ACROSS
1 Birdbrain
8 Crummy
14 Annabella of
“Jungle Fever”
15 Producer
16 What each
successive
starting word of
the answers to
starred clues is to
the starting word
that precedes it
17 Equestrian’s
head cover
18 Newscaster
Lindström
19 *Popular clubs
20 *Ty Cobb
specialties
24 The last Mrs.
Chaplin
25 Valuable
extraction
26 Pros with
schedules
30 Save
31 *Dressed down
35 Closing words
37 Hut
38 *Didn’t allow to
remain in, as
political office
42 Trouble
43 Barely come
(through)
44 Box “b” on a W-2:
Abbr.
45 Magazine that
published
advance
excerpts from
Stephen King’s
“Firestarter”
46 *It’s ancient
history
50 *They might be
knocked down in
a bar
54 Hamlin’s
caveman
55 Like bogeys
56 What the start of
50-Across is to
the start of 19-
Across
60 Playing the
waiting game
61 Resort site
62 Pass
63 Minimally

DOWN
1 Some email
enders
2 Dangerous, in a
way

3 Writer who said
“The only
abnormality is the
incapacity to
love”
4 Hullabaloo
5 Els with clubs
6 Ancient Indo-
European
7 Hydroelectric
facility
8 Pack up
9 Five-time world
champion skater
Carol
10 1994 Costner
role
11 5 for B or 6 for C
12 Orpheus, for one
13 Scraps
15 Elect
19 Leaping critter
20 Sleeps it off, with
“up”
21 Theatrical piece?
22 As scheduled
23 __ choy
26 Windy City travel
org.
27 Colombia
neighbor
28 Actors John and
Sean
29 Naturally bright
31 Good, in Hebrew
32 Golden __

33 Musical org.
based in
Kawasaki
34 Electrical
measure
36 __-eared
39 Much of Nevada
40 Emotional spells
41 Strand under a
microscope
45 Resist
46 Birdbrains
47 Silly
48 Good-sized combo

49 Wreck big time
50 Deal
51 Roundish
52 “__ Smile Be
Your Umbrella”:
old song
53 Boring type
56 Arkansas
governor
Hutchinson
57 Actress 
Vardalos
58 Abbr. near a tee
59 Assembled

By Don Gagliardo
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/30/15

10/30/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, October 30, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

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SERVICES

Written to the tune of “Cha Cha,” 

by D.R.A.M.

*Hotline blings*
Hello, friends. It’s me, Adam. 

I know we haven’t talked in a 
while, 
and 

yes, 
I 
read 

your 
texts. 

Yes, I know 
I 
had 
the 

read receipts 
on. 
Yes, 
I 

know I was 
tweeting 
at 

Justin Bieber 
instead 
of 

answering 
your voicemails. But that’s all in 
the past now, and I need to talk to 
you about “Hotline Bling.” 

Wait, 
slow 
down, 
I 
can’t 

understand 
you 
when 
you’re 

screaming like that. Why are you 
cursing so much? We’ve been 
talking for 30 seconds and I haven’t 
quoted a single philosopher; I 
thought you’d be impressed. 

Wait, don’t say another word. 

I know what’s wrong. You’re 
worried that Drake went too far 
with the “Hotline Bling” video. 
It’s the only thing you’ve seen on 
your timeline for the last week 
and you can’t stop listening to it, 
but it’s getting harder and harder 
to feel the magic — especially 
after they did that remake with 
Helmut the Pug. 

And, 
you 
know, 
I 
really 

can’t blame you for feeling that 
way. You can only see so many 
“Hotline Bling”/Merengue Mix 
mashups before it just isn’t fun 
anymore. As much as it hurts 
me to say this, maybe the game’s 
over. Maybe the hotline has just 
about blung its last bling. 

But I’m a glass-half-full kind 

of guy, so I’m gonna try to stay 
positive 
about 
this. 
“Hotline 

Bling” got to #2 on the Billboard 
charts and clocked in at about 120 
million plays on Spotify, which 
can only mean one thing: it’s only 
a matter of time before Drake 
formally changes his Instagram 
account from “Champagne Papi” 
to “The 6 God.” 

Now, if you turned all of your 

social media accounts into de 

facto “Hotline Bling” shrines 
like I did, rejoice! This transfer of 
power will go very smoothly for 
you. But if you thought you were 
too “cool” for the whole hotline 
fad, all I can say is that I hope you 
really like “Degrassi,” because 
you’ll be watching Wheelchair 
Jimmy get an erection on loop 
for the rest of eternity in the 
sixth circle of hell. You can’t play 
games with the 6 God. He moves 
in very mysterious ways, after all, 
and if you need to be reminded of 
what those strange moves can do 
to a guy, just take a look at Meek 
Mill’s Instagram. He’s putting 
#imnotacelebritydontcallmethat 
on his own pictures. Look at that 
new coat he got — Drake knocked 
him down so many pegs he forgot 
how to dress himself. It’s almost 
too painful to watch.

But 
before 
the 
coronation 

happens and we forget what it was 
like to live in a world where Drake’s 
face wasn’t on every denomination 
of Canadian currency, I’d like to 
take a moment to pause and reflect 
on how exactly we got to this 
bizarre juncture in the history of 
Western society. A half-Jewish 
Canadian actor named Aubrey 
just about took over hip hop with 
an R&B song about cell phones 
less than nine months after the 
new King of Compton released 
an album that critics were calling 
“Music’s Great American Novel.”

What the fuck is going on?
Now, if you’ll bear with me, I 

think you can find the answer to 
that question in the same place 
you go to find out whether you 
can avoid making eye contact 
with people in elevators — your 
cell phone. 

You don’t need me to tell you 

how essential cell phones have 
become in our post-postmodern 
post-2012 
Mayan 
Apocalypse 

wasteland, but, you know, really 
stop and think about them for 
a second. There has never been 
anything like the smartphone in the 
history of human civilization. 

The smartphone is a relatively 

cheap, 
incredibly 
portable, 

easy-to-use 
and 
increasingly 

ubiquitous personal omniscience 

device, which allows us to record 
and produce audiovisual and 
textual data about every single 
moment of our lives and share it, 
instantaneously, with every other 
smartphone user (and overworked 
NSA agent) on the planet. We 
document our own aging process 
by filling them with an absurd 
amount of bathroom selfies, we 
use them to construct and curate 
our own public image on a slew of 
social media platforms, they allow 
us to stay vocally and textually 
connected 
with 
friends 
and 

family who might be on a different 
continent altogether and we can 
even use them to arrange romantic 
liaisons outside the confines of our 
social milieu. 

In other words, smartphones 

have become an essential part 
of the way we function as social 
animals and, along the way, have 
gone beyond their basic use as 
telecommunication 
devices 
to 

become a fundamental part of our 
identities. It should come as no 
surprise, then, that scientists have 
begun to show that “cell phone 
separation anxiety” is an actual, 
real-life phenomena. When you 
leave your cell phone on the floor 
of the bathroom at Chipotle, you 
aren’t just leaving behind a hunk 
of rare-earth minerals extracted 
using 
ecologically 
disastrous 

methods that Apple forced a 
sweatshop-full of Chinese child 
laborers to make into an iPhone at 
gunpoint — you’re leaving behind a 
chunk of yourself. 

Which brings us back to Drake.
Cell phones are a part of all of 

us, but they seem to be especially 
essential for Drizzy. Have you ever 
stopped to think about how often 
he puts his hotline on the track? He 
has rapped about it on every single 
album or mixtape he has ever made. 
His voicemail is the only thing in 
his discography with more guest 
spots than Lil Wayne, and since 
Lil Wayne features are basically 
the treasury bonds of hip hop, that 
means Drake values his cell phone 
somewhere on par with Berkshire 
Hathaway stocks.

I’m particularly fascinated by 

the way Drake uses the cell phone 

HIP HOP COLUMN

The Passion of 
Aubrey Graham

in his songs, though, because I 
think it is probably the clearest 
demonstration of the 21st-century 
relevance of one of my favorite 
pretentious 
philosophisms: 

commodity fetishism. 

I know that you want to tell me 

to shut the fuck up and get back to 
playing PlayStation right now, but, 
again, I legitimately think this will 
help explain why we live in a world 
where Drake is killing on the 
Billboard charts and people are 
leaving Kendrick to play “Alright” 
into a half-empty room after 
Future gets done rapping about 
having sex in his Gucci flip-flops. 

I assume you’ve never read the 

first volume of “Capital” by Karl 
Marx, but having spent pretty 
much my entire life pretending to 
be a Leftist intellectual, I can tell 
you that it’s not all that hard to get 
the gist of w

Essentially, what Marx realized 

about commodities is that, like cell 
phones, they aren’t just neutral 
objects that we use to do a specific 
task, like texting your ex, or fulfill 
a basic need, like getting Amazon 
to send a box of raw meat to your 
house. Commodities can indeed 
complete tasks and fulfill needs, 
but, in more abstract terms, 
they’re also a sort of physical totem 
or relic — what Marx calls a fetish 
— that symbolically embodies the 
social relationships that made it 
necessary for it to exist. 

To clear up what I just said, 

think back to “Hotline Bling.” The 
song obviously isn’t really about 
that one time Drake’s hotline 
blang. It’s really a sexist anthem 
about how he’s mad that his ex got 
over their breakup and moved on 
with her life, so he decides to put 
her back in her place by reminding 

her that they used to make the 
beast with two backs. 

There 
isn’t 
any 
socially 

acceptable way to say that, though, 
so Drake comes up with “I know 
when that hotline blings, that can 
only mean one thing” instead. The 
implicit end of that line (and its 
actual intended message) is “We’re 
gonna do the nasty … Remember? 
You used to call me up so we could 
do the nasty. You might be doing 
fine by yourself now, but not too 
long ago you were dependent on 
me, and, if you think about it, you 
always will be.” But, in practice, 
what Drake has done is create the 
commodity known as “hotline.” 
It’s an object he can use to more 
efficiently emotionally terrorize 
his ex and, at the same time, a 
fetish representing the shitty 
social arrangement in which Drake 
emotionally terrorizes his ex.

Now, the obvious question you 

might be asking yourself is how 
“Hotline Bling” still manages to 
go so dumb in the club when, at 
the end of the day, we’re listening 
to a song where Drizzy partakes 
in some quasi-Chris Brownian 
douchebaggery with essentially no 
remorse. Are we all sexist assholes? 
Are we idiots? Is the 6 God simply 
too powerful to be destroyed?

The answer to those last three 

questions really depends on your 
politics — I’m personally voting a 
depressed yes on all three — but 
Marx can help us out with the first 
one, at least.

The problem we’re dealing with 

here arises out of the fact that, 
although the hotline is a fetish of 
Drake’s sexist douchery, when you 
look at the phone itself, it’s entirely 
impossible to see any of that. This 
is because, when you think about 
it, Drake’s relationship with his ex 
simply doesn’t exist in the same 
way that Drake and his ex or the 
hotline do. It does exist, but only 
in what Marx calls in Capital 
the “mist-enveloped regions of 
the religious world.” In this way, 
Drake’s shitty relationship with 
his ex is a lot like the Christian 
Holy Ghost. It’s there, in theory, 
but if you wanted to point to it, 
what would you point at? 

Really, you could only do the 

same thing I’ve been doing for 
the last 600 words — point at 
the hotline. Or, if we’re talking 
Christian theology, you’d point at 
Jesus. And, let’s face it, Jesus and 
hotlines are both cool. “Hotline 
Bling” is a fantastic song and, since 
we’re being honest, the Passion 
was pretty damn lit, too. Shouts 
out to the 6 God and God Classic™ 
for the primo content. 

But here, I think, we can 

finally figure out why we don’t 
start throwing up every time 
“Hotline Bling” comes on. It’s 
because we’ll sign on to be a part of 
basically any terribly destructive 
social arrangement whatsoever 
— like the ones where we dance 
around like idiots doing a half-
assed merengue so that Drake 
can terrorize his ex-girlfriend, 
or where we toss all of our weed 
money into a collection hat so 
that a bunch of priests can molest 
kids and tell us not to masturbate 
— provided that we’re not paying 
attention 
(which 
we 
usually 

aren’t) and that the assholes who 
are selling it to us put it in a fancy 
Hotline Jesus case first.

Now, if we were just talking 

about 
“Hotline 
Bling,” 
this 

column wouldn’t need to get all 
that heavy. But, as I mentioned 
earlier, we aren’t just talking 
about “Hotline Bling.” We’re 
talking about hip hop, and about 

why Kendrick Lamar is playing 
to empty arenas while Drake is 
trying on his next set of really 
big rings. We’re talking, in other 
words, about the soul of hip hop. 
So we’re gonna get heavy. 

2015 
has 
been, 
without 

question, one of the biggest years 
in the history of hip hop. Just about 
every major hip-hop center in the 
United States is producing artists 
like Kendrick Lamar, Chance the 
Rapper, Danny Brown, Babeo 
Baggins, Flying Lotus, J. Cole, 
Milo, Young Thug, Future and 
Drake who are radically reshaping 
the music of their cities, inventing 
new 
artistic 
vocabularies 
for 

their unique identities and social 
milieus, and producing albums 
that, I’m convinced, will be 
considered classics 10 or 15 years 
down the line. 

This is also one of those 

rare 
moments 
where 
social 

discontent and creative genius 
have peaked at roughly the same 
time, reaching the point where a 
particularly masterful piece of art 
could, perhaps, inspire the sort of 
activistic fervor that needs to exist 
for political change to become a 
legitimate possibility. 

Police 
violence 
and 
Black 

marginalization — the precise 
issues 
hip 
hop 
is 
designed 

to address — have come to 
the forefront of our political 
consciousness at the exact moment 
when the United States’ first Black 
president is reaching the end of his 
time in office and a candidate like 
Bernie Sanders, who understands 
the link between institutionalized 
racism 
and 
institutionalized 

economic 
disparity, 
actually 

stands a chance at getting into the 
White House and doing something 
to address those problems.

The conditions are perfect and, 

you know, we already have To 
Pimp a Butterfly, gotdamnit. There 
already exists, in the real world, an 
album that addresses all of these 
issues, complete with campaign 
slogans and an incredibly coherent 
social platform to go along with 
them. Literally all you need to do is 
go outside, throw that Kendrick on 
your speakers and start marching.

But, instead, here I am writing 

2,000+ words explaining why you 
couldn’t give less of a shit about 
how “Hotline Bling” is just a well-
polished sexist turd, and here you 
are reading them, presumably 
getting distracted by the Drake 
Google Alert flashing onto your 
iPhone screen every 30 seconds. 
Yes, he’s inventing Canadian hip 
hop right now, but, like, for real? 
You really listened to “Hotline 
Bling” on Spotify 120 million 
times? What the fuck is wrong 
with you?

And, just to bring everything 

full circle, if you were wondering 
why Drake is on top of the game 
right now, it’s for the same reason 
that you can’t stop listening 
“Hotline Bling,” no matter how 
offensive you find it’s political 
content. Just look back down 
at the logo on your phone. You 
remember how the video dropped 
on Apple Music? Do you perhaps 
find it strange that Apple — the 
company that makes the fucking 
iPhone, you know, the one that 
has become so essential to your 
self-concept that being away from 
it for more than five minutes gives 
you separation anxiety — decided 
to sign an exclusive licensing 
deal with the guy whose entire 
discography is a low-key shrine to 
his cell phone?

Do you remember the part in 

“Dune” where Baron Harkonnen 
says “He who controls the spice, 
controls the universe”? Well, we 
live in America, and instead of 
spice we have iPhones.

“Hotline Bling” is an iPhone 

commercial.

DePollo is Steve Jobs. For swag, 

email adepollo@umich.edu.

COURTESY OF ROB DEPOLLO

“Are you drunk on the Blood of Christ right now?” I’m just sayyyin’ you could do better.

ADAM

DEPOLLO

“Hotline Bling” 
is an iPhone ad.

6 — Friday, October 30, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

