We ended Leopoldo's vacation week with a splash (he is such a sweetie-pie): Carl from The Wire magazine stopped by to visit us at Twist and we came up with the bright idea of going to The Palace and seeing Geraldine's show. I thought it was going to be nostalgic to see the show again on a brilliant afternoon, but there was something missing. There was no magic, no hype, no frantic energy like there used to be; we used to be constantly worried about crowd control, but--sadly--there certainly was no reason for that yesterday. It's hard to figure out what has changed and where the familiar faces went to. Even the famous Hofer painting of the place was gone. It is as everyone has commented, a different place and what we had has passed into the memory bin. Indeed, something has happened to South Beach itself; every day seems to find another store or restaurant closed. City Hall is so top heavy in debt and bloated salaries that the talk around here is that one, bad winter season could make the house of cards collapse (much the way the nation is going). It's an edgy town. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish says the only thing we can count on is Happy Hour at Twist.