Puerto Vallarta Scene

Puerto Vallarta Information & Events

Voces Femeninas » March 7&8

Voces Femeninas
In commemoration of International Women’s Day, March 8, for the first time Puerto Vallarta will host The NATIONAL CONGRESS “FEMALE VOICES,” where women will have the opportunity to listen and learn from other women experts about vital issues .

VOCES FEMENINAS is a gathering to reflect on the role of women in various fields. It is an opportunity to learn and share experiences between women today to show that women can take risks and become leaders.

This Congress is a benefit for the construction of a shelter, del Albergue, “Alas de Libertad” whose goal is to help and assist women in violent situations.

¡UNE TU VOZ!

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Event is to be held at the NH Krystal Hotel on March 7 & 8, 2008.

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Narcocorrido Music » Biting the Bullet

The Savage Silencing of Mexico’s Musicians
Killings Bear Hallmarks Of Drug Cartel Hitmen

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 26, 2007

MORELIA, Mexico — Sergio Gómez roared into town in a big SUV, entourage in tow, pressed suits, fancy cowboy boots.

Everything about him said superstar. He had an international following, an impish smile that drove the women wild and a star on the walk of fame in Las Vegas. More than 20,000 fans swarmed the parking lot of this colonial city’s soccer stadium to dance and hear him sing romantic “Duranguense grupero” pop songs backed by a driving drumbeat.

After the show, in the small hours of Dec. 2, Sergio Gomez was kidnapped. Police found his body the next day. He’d been strangled and beaten. His face — a face that graced album covers and made teenage girls blush — was disfigured by burn marks.

Sergio Gomez, 34, was the latest of a dozen pop musicians to have been killed in the past year in Mexico. Nearly every one of the slayings bore the hallmarks of the drug cartel hitmen blamed for 4,000 deaths in the country in the past two years.

But the savage murder of Sergio Gomez — one of Mexico’s hottest singers, a headliner whose band, K-Paz de la Sierra, commanded $100,000 a show, twice the rate of other top bands — was different. It has set off an unprecedented chain reaction in which at least half a dozen bands have canceled concert tours. Popular bands, such as the Duranguense act Patrulla 81, which backed out of four major shows, are terrified of coming to Morelia and the surrounding state of Michoacan.

“All this is very dark for us,” José Angel Medina, Patrulla 81’s lead singer, said in an interview. “We’re very worried. Very scared.”

[Read more…]

Citlaltépetl » Mexico’s Writers’ Safe House

In Mexico City, a refuge for world’s writers
Haven from persecution gives chance at better life

by Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Feb. 24, 2008 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY – When the paramilitaries burst through his door, beat him and pointed a Kalashnikov rifle at his chest, poet Xhevdet Bajraj knew it was time to get as far from Kosovo as possible.

It was 1999, NATO bombs were falling on the province, and Yugoslav troops were fighting pitched battles with ethnic Albanian guerrillas. Serbian paramilitaries were torching homes and locking up anyone who might be perceived as a leader – even semifamous poets. Bajraj joined the thousands of refugees streaming into Albania.

Then came an invitation from a most unlikely place. Mexico City had just opened a safe house for persecuted writers, one of several social projects launched by the capital’s new, liberal government. Bajraj and his family were welcome to come, city officials said.

And so, shell-shocked and tired, carrying nothing but two packs of cigarettes, Bajraj, his wife and two sons became the first of a string of writers and their families given shelter in the Citlaltepetl Refuge House, a renovated mansion in a leafy neighborhood of the world’s second-largest city.

“I feel like I was reborn in that house,” Bajraj said. Now a naturalized Mexican citizen, he lives nearby and teaches poetry at a Mexico City university.

Since opening in 1999, the refuge has housed writers under threat in Myanmar, Egypt, Chad, Algeria and Serbia. The refuge has room for one or two families at a time and is now in talks to host a writer from Iraq, director Philippe Olle-Laprune said.

They’re part of a long tradition of writers who have found refuge in Mexico City, from Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez to American Beat writer William S. Burroughs, a fugitive from U.S. drug charges.

“We have a history of taking in these kinds of people, and they have enriched us as a city,” said Isabel Molina, director of cultural relations for Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.
» Read the Complete Story from the Arizona Republic

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Consumer Rights in Vallarta (for bar patrons)

Discrimination or abuse of any person who goes to bars or nightclubs can be reported to the Federal Consumer Agency, Profeco, the body that can legally proceed with sanctions against these establishments.

profeco logoThe customer of any bar or nightclub has rights which must be respected, and establishments are obligated to offer their services in a respectful manner, with quality and adherence to the law, said the Profeco through a communique.

Consumers have five basic rights set forth in the Federal Law on Consumer Protection (LFPC), in these places.

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Puerto Vallarta’s Hotels de Paso

There are 6 motels (los hoteles de paso) in Puerto Vallarta in the category of lodging where rooms are rented by the hour rather than by the day or week. With more than 18,000 hotel rooms in this city, only approximately 200 are available for part-time occupation, being classified by the Puerto Vallarta Hotel Association as non family or “no familiar.”

  • Motel Dunas
  • Motel Los Angeles
  • El Parasol
  • El Gran Sol
  • Marina Del Sol
  • El Ranchito

There are also four 3-star hotels that rent by the hour.

  • Cactus In
  • Vista Panorámica
  • Sea Life Park
  • Coral en Lo de Marcos

Rooms in these motels are technically rented for a period of 8 hours, but managers agree that it is rare for a room to be used for that period of time. Because of this fact, reservations are not possible at these lodgings. And, contrary to the popular conceptions of a “high” and “low” season for room rentals here in Vallarta, there is no “low” season or even time of week or day for these places. Rates for the 8 hours range from 250 pesos for a regular room to 500 pesos for a room with a jacuzzi. Average room rates are about 300-350 pesos.

According to a prominent sexologist, the popularity of these motels is caused by a society repressive of sex. In this regard, Puerto Vallarta “has a fine future,” given the conservative characteristics, bias and double standards expressed in the whole of Mexican society and especially in Jalisco and by the Vallartense.

There is a wide-spread rumor that motels of this nature have hidden cameras to monitor the activities and people using the facilities but this rumor is discounted quickly by the frank statement of one owner that they would likely be filming powerful business owners or politicians too frequently and that would be extremely dangerous.

The original version of this story appeared in Vallarta Vive and was researched and written by Osvaldo Ramirez Granados. It has been translated, revised and edited by Rick Hepting

Writing Best Sellers by Cell

Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular
Original Source

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

TOKYO — Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.

Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.
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