Our Man in Antigua

whatever…Mario B of Johnny’s Place, Peter the Hodge and LM wolfing down Pangea’s most xlnt flat-bread pizzas on the Ocelot Patio…if I hadn’t gorged myself silly on pizza this week, popping a few buttons in the process, I mighta ‘gone there’…Jason raving(as usual)about the new palm trees on the upper deck…monsters! Ignacio the Cuban waiting to play music there tonight…no idea who’s payin’ him but somebody will…i told him ‘dinero primero, musica segundo’…the other Cuban, Adan? s’posed to start at 7 at Caffe Opera?  no show, at least when i went by at 7:30…not a good way to woo the folks who fired you last month(dude)…the Salty Beaver? how about a t-shirt slogan? “I’m a believer in Beaver”…ok, slightly rancid…at least, consider a new signature cocktail, the Salty Dog…grapefruit juice, with either gin or vodka..hey, i forget exactly which goes where..and in what…condolences to one of my favorite ladies in town, MDC, for the early demise/passing of her ex-husband last week…on the other hand, her daughter made the full page ad for the House of Jade this month..Napoli, the eyetalian restaurant on 5th calle? advertising “Frutti di Mary” as a pasta dish…i don’t know about you, but Mary isn’t a dish I’d want to try..Chez Christophe doing an almost full house tonight! musta been cuz of mutha’s day..and a raft, a horde and a helluva lot of gringos in town..not the cruise shippers but the young and the earnest/dedicated chattering groups, heading somewhere like so many lemmings looking for a cliff…JH and CD out, looking for a place to eat..’pointed ’em in the direction of Chef Pierre’s on 6th calle…someone’s gotta be first and i trust their tastes..wtf? ants running up and down my refrigerator? if they get into the freezer, welcome to ant-artica..if they get into the stash on top,there’s gonna be gunplay…’wonder if they go ‘snap, crackle and pop’ when lit off? no news of the AL gang who left for Xela today, in the van with the windshield wipers that didn’t wipe on Wednesday…i was gonna go but…$$ arriving this week and i didn’t want to chance an ATM in Xela…this whole ATM screwup is definitely impacting my personal travel plans…looks like Monterrico in the fear nuture…sunday/monday…recover after El Muros’ Drinka-Thon on Thursday…fill up on Lava’s ‘gurrmay burgers first’…no on the milk shake idea? i’ve noticed that nowhere in Guatemala, even Mcdonalds, are milk shakes served…hey, it was just another stupid idea, of which i have plenty of..a never ending supply, apparently…place your order now…two for the price of three..one of my oldest pals having a birthday this weekend(mill valley/marin) has about two weeks on me, so i sometimes defer to his wisdom(only in leap years)…sunnofabitch…we’re sexagenerians!…no, that’s not next to the Planet Uranus…close, but..my odometer rolls over next month…Hector said he’d comp a meal for me per the excitement of such an occasion, but only if the wheelchair makes it thru the door…Mother’s Day joke…the punch line is thus..’if he gets outa this, call him Houdini.”  and an even bigger joke..Portillo? free, with immunity? almost expect he and Sandra Colom to marry soon, wrap up the country and take off for Cancun…laughing all the way…tomorrow is Hump Day and Guatemala certainly got humped early..