RATLINKS: Mr. October
Attempting to become a published author. Concert Reviews - Harry Styles | Matisyahu
October. The tenth month of the Gregorian calendar and the second month of pumpkin spice season. It also means time to start thinking about your Halloween costume. This year will you be:
Sexy Palace Guard? Sexy Bond villain? Sexy Cocomelon? Sexy Golf Dad? Sexy Chupacabra or Frog?
This month’s edition features two topics:
Fish where the fish are
Two Concert Reviews
Success = Ability x Idea
Mastery is the ability to go from hobbyist to practitioner. Developing a skill to the point where it is second nature allows for effortless output. Unfortunately any time you attempt to master a new skill you start from 0 and will be bad. The path takes time and effort. The question is are you willing to work through the plateau to get better? Malcolm Gladwell says true expertise requires 10,000 hours of practice. Cal Newport in So Good They Can’t Ignore You describes the key to improvement as deliberate practice. Mathematicians, musicians, and cooks know who they are by the age of 4 or 5 everyone else must figure it out over a longer time frame.
If you want to catch a fish, you can’t wish for fish. You must fish where the fish are. Success is not luck but probabilities and how accurately you can forecast and cause these probabilities to occur. Goals can change over time but it is necessary to define goals otherwise progress is impossible to measure.
Don’t fall in love with your ideas. Screenwriters who fail have one thing in common. They try to sell a script that no one wants. Stop trying to sell the script and start on the next one.
— Judd Apatow
RatLinks is a monthly publication covering a myriad of topics with the overarching theme that everything is a thing. Ratlinks touches on diverse often unrelated topics like Home Alone and labor markets, the rise of influencers, or the potential we live in a multiverse.
When I started Ratlinks the stakes were low - a monthly link roundup (hence the name) emailed to a few friends. Most of what I wrote was not great, but I continued to write with the goal to make each monthly iteration better.
You are reading the 46th edition of Ratlinks. A current goal is to make Ratlinks a thing and option any or all of the content to a larger media conglomerate. If you can help me achieve this goal please reply to this email. 🙏
YO QUIERO TACO BELL
Another goal is to write for other publications. A sweetener to this goal is to be published in a magazine that I can flip through while scoffing Does anyone still read this? They will publish anything.
In order to go to increase my chances of becoming a published author, I have scoured hundreds of listings for freelance assignments. Most are not a fit, but recently I found a place where I could really cut my teeth. A literary magazine, more relevant than The Paris Review. The Taco Bell Quarterly or TBQ is a place that lets the writer invent the genre of Taco Bell literary writing, whatever that is.
TBQ just wrapped submissions for issue 6, which will be out this winter. Founded in 2019 by Baltimore-based writer M.M. Carrigan, who said TBQ received over 2,000 submissions and were only able to accept 25, giving them an acceptance rate ironically on par with The New Yorker and The Paris Review. (The Takeout)
Naturally, Taco Bell’s marketing department has taken notice (“A literary magazine trying to take over The Paris Review accidentally fits right into their unhinged brand, I guess,” Carrigan says). Carrigan had a Zoom call with a couple of “millennials who work on the advertising team,” but when TBQ’s founder requested $1 million in return for collaboration, talks politely ended. They’ve been in contact a few times since, but every time Taco Bell reaches out, Carrigan requests an additional million to “dismantle the literary gates.” The ask is now up to $7 million. The restaurant hasn’t capitulated, but the company has at least agreed not to sue.1
It is highly unlikely that my entry Vive More is published, so please enjoy my submission reproduced in full below. Ratlinks - you still read that, they will publish anything.
Vive More
UNO What do you want to do for dinner? How about a chalupa or a gordita crunch? What are those exactly? Mmm maybe I'll also get some cinnamon twists and a Mountain Dew? Why not a Mexican Pizza? Stringing together two words I had never uttered before. I'd rather have a Doritos Loco Taco ¿Yo Quiero Taco Bell? ¡Yo Quiero Taco Bell! DOS Our relationship was nothing more than a single serving, yet it burned hotter than a fire sauce packet. As we stood in the parking lot holding our Baja Blasts, the sound of the highway provided a calming din behind us. You looked at me longingly and began to tear up as I continued to shove food in my mouth, stupidly thinking the tears were from the hot sauce. You choked the words out: “I don't know what I want, but this isn't it.” Now all these years later you still haunt me. What we could have been? What could we have been? I longed to fill that void, I couldn’t stop thinking about that run for the border. Eventually I was willing to step foot in our Taco Bell again. It was the first time in years, yet it smelled hauntingly familiar. Trying as hard as I could to relive that night. I stood in that parking lot listening to the highway while pounding a gordita crunch. Slowly, then all at once, a clarity washed over me. If life is a collection of moments and relationships. Maybe the meaning of life is to let go of the past and maximize the present. To LIVE MAS.
KING WITHOUT A CROWN
The North Miami Bandshell sits near the site of the first structure on Miami Beach and is famed for the big bands that would play on Saturday nights, creating an impromptu ballroom under the stars.
In the 1960s variety TV show, The Mike Douglas Show filmed on location here during the winter months. In the 1970s, benches were removed and the venue was used as a roller skating rink.
Matisyahu recently played the bandshell. To those unfamiliar, Matisyahu is an American Jewish reggae singer, rapper, beatboxer, and alternative rock musician. Known for blending spiritual themes with reggae, rock, and hip hop beatboxing sound.
We arrived very late in the set because we didn’t have tickets. Upon arriving I walked up to a table functioning as the box office and met a man, let’s call him Dan. I inquired about tickets but rather than tell me the price of tickets, Dan instead asked if I ever attended a Matisyahu show. I tell him about how in 2005 Matisyahu played the Hillel House at my college. Dan replied Matisyahu played his Hillel in 2014, it was two hours of dubstep loops yet he still enjoyed it.
Dan then asked me my Hebrew name. An odd question, but one I could answer. I responded, “Israel” he then looked down at a list and said, “Ah yes, Israel, I see you right here. Do you still need a plus one?” As he handed me the tickets Matisyahu’s manager Ethan approached and Dan asked Ethan his Hebrew name.
I motioned to my wife that we have tickets, she looked at me disapprovingly but before she could say “how much did you just spend?” I cut her off “did you know we were on the guest list?”
Matisyahu at the Bandshell | 3.5 out of 5 stars
HARRY’S HOUSE
On the fifteenth night of Harry Styles, the Garden was abuzz. The pre-teens were bopping while the golf dads gave nary a shrug. The audience clad in boas screamed with delight at the sight of a sequined-covered pop star rising from the floor.
The vibe of the show was one of palpable joy. It was a struggle to find anyone not enjoying themselves with the pit breaking out into both a conga line and the boot scoot boogie.
About halfway through the set, Harry brought out a horn section that completely changed his sound, think less One Direction and more Bee Gees. A cover of Y.M.C.A led into a disco rendition of Music for a Sushi Restaurant that segued into a version of Treat People With Kindness that felt more at home at Studio 54 than Madison Square Garden.
While a really funky Watermelon Sugar featuring deep bass riffs and a trumpet in the chorus border lining on bachata was enjoyable. The highlight of the show was obvious. Out of nowhere, a special guest appeared on stage and a whisper came over the crowd: Is that who I think it is?
Could it really be American television personality, author, and broadcast journalist for CBS News, Gayle King?
Gayle King! What business does she have here? Is she really presenting Harry Styles with a banner? HOLY SH!T This is a rock show.
Harry Styles Love On Tour: 15 Consecutive Nights At The Garden | 4 out of 5 stars