles. Today's included ACHE, ARC, ATM, EEL, ELI, ELSE, EPA, ISLE, OTT and USE.