Taco Tuesday
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Taco Trail, Lucinda Williams, Shaquille O'Neal, Knitting While Sitting
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue includes tasty tacos, the autobiography of Lucinda Williams, six stops on the taco trail, one of the most celebrated singer/songwriters, a basketball giant, and a knitting circle. I hope you like the picks and pics.
This week is the 16th edition of the Cayamo music cruise. Several of our closest friends are on board (Robin Mueller and Bill Gardiner, Don Alles, David and Traci Westin, Denise Feikema, Catherine Graves and Paul Riekert) and we miss seeing them every year at this time. This week’s issue features Lucinda Williams as both an author and musician. She was on three of the previous Cayamo cruises. Last week I saw Sarah Jarosz and this Saturday we will see Tommy Emmanuel. Both are previous Cayamo performers, and I will feature them in the next two issues.
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Fave Five 75: Taco Tuesday
Musician’s Memoir (Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You), Taco Trail (Mayo’s Carniceria y Tacos, Maíz Picante Taqueria, El Sitio, Los Agaves, Palapa, Taqueria La Unica), Southern Singer (Lucinda Williams), Rim Ruiner (Shaquille O'Neal), and Knitting While Sitting.
Fave Five List: Piquant Pork
My favorite varieties of pork tacos that I have enjoyed in Santa Barbara:
Al pastor: Marinated pork with pineapple grilled on a trompo (spit)
Adobada: Marinated pork
Lomo: Roasted pork (lomo is Spanish for “loin”)
Chamorro: Braised pork shank
Chile Verde: Pork with green sauce
Book Best Bet
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams
I have appreciated Lucinda’s music for a long time (she is this week’s Marvelous Musician), so when her autobiography was published, I wanted to read it. I found it revealing and informative, and I recommend it to her fans and to those interested in the careers of important artists. As with similar memoirs, there is a lot of name dropping, but it is fun to read of her encounters with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and other musicians and producers.
From Amazon: Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.
In Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Williams takes readers through the events that shaped her music—from performing for family friends in her living room to singing at local high schools and colleges in Mexico City, to recording her first album with Folkway Records and headlining a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall. She reveals the inspirations for her unforgettable lyrics, including the doomed love affairs with “poets on motorcycles” and the gothic southern landscapes of the many different towns of her youth, including Macon, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Williams spent years working at health food stores and record stores during the day so she could play her music at night, and faced record companies who told her that her music was not “finished,” that it was “too country for rock and too rock for country.” But her fighting spirit persevered, leading to a hard-won success that spans seventeen Grammy nominations and a legacy as one of the greatest and most influential songwriters of our time.
Raw, intimate, and honest, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is an evocative reflection on an extraordinary woman’s life journey.
Restaurant Recommendations
Six Santa Barbara Stops for Seven Savory Samples on the Taco Tuesday Trail
Yesterday I walked to four restaurants, all in a single block of De La Vina Street in Santa Barbara, to try four different types of tacos for lunch. Later, my family joined me for dinner at a fifth place, this one on State Street, where I tried two more types. I finished the day with a seventh taco at the taqueria next door to our rental condo, also on State Street. All seven tacos were delicious. I am thinking of visiting three of these every Tuesday for the rest of our time here.
After decades of eating street tacos the same way, I finally realized that they are even better if you separate the two corn tortillas and split the filling into two portions. This makes the tortilla/filling ratio much better and eliminates the starch overload caused by biting into two tortillas at once. I plan to use this method on all future Taco Tuesdays.
Mayo’s Carniceria y Tacos 2704 De La Vina St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Birria: BBQ Beef
Maíz Picante Taqueria 2714 De La Vina St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Chamorro: Braised pork shank
El Sitio 2830 De La Vina St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Taco de Lomo: Roasted pork
Los Agaves 2911 De La Vina St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Rajas Con Queso: Grilled pasilla chiles, corn, onions, tomatoes, Monterey Jack cheese and queso fresco
Palapa 4123 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93110
Adobada: Marinated pork
Chile Verde: Pork with green sauce
Taqueria La Unica 3771 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Suadero: Intermediate part of the cow between the belly and the leg
Marvelous Musician
Lucinda was born exactly two months before me. I read about her self-titled album in 1989 and bought a copy on cassette just before it was no longer available. I loved "I Just Wanted to See You So Bad," "Big Red Sun Blues," "Passionate Kisses," "Crescent City," and "Side of the Road." I bought her two earlier albums on Smithsonian Folkways and all of her subsequent albums through Essence. I saw her on Austin City Limits in 1989, at The Michigan Theater, and on Cayamo 2012, 2015, and 2016.
From Wikipedia: Lucinda Gayle Williams (born January 26, 1953 in Lake Charles, Louisiana) is an American rock, folk and country music singer, songwriter, and musician. She recorded her first two albums, Ramblin' on My Mind (1979) and Happy Woman Blues (1980), in a traditional country and blues style that received critical praise but little public or radio attention. In 1988, she released her third album, Lucinda Williams, to widespread critical acclaim. Regarded as "an Americana classic", the album also features "Passionate Kisses", a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter for her 1992 album Come On Come On, which garnered Williams her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994. Known for working slowly, Williams released her fourth album, Sweet Old World, four years later in 1992. Sweet Old World was met with further critical acclaim and was voted the 11th best album of 1992 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 6th on his own year-end list, later writing that the album, as well as Lucinda Williams, were "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant".
Williams's commercial breakthrough came in 1998 with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, an album presenting a broader scope of songs that fused rock, blues, country and Americana into a distinctive style that remained consistent and commercial in sound. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which includes the singles "Right in Time" and the Grammy nominated "Can't Let Go", became Williams's greatest commercial success to date. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA the following year and earned her a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, while being universally acclaimed by critics. Williams's next album, Essence, appeared in 2001, to further critical acclaim and commercial success, becoming her first Top 40 album on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 28. Featuring a more downbeat musical tone, with spare, intimate arrangements, Essence earned Williams three Grammy nominations in 2002: Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the title track, and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Get Right With God", which she won.
One of the most celebrated singer-songwriters of her generation, Williams has released a string of albums since that have earned her further critical acclaim and commercial success, including World Without Tears (2003), West (2007), Little Honey (2008), Blessed (2011), Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone (2014), The Ghosts of Highway 20 (2016), and Good Souls Better Angels (2020). Among her various accolades, she has won three Grammy Awards, from 17 nominations, and has received two Americana Awards (one competitive, one honorary), from 11 nominations. Williams ranked No. 97 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999 and was named "America's best songwriter" by Time magazine in 2002. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked her the 79th greatest songwriter of all time. In 2017, she received the Berklee College of Music Honorary Doctorate of Music Degree, and ranked No. 91 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time. In 2020, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road ranked No. 97, and Lucinda Williams ranked No. 426, on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. She was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2021. That same year, "Passionate Kisses" ranked No. 437 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
I Just Wanted To See You So Bad
Sweet Old World
Passionate Kisses
Right In Time
Crescent City
My Playlist
Sports Star
Today is Shaq’s 52nd birthday. I liked him as a basketball star, but I enjoy him even more as a TV analyst on Inside the NBA. On February 13, 2024, his number was retired by his first team, the Orlando Magic.
Shaquille O'Neal's No. 32 jersey is the first to be retired by the Orlando Magic
His career stats:
From Wikipedia: Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal (born March 6, 1972 in Newark, New Jersey), known commonly as Shaq, is an American former professional basketball player who is a sports analyst on the television program Inside the NBA. He is a 7-foot-1-inch and 325-pound center who played for six teams over his 19-year career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and is a four-time NBA champion. O'Neal is regarded as one of the greatest basketball players and centers of all time.
After playing college basketball for the LSU Tigers, O'Neal was drafted by the Orlando Magic with the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft. He quickly became one of the best centers in the league, winning Rookie of the Year in 1992–93 and leading his team to the 1995 NBA Finals. After four years with the Magic, O'Neal signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers. They won three consecutive championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Amid a feud between O'Neal and his teammate Kobe Bryant, O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004, and his fourth NBA championship followed in 2006. Midway through the 2007–2008 season he was traded to the Phoenix Suns. After a season-and-a-half with the Suns, O'Neal was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009–10 season. O'Neal played for the Boston Celtics in the 2010–11 season before retiring.
O'Neal's individual accolades include the 1999–2000 Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award; the 1992–93 NBA Rookie of the Year award; 15 All-Star Game selections, three All-Star Game MVP awards; three Finals MVP awards; two scoring titles; 14 All-NBA team selections, and three NBA All-Defensive Team selections. He is one of only three players to win NBA MVP, All-Star Game MVP and Finals MVP awards in the same year (2000); the other players are Willis Reed in 1970 and Michael Jordan in 1996 and 1998. He ranks 8th all-time in points scored, 6th in field goals, 15th in rebounds, and 8th in blocks. O'Neal was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team in 1996. Due to his ability to dunk the basketball and score from close range, O'Neal also ranks third all-time in field goal percentage (58.2%) and led the league in field goal percentage ten times. O'Neal was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016. He was elected to the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2017. In October 2021, O'Neal was again honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
In addition to his basketball career, O'Neal has released four rap albums, with his first, Shaq Diesel, going platinum. O'Neal is also an electronic music producer, and touring DJ, known as DIESEL. He has appeared in numerous films and has starred in his own reality shows, Shaq's Big Challenge and Shaq Vs. He hosts The Big Podcast with Shaq. He was a minority owner of the Sacramento Kings from 2013 to 2022 and is the general manager of Kings Guard Gaming of the NBA 2K League.
O'Neal called himself "The Big Aristotle" and "Hobo Master" for his composure and insights during interviews. Journalists and others gave O'Neal several nicknames, including "Shaq", "The Diesel", "Shaq Fu", "The Big Daddy", "Superman", "The Big Agave", "The Big Cactus", "The Big Shaqtus", "The Big Galactus", "Wilt Chamberneezy", "The Big Baryshnikov", "The Real Deal", "The Big Shamrock", "The Big Leprechaun", "Shaqovic", and "The Big Conductor".
Breaking Backboards
Picture Pun
When this group gets together, they like to spend time spinning yarns.
