The 'F' means 'Full,' not 'Fuel.' Respect your own damn clue. It's a generic term for getting some gas. only to discover that the answer is actually FUEL UP, which does not necessarily convey *filling* up your tank. And I would've really enjoyed it if the answer had been FILL UP, because that is what the clue literally says and so that is what I wrote in. I love the misdirection and general weirdness of the clue-the fact that it looks like maybe it's about musical notes. It turns out the worst (in the sense of actually unforgivable) part of this ITCLUB section is not an answer, but a clue-specifically the clue on FUEL UP (47D: Go from E to F). As musical terms go, it's definitely on the lesser-known side, so now we've got two ITCLUB crosses that might lock people out (the two with the highest-value letters, too- PIECAKEN gives the you the 'C' and BREVE the 'B,' which are the key elements in parsing ITCLUB). I know BREVE primarily as a coffee drink (latte variation with steamed half-and-half instead of steamed milk). Then there's BREVE, which is a fine term, one I think I've seen before, and I certainly wanted BREVE when I was staring at -EVE, but I was not at all certain. I'm not opposed to your food neologism, it's whimsical and fun, but like MAILCHIMP, it seems potentially exclusionary. Also, ew, gross, is it a pie inside a cake inside a *chicken*!?! Where is the '-en' coming from!? According the the NYT, it's ' three types of pie stuffed into a cake,' which sounds OK, but the name suggests nothing about 'three' and still has the 'chicken' part of it left over from TURDUCKEN (whence the name was borrowed by analogy-wow, just noticed TURDUCKEN has 'turd' in it. I was lucky to 'know' PIECAKEN, but I wonder if that's really a word in most people's vocabulary. jazz venue where Thelonious Monk recorded a live album, with 'the'). I've never heard of the IT CLUB, and I won't be alone on that, but with crosses, ultimately, it's gettable ( 50A: L.A. A cluing problem that just happens to occur at one of the toughest parts of the grid. This time, the problem was less a fill obscurity problem and much (much) more a cluing problem. I could've taken either of these words on their own, but alongside one another. A double obscurity in your longer answers? What a waste of space. I don't understand how CARTAGE ÉCORCHÉ is anything but embarrassing. What do you mean, ' some truckers'? What else do truckers do but transport things in a vehicle (the definition of CARTAGE)!? It's bad enough your word is a weird obscurity, you then want to go wordplaying around with the meaning of 'charge'? And alongside ÉCORCHÉ? Look, if I can't call ÉCORCHÉ obscure, then nothing is obscure. does 'charge' here mean 'responsibility'? Trucks are 'charged' with 'carting' material from place to place? Oof, woof and yikes. what do trucks do if not cart stuff, and why are you charging. But I really really felt like I was making that up, and that CARTAGE. Actually, I guessed that the trucking charge might be CARTAGE (42D: Charge for some truckers), which I then, as now, am pronouncing as if it were a French word. But even with the first three letters of 42- and 43-Down, I just drew a blank.

KITTS (thank you, GROK, for the high-value 'K'!). Well, at first, it was impossible, despite the fact that I was able to throw GROK down off just the 'G' and then immediately get the often-hard-to-parse ST. Trying to round the corner from the center into the SE corner was rough. My descent, much like Dante's-highly unpleasant, though ultimately educational, I guess (?). I associate Disney with G- rather than PG-rated fare, and dat answer you got DERE at 34D: 'Wot's dat over _?' is truly horrendous, but POP QUIZ, ZYGOTE, the inventive OIL GLUT, all good, fine fine, let's keep going! But then comes the bottom. but I knew it, so I get to be in on the smugness, which is all any of us really wants, right? Anyway, the point is, I was good up top.

There's a smug 'we're all podcast listeners, right?' quality to the very presence of MAILCHIMP. I would've been very GROUCHY, probably, if I'd encountered 9D: Online marketing giant with a primate in its logo and not been a semi-regular podcast listener, specifically a former 'Serial' listener- MAILCHIMP was their big sponsor that first season, and I don't think I've encountered MAILCHIMP anywhere else, ever. The GROUCHY part of this grid did not make me GROUCHY at all. I mostly enjoyed the top part of this grid. Things were going along pretty nicely there for a while.

Crossword light skinned