Our Man in Antigua

Panama…’just rolled over for the IRS as of november 30th by signing off on a TIEA…a ‘tax information exchange agreement’, meaning that if one has a bank account in their name and the IRS makes a request for same, and if one hasn’t been fully forthcoming…etc…’dead meat’…as with  Costa Rica a few years ago, who were backed into that same corner, the only shield was/is to be a corporate entity…a ‘society anonymous’, S.A, in other words…Belize is still ‘shields up’, btw..I can think of a couple of people in town that might be thinkin’ of the implications…oh…que pasa’s new web site? superb, functional and with the latest doo-dads….’doo-dads?’ ‘having been in the gold rush days of the dot.com world, i like to think that i know a good web site when i see one(and their’s is xlnt)

‘did the PV art/gallery thing at 6pm…exceedingly lightly attended…’take away the staff/owners and the crowd dropped to 50%…popped into La Vineria…Lucia still hanging on…’bless her old italian soul..Paolo workin’…no sign of the pneumatic (overly endowed)Margarita, who’s still hanging with Beppe(i call that faith, if not love)La Esquina, as with every other place southadapark..empty, dead…o–‘cot, p-gea, ixcot…nada, zip and zilch…davinci for a final final and a word with luis miguel…his christmas decorations are world-class…if this town had a competition for such, he’d win every year..

‘a brief word with alex of sobremesa…an artist with a bistro…an artist with a capital A..no, i didn’t go up/down 4th calle…the town is/was dead…kinda disheartening to walk up 5th without the crowd that was Reilly’s..the air has gone outa that balloon…the new joint/location will be an interesting event to see what happens in that part of town…passed Karla outside of
PV…she’ll be there friday night for the nelson/ron duet for the ngo benefit at ocelot…gotta see that one….two breakfast places doing a steady business: Caffe Bourbon and Chez Christophe…it’s gotta be the sun in the face thing..hello sangre! give it up…’picked up a copy of the Economist…and found out what i’ve been missing by only watching fox, cnn and the occasional la prensa(there’s big trouble in da world, $-wise)and yes…guatemala is a narco state…read la prensa’s edition of dec 6th, with the map…wiki leaked that ortega of nicaragua is deep in the pockets of the coke cowboys, ever since pablo escobar…shocking!  chavez equally so, given all the planes with Venezuelan markings that pancake in honduras, on deserted highways and found later…somehow torched and empty…’blown’ up has a whole new meaning..