Martin Belk

  • • ABOUT, BIO & CONTACT
    • Bio: Martin Belk
    • Contact!
  • • BOOKS
    • AMY WINEHOUSE: Before Frank / Back to Amy
    • PRETTY BROKEN PUNKS: lipstick, leather jeans, a death of New York
    • SCOTS WHO ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD
    • 100 BEARDS 100 DAYS
  • • ARTICLES
    • Jim Haynes 1933-2021 official memorial The Scotsman
    • GQ + Gap interview & campaign
    • Port Magazine • ICONIC NEW YORK
    • City AM Tribute to Iain Banks
    • Scottish Review of Books
      ‘A BALLAD OF READING IN GAOL’
    • Prague Writers’ Festival
      SILENCE = DEATH
  • • PROJECTS
    • BANKSOPHILIA
      Farewell website done with & for the late Iain Banks
    • Polmont Young Offender’s Prison Writing Programme
    • flashback ’96: Live @nd InConcert – the first NYC music webcast starring Debbie Harry from Squeezebox! & Don Hill’s
  • •• LATE SUPPER Podcast
    • LATE SUPPER at the MIDNIGHT DINER • podcast
Playwright, Author, Editor
London • Glasgow
Paris • NYC

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Saturday in my Park: Music, Marty and Mary June (with audio)

September 6, 2014 by martinbelk

Screen Shot 2014-09-06 at 19.14.47Dad, called Marty, used to go out with a gal named Mary June. We hung out at weekends when it was Dad’s turn to keep me and my sister. Mary June had a son too. She worked at the local radio station, making the shows with the DJs, which I thought was a big deal. I always wanted to be a DJ. A real one — not the kind they have today — the kind that sat alone, in their little rooms surrounded by metal and vinyl, making the world happen in the minds of their listeners.

Later, after Dad’d moved on, Mary June moved into the same apartment complex where we lived. The complex: the place where the new swathes of divorcées now allowed to show their faces in public and us, their kids, went-to for a home — and they were real homes — not these cheap builds they have today — the kind of place where, despite the best efforts of the Holy people, folks of all rank and register, craft and colour mixed and mingled. Mind, I didn’t say ‘blend,’ the word is mingle — shared, exchanged, collaborated & conspired to a respectable semblance of happiness in a place reserved for those with nowhere else, really, to go.

What festered there fed my mind: without Mary June, I’d have never heard of Supertramp — “You’ve never heard of SUPERTRAMP!?!” Bloody well right. Without the black kids, I’d never appreciated Bootsy Collins or dancing the ‘Bus Stop’ — “You can’t do the BUS STOP!?” Not yet. There was even a woman, Marlene, who’d get merry and blast Janis Joplin from one end of the street to the other. And without the geeky kids from up north, I’d’ve never heard of the Human League. “You’ve…” ok, you get it. I got it. And although I was born appreciating a good hustle, something new awakened at my ripe age of 13, and I wanted to know shit — to read between the lines and lyrics. And it was good.

Once, I sat in Mary June’s living room, amongst her massive record collection, studying the front of an album while she went the kitchen. I remember not wanting to be caught surveying the art so intently — nonetheless she whipped back and did — I shuffled ashamed, but she reassured: “Oh, that’s fine, I like to be very familiar with my album covers” — the graceful permission to be curious — which must always, without fail, come from a neutral source.

So when I hear all this broken-home bawling, and consider my own — it recently occurred to me that all might not have been so terribly, absolutely unfortunate. Marty’d left early on, but I wasn’t abandoned. The things I learned in my neighbourhood of misfits and wayward people inform me to this day. I wish I could turn on Soul Train or Bandstand this Saturday morning, & play it real loud with the windows ajar — it used to be guaranteed to attract visitors. It was more fun than staring at the internet.

-MLB

OK, so everybody been wanting me to read – well, here it is, raw, & unedited:

https://martinbelk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Martinbelk.com_.SaturdayinmyPark.mp3

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Culture, music, Neighbours, Saturday, Soul Train, Supertramp

Happy Michael Alig Party Monster Lib-day. Where Were You on 3/15? (yawn)

May 5, 2014 by martinbelk

Screen Shot 2014-05-05 at 11.48.57May 5th, Alig’s liberation day. Lately I’ve seen more rah-rah stomach-turning web posts for Michael Alig to start some lame-assed revival party than I care to count. Please, for the love of all things not yet devoured by the corporate culture world, just say: NO.

The Alig murder story is akin to 9/11 for NYC culturists – we all had a connection, we all remember hearing the news, we all saw the various iterations to come like Disco Bloodbath. In the past few weeks Michael Musto sums up more than a few and also has some cautious comments on associated trends. Me? I was sitting at  the computer in 1996, working on the Squeezebox! invites when an email popped up that Freeze had been arrested and Angel was confirmed missing – which triggered a memory from months earlier which struck me strange. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Angel Melendez, Antony Hegarty, Cave Canem, Club USA, Culture, Disco 2000, Disco Bloodbath, Freeze, Kembra Phaler, Limelight, Mars, Meltdown Festival London, Michael Alig, murder, New York City, Palladium, Parole, Party Monster, Peter Gatien, Quentin Crisp, Squeezebox!

Dear Carmen & Co: Stop Dicking Jayne

April 18, 2014 by martinbelk

martin belk jayne county
Martin & Jayne @ Squeezebox! c. 1996

In defense of Jayne County and RuPaul, a Punk perspective. • 20 years ago this month a group of us started Squeezebox! which arguably became the latest incarnation of the Max’s Kansas City scene — and arguably one of the last interesting, autochthonous scenes New York City will see for a very long time. The roots actually go back even farther, to the era of the old Tenderloin or the 19th century Bowery. In a communal, collective effort with many voices and artistic angles, we successfully merged the essence of these eras, their performance genres and the existing culture for ten years — when many in the so-called ‘community’ sneered, dismissed and patronized.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: M-L-BLOG: Tagged With: Antony, Carmen Carerra, Culture, Debbie Harry, Drag Race, Jayne County, Justin Bond, New York City, Panty Bliss, Rupaul, Squeezebox!, Trans, Transexual

Worth a Look: Mags abandon print – bad bottom line business, bad for culture.

December 5, 2013 by martinbelk

WORTH A LOOK: Salon via the NAA: ‘a print reader is worth $539 in advertising alone — an average online reader is worth $26’

Filed Under: Worth a Look: Tagged With: Business Strategy, Culture, Digital, Print, Publishing, Salon.com, Technology, Writers, Writing