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