Group of obsessive followers, as of a TV show / MON 8-14-23 / Exceed the limit à la Spinal Tap / Longtime Dancing With the Stars judge Goodman

Constructor: Simon Marotte and Trenton Lee Stewart

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Downs-Only)

THEME: ONE AND DONE (62A: Never to be repeated ... or an apt pronouncement after following the instructions sequentially in 17-, 25-, 39- and 49-Across) — theme answers are familiar phrases, which, taken together, form a kind of arithmetic problem, the answer to which is ONE (so, when you are DONE solving the problem, the answer you get will be ONE)
Theme answers:

• GO TO ELEVEN (11) (17A: Step 1: Exceed the limit à la Spinal Tap) 
• PLUS ONE (11 + 1= 12) (25A: Step 2: Partygoer's guest)
• TAKE TEN (12 - 10 = 2) (39A: Step 3: Go on a brief break)
• HALF OFF (2 / 2 = 1) (49A: Step 4: Hefty sales discount)

Word of the Day: Pusha T (27D: Emulates Cardi B or Pusha T = RAPS) —

Terrence LeVarr Thornton (born May 13, 1977), better known by his stage name Pusha T, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record executive. He rose to prominence as one-half of the Virginia-based hip hop duo Clipse, which was mainly active from 1994 to 2010, alongside his older brother No Malice. As Clipse, the two released three studio albums upon signing to Pharrell's Star Trak Entertainment; the albums spawned hit singles including "Grindin'" and "When the Last Time" (both 2002).

In September 2010, Pusha T signed a deal with Kanye West's GOOD Music imprint, under the aegis of Def Jam Recordings. Later that year, he was featured on West's single "Runaway," which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2011, he released his first solo project, the mixtape Fear of God, which was followed up with his debut solo album, My Name Is My Name, released in 2013. In November 2015, West appointed Pusha T to take over his role as president of GOOD Music, where he remained one of its flagship artists until parting ways with the label in 2022. 

Pusha T has released a further four solo albums: King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude (2015), Daytona (2018), and It's Almost Dry (2022), all receiving widespread critical acclaim; the latter was Pusha T's first number one debut on the Billboard 200. (wikipedia)

• • •

Just back from a local fundraiser for VINES, a community garden / urban farming organization here in Binghamton. Ate lots of good food made by local restaurants using VINES produce, hung out with some people I hadn't seen in a while, picked up a couple of bottles of wine ("for charity!" I reasoned), and generally had a nice end-of-summer time. Plus, they gave me a special "You Are Old Enough To Drink"-type bracelet, which made me feel about 30 years younger, like I was clubbing or something (a thing I have literally never done, do they still call it that?):

[Nobody actually checked my ID so I’m guessing
they "Verified" my "Age" by just looking at my neck
skin and going "oh, yeah, very much over 21"]

So, I chose today's "Word of the Day" so that when you (inevitably) run into PUSHAT someday, in some future puzzle, you cannot say that you've "never heard of him." You have now officially heard of him. Today's "Word of the Day" is for everyone who boohoos every time a rapper appears in the grid. CARDI B, you have seen, and stored away in your memory banks (probably), but now you've got PUSHA T to add to said banks. If you read the wikipedia entry, you can see that his longevity and success make him more than crossworthy. This is part of what I do. Just out here providing a rap education public service for you all, thank me later (!). As for this puzzle, it's math, there it is, I did the math, it works, the end. Pretty straightforward, not terribly exciting. The repeated ONE is a little ugly (PLUS ONE, ONE AND DONE), but few are likely to notice, let alone care. The thing about the Spinal Tap answer (part of an iconic line that comes at the end of an unforgettable exchange) is that ... "GO TO ELEVEN" doesn't really mean "exceed the limit." The point of the "eleven" line, what makes it absurd, is that the dials on his amp actually GO TO ELEVEN. That is, ELEVEN *is* the "limit." The inability of Nigel to understand the interviewer's question (namely: "Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"), his failure to understand the very premise of the question: that's the joke. That's what makes it funny. Anyway, in the movie, eleven is the limit. It does not "exceed the limit." I guess that, metaphorically, one might use "GO TO ELEVEN" to mean "exceed the limit," but more accurately it just means to max out. And the main reason you'd say it would be to remind everyone of this funny scene, which is funny, here, see for yourself:

The Downs-only solve was hard for me today in only one place—THRILL RIDE (29D: Roller coaster, e.g.). The corresponding (i.e. symmetrical) long Down was an out-and-out gimme, but once I made my way around the grid and ended up in the SW corner, I found myself staring, somewhat despairingly, at this:

Now, if you look closely, you can see the mistake that kept me stuck for a bit. I misread the clue at 49D: "___ it occurred to you ...?") and wrote in "HAS IT" instead of "HASN'T" (so much more natural does "has it occurred to you...?" sound to my ears than "hasn't it occurred to you...?"). So I was looking at I-NE at 64-Across and that could only be IONE ... but when I put an "N" in there, well, that did not help me get to THRILL RIDE. And if you look at all the other blanks I had where THRILL RIDE was supposed to go, you can see that multiple letters made sense for every square. Was it SPARES SPIRES or SPORES? ACRE or ACHE? RATS RAGS RAMS etc.? Wasn't looking good there. And then I double-checked "HAS IT," saw my error, and then was able to rolodex through letters at the end of the answer to see RIDE and from there pick up THRILL RIDE. Phew. Close call. But in the end, I finally got that ONE troublesome answer AND I was DONE. I do admire how hard the puzzle is trying to convince you that it is exciting (HIGH-OCTANE! THRILL RIDE). Thumbs up for those answers in their roles as hype men.

Not much else to comment on here. The only hesitations I had while solving Downs-only were at SIVA (never that sure about god names) and "IF ONLY..." (kept wanting the phrase to start with the pronoun "I" but "I" was in the cross as well as in the clue (47D: "I wish!"), so I just waited for crosses to make some kind of sense of that answer. Eventually, they obliged. I liked FANDOM and OVERLOOK, and thought the grid was clean, if not exactly the promised THRILL RIDE. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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