I only Beheaded them !!!

The Mexican army has arrested a 14-year-old boy on suspicion of being a hired killer for a drug cartel.

"I only beheaded them, but never hung [bodies] from bridges, never," he said.

for more info click here

Livin' it Up & Dyin' it up (Before & After)

The 2 dead Canadians have made the front cover of the Meridiano agan today.

The article states:

--that the pair were under investigation by canadian drug authorities.
--that one of them had a drug record.
--that the two of them were regulars at Prestige (a local strib club.)
------it says they were going there 2 to 3 times a week and spending up to 70,000 pesos in a night. (that's over $5,000 USD)
(note: who knows how reliable this figure is but I guess they were really living it up.)

When I went to the Gym today a couple of guys were looking at the article. One of them said that one of the Canadians was at the gym last week.

And this made me think of him, moving through the same areas as me. using the same machines. same bathrooms. same urinal perhaps. his sweat dripping on to the machines. on to the ground. his blood coursing through his veins. his heart pumping that blood.

the same blood and heart, hardening already, and placed (tossed?) in the back of a white pickup truck.

And it made me think of an excerpt near the end of an Orwell essay. Its subject was a Hanging. And there was a dog that raced up to the party of the men (the condemned and the escorts) and leaped up to lick the face of the man who was about to be dead.

Anyways, below is the picture of two men, alive, pointing at the camera (miming guns?):

2 Canadians Shot to Death--The Front Cover of Today's Meridiano

2 Canadians shot to death.

The one 15 times. The other "only" 4 times.

This happened right in the middle of the hotel tourist zone.

(Click on Image for Larger View)

99-yr Old Man Killed by his 24 Yr-Old Son---The Back Cover of Today's Meridiano

99-yr Old Man Killed by his 24 Yr-Old Son---The Back Cover of Today's Meridiano

Stabbed 5 times in the stomach and chest.

(Click on picture for larger view)

¡¡Asesinado!! (Smashed to death by Rocks-- And a big Knife) -- Photogenically Bloody

I haven't posted one of these up in a while: the front cover of one of our daily Newspapers, the Meridiano.

People die violent deaths everywhere. But here tabloid newspapers (we do have more serious newspapers) put the gore in color on the front and back pages.

The victim, The Rooster ("El Gallo") died in the doorway of his house.

"K PAZ" was detained by drug enforcement agents.

I walked down to the plaza to get this newspaper. And walked back up. Drenched in sweat. It's so damned hot here. And it's not raining much. And that sucks because it's the rainy season. It's the rainy season damnit!!

The weather's unreliable. But you can bank on people dying all the time. And many of them violently. Photogenically bloody.

The Prima Vera Trees are Blooming

In the center of our plaza's a Prima Vera tree, gnarled and tall. And it's in full bloom. Bright yellow. Like bits of flowering sun. And pigeons sit in it. In spaces between the yellow sprays. The sea goes on forever. Today it's a medium blue. And our church is beautiful. All the tourists gawk.

Today, also, there are four Federal Policeman (Policia Federal). Two have handguns and two have (what appears to me to be) AK-47s. They're all dressed in black. The two with handguns have collared shirts. The other two are wearing t-shirts. One's scratching his cheek. One smiles at an old lady.

It's going to be a hot day. And humid. And I'm going to sweat. A lot. But now it's cool. Pigeons are splashing in the fountains. And the poems of my "Holocaust" keep coming: bits of bone and blood-- and light.

Here's the cover of today's newspaper:

The "Vacant-Eyed Heads" of Killers

Jean Genet in jail, writing Our Lady of the Flowers, cuts out pictures of young, handsome murderers. They excite him both physically and spiritually.

Here's an excerpt from early on in this strange and beautiful book:

“I cut those handsome, vacant-eyed heads out of the magazines. I say vacant, for all the eyes are clear and must be sky-blue, like the razor’s edge to which clings a star of transparent light, blue and vacant like the windows of buildings under construction, through which you can see the sky from the windows of the opposite wall. Like those barracks which in the morning are open to all the winds, which you think are empty and pure when they are swarming with dangerous males, sprawled promiscuously on their beds. I say empty, but if they close their eyes they become more disturbing to me than are huge prisons to the nubile maiden who passes by the high barred windows, prisons behind which sleeps, dreams, swears, and spits a race of murderers, which makes of each cell the hissing nest of a tangle of snakes, but also a kind of confessional with a curtain of dusty serge.”

One of the three men picture above (perhaps the one below) cut off a 30 year old policeman's head. And all through the plaza, and on buses (blue and white and very dangerous), and on the steps of the church, etc, people are staring at the dead man's head. And into the eyes, opened or closed, of his three killers.

Head Sold (i mean Found) Separately

Thirty year old policeman's body found in front of the church in Ixtapa (about 30 minutes from PV. this is not the big resort town Ixtapa). The head was found separately. In a trash bag.

How the Duck Drowned

Duck was drinking.

Duck went swimming.

Duck drowned.

The Front Cover of Today's Newspaper (Bestial Asesinato)

And the Back Cover

Man leaves the U.S. --- Rapes his sister.

Twenty Eight year old man returns to Mexico and rapes his 14 year old sister.

He invites her down to the river to fish with him a bit. He asks her to have sex with him. She refuses. He rapes her. But he doesn't cum inside her. "Eyaculando fuera de ella" (ejaculating outside of her).

He tells her that if she tells anyone he'll kill Mom and Dad. (He's already beaten them up a few times.)

Fifteen days later he takes her down to the river again and rapes her repeatedly.

Speaking of Romance, Wild West, etc: Killed in a Cantina (PV)

Killed in a Cantina

Don't I live (as Adam Pitluk does) in such a Romantic Town!


To be honest, though, where we live (downtown Puerto Vallarta) it feels very safe. Though there are more drug killings in the suburbs.

¡¡Macabro!!

Yesterday's cover story.

A finger and a tongue found in an OXXO ice box.
(OXXO's the dominant convenience store chain here. Like 7-Eleven.)

Authorities believe the subject (no body found yet) was alive when the "amputación" occurred.

Poet or Fiction? (standard MFA-Mixer question): Chilango Drowns

Chilango drowns. "Chilango" means a guy from Mexico City. Kind of a derogatory term.

But, never mind all that.

I'm playing a new game now. Each time I see one of these dead-body pictures I'm going to ask myself the question "Poet or Fiction?"

Here I think it's quite simple.

You can't tell by looking. Or can you?

Okay, let's get serious now.

The fact that he drowned (couldn't swim) and that he had a seizure all point to Poet-Poet-Poet-Poet-Poet

BUT, he is a Chilango... Mexico City...and since Mexico City is the largest city in the world, and it is indeed a big deal, means something, has importance, currency, etc, then this guy was obviously Fiction....

Killer Buses (the scourge of PV)

the local blue and white buses of puerto vallarta are killers. I've heard tell of children (and others--- but children spikes the blood hardest, doesn't it?) run over by wild lunatic bus drivers, but this is my first photographic evidence.

an old lady done in by Bus U-63.

The problem is that drivers here don't get a salary. Or if they do it's a small base one and because they have families to feed, alcohol to drink, and the church to stand in and give tithing to they want as much business as possible.

And there are always lots of buses driving the same route at the same time so they're racing like crazed Mice-on-wheels (a bad Speedy Gonzalez image) to get to the next stop first.

And, so, lots of people are dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Suicide--another Dead Body

Man shoots himself in the head.
At a friend's house.

I want to shoot myself in the head. Feel it all.
And walk away unscathed.

But who doesn't want that?

From the gangland violence of AWP to----

the gangland violence of pacific-coast mexico......at first i was disappointed that this picture wasn't in color on the front of the paper i usually buy. but, i'm warming up to it. death, death, O death!

Se Mato de un Balazo

Man shoots himself to death. Hand still in the finger-pointed, "bang bang"
position......And is that a glass of milk or a candle?

I'm wondering also if he was shirtless because he didn't want to get blood on it?

On an unrelated note, my dog (Chuy, which is the nickname for Jesus in Spanish) has an upset stomach and didn't eat anything this morning.

Floating in the Marina

Some people have a taste for death. Are drawn to it.

Drawn to images of it.

Some cultures don't encourage this. Don't cultivate it. Some do.

Mexicans just love death: blood, skeletons, the grave, etc, etc,...

Here's the cover of today's local paper: a drowned American (about 70 years old they report) found floating in the marina.

If you're interested in seeing more of these newspaper covers click on the Mexican Newspaper Gore tab just below this post.