Punk rock was never a crime, nor vulgar for that matter. Rather, given the state of the gradual, grotesque material denial and standardization Western culture has found itself in over the past century, punk rock was a viable and inevitable cry for catharsis and meaning; a legitimate, massive grassroots attempt at achieving transcendance and relief from the punishing treadmill that is modern life.

The fact that such a cry came via the medium of the art community is thus neither peripheral nor incidental. Rather, it is definitively indicative of the nature of collective psychic revolts against mental cultural mediocrity, a most insidious residual of the constant, degradating oppression accompanying Market Fundamentalism.

Punk is the gut-lyrical fulfillment of the promises of Post-Modernism; the essential sentiments of Albert Camus, put to hard, fast music.

“Modern Life Is Rubbish” - Blur, 1993

“I don’t believe illusions cos too much is real
So stop your cheap comment…
Cos we know what we feel”

- Pretty Vacant, Sex Pistols, 1977

“They’re gonna have to introduce conscription
They’re gonna have to take away my prescription
If they wanna get me making toys
If they wanna get me, I got no choice”

- Career Opportunities, The Clash, 1978

Mr. Mick Havvis of Newport Beach CA
(58) marries Ms. Svetlana Shaposhnikov (18) of Minsk, Belarus. The couple will hold a very private ceremony on Mr. Havvis’s yacht ‘The Flying WASP’ with only a few hundred (785) well wishers in attendance. The New
Mr. and Mrs. Havvis will honeymoon on the
Mediterranean island of Sardinia, where Ms.
Shaposhnikov’s father owns a grappa still and black market rocket propelled mortar factory. All of us here at Riviera Magazine wish the new couple all the best.

Greetings from the Singapore International Airport.

Totally doesn’t seem like we’ve been travelling for 19
hours (13 hours SFO to Hong Kong, 2.5 hour layover,
3.5 hours Hong Kong to Singapore). Our flight left
San Francisco at 1:30AM, so it was lights out nearly
all the way. It stayed dark outside for 95% of the
trip, so much sleep was had by all.

We landed in Hong Kong at 5:30AM local time, just as
the day was breaking. I was amazed at what it looked
like there — tall lush green hills rising from the
South China Sea. A quick breeze thru the “Transit”
station, and we got some breakfast at a very nice cafe
in the airport. Hong Kong is a very modern airport,
and had a ton of luxurious shopping. It was like
South Coast Plaza, but without the May Company.

A couple hours, and we were back on the same plane in
our same seats for the journey to Singapore. I
happened to look out the window as we passed over Pnom
Penh.

A word about the plane — we flew Singapore Airlines.
WOW. Lovely service, great seats (not too cramped),
and excellent in-flight entertainment — there were 60
movies on demand, a hundred albums, and all the
Nintendo video games you could play. Yeah, i was
playing Super Mario Brothers most of the way.

So here we are in Singapore. We have an 8 hour
layover, so we’ve booked a room in the “Transit
Hotel”. You can book rooms in hourly blocks (yeah,
seems sleazy). So we went for a swim when we first
arrived, then took showers and cleaned up. A fresh
change of clothes, then we went off for some
lunch/dinner.

There are free internet terminals all over the airport
here — a nice suprise.

Three hours until our flight to Bangalore, so we’ll
maybe catch a nap or just walk around this huge place.

Until next time…..