Artist Spotlight and Two Pet Peeves
Are you a singer, dancer, acrobat, guitar player, clown, drummer, magician, comedian who performs in Puerto Vallarta? If yes, then send an email to vallartacalendar@gmail.com with your bio, a few great photos, and links to all your social media accounts. As your shows are added to VallartaCalendar.com, your Artist Spotlight page will include all your performances.
Check out the 11 profiles currently featured at VallartaCalendar.com in the Artist Spotlight section to understand what we need regarding information. It is our hope and dream that, besides being the Calendar for all Vallarta’s events, we will have a dynamic and up-to-date list of performers that will grow and serve our community.
Last night, Sharon Gerber Scherer and I met for dinner at Canto. I had not been back since their first week of operation, but Sharon assured me of their menu’s increased vegetarian and vegan options. We shared spring rolls, green beans in garlic, and chow mein, all perfectly cooked and beautifully presented. The service is superb, the ambiance is convivial and charming, and the place was packed when we left. Owner Jeremy Reigel made sure all was right in our world.
I left Sharon waiting for her Uber and started walking down Lazaro Cardenas towards Insurgentes when my name was shouted loud and long from Reina’s Bar. I backtracked a few steps to the door to be greeted by and enormously joyfully hugged by my old friend Rudy Salazar, who I had not seen in years! Rudy has been living in Montreal, promoting films all over the world, but now he is home; he is Vallarta’s most beautiful pata salada. Our mutual friend Octavio Becerra had joined Rudy in his welcome home celebration. What a great night!
Pet Peeve #1 – We live in Puerto Vallarta. Or, Vallarta, if you are in a hurry. We do not live in PV. Our airport designation is PVR, and the R got dropped and became the name of our city. Stop it! We are not LA(X)! No Pata Salada worth a salty paw would refer to the city of their birth as PV. Never! Say the full name and stop sounding like a newbie. Thanks for listening and on to…
Pet Peeve #2 – The current season we are in is called Summer. Say it with me! The insidious words slow, low, or off are nowhere in that one syllable. It’s just summer, people. Hot, humid, and quieter. Well, thank god for the last one. We would all be dead of exhaustion if we kept winter-month-pace all year round. There are things you can do that are better than bemoaning the fact that “all the tourists are gone.” If that’s true, why are the hotels at 75% occupancy in mid-August? I can hear it now! “The Nationals don’t spend money like the foreign tourists do.” Well, dah! But spend they do. Ask yourself why they aren’t coming into your business. Because you don’t expect them to, that’s why!
Change your mindset, change your life! People walk by restaurants and casually look inside; if it’s empty, they carry on. Why? It’s clearly not a good place to eat or drink if it’s empty. So, how can you change that perception? Stand outside (you are anyway), greet every person who walks by, and invite them to come in out of the heat for a complimentary glass of water. NOT A PLASTIC BOTTLE! Have them sit, then take your time getting water with lots of ice; maybe have menus on the table so they have something to do while they’re waiting. Have no expectations except to slake their thirst and go a long, long way in promoting kindness and, oh, yeah, your business.
Let’s try an experiment: No more PV or disparaging words about summer. We live in one of the most vibrant (Read: High vibrational!) cities in the world, and we should make money in the summer. We will IF we try! We have shuffled through summers past just bloody barely; we can change it. Remember, “What you resist persists.”