Dr. Morbius (Bill Weber) RIP

Dr. Morbius (Bill Weber) died this afternoon at his sister's home in Connecticut. He had been ill with cancer for quite some time and recently opted for hospice care after months of frequent and wearying hospital visits. I will post information about funeral arrangements once I learn of them from the family. But right now I want to thank his sister Cathy for taking such good care of him and for allowing me to speak with him one last time earlier this afternoon.

I'm too gutted to say much more right now. I've seen more films with Bill than with anyone else in New York City. He was my number one film bud and moviegoing will never be the same without him. He was a big fan of classical Hollywood comedy. So watch a Marx Bros., Harold Lloyd, Jerry Lewis, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, etc. film in his honor tonight.

The family has not designated an official organization for donations. But Bill was a fervent WFMU supporter. So you might want to consider making a donation in his name.

oh fuck, I'm so sad to hear this. always appreciated his passion, even when we didn't agree.

motherfuck this year.

Christ, awful. I am very sorry for your loss, Kevin.

RIP Bill

I'm crying. RIP YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD

oh jesus

So sad to hear this. RIP Dr Morbs

Cathy just wrote me to tell me. I only ever met him face to face once or twice. I have a lot of love for him - a big part of knowing him on here was getting pissed off at him, of course, but I saw many sides of him over the fifteen years or so we've known each other in the way of people who know each other in a space like this -- and later, on Facebook -- a welcome friend there. Part of us here. Sad for this loss.

Always down for a baseball game and a beer no matter which coast. See you on the other side my friend, RIP.

Oh no. Fucking hell. I thought he was getting better.

RIP Bill. You will be missed.

this sucks

hate u cancer

i am devastated. i met him years ago when he came to Atlanta and he was such a sweet guy. RIP Bill.

RIP

this was his last post, God bless him. I always feel guilty that I stopped following baseball when I think of how much he truly loved it.

I can never root for the Braves.

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Sunday, October 18, 2020 10:19 AM (three days ago)

Holy shit. I was just wondering if there was news This is heartbreaking. I'm so glad he was able to pop in again to say hello the best he could the past few weeks.

such an asshole on the board and such a sweetheart irl

can't even remember the last time i went to a baseball game without him

I can never root for the Braves.

man <3

oh fuck....rip Bill. never met/interacted with him outside ILX but I always loved chatting with him about film, and I will miss his righteous (and generally well-founded) indignation on the politics threads. I know it's a small thing in the context of a life, but this place just won't be the same without him.

We fired back and forth a lot, but I never minded. (I actually searched the other day to see if he'd posted anything recently, but it was all baseball stuff.) Cancer's a shitty way to go out. Sad to hear this. I own some collections of Keaton shorts and will drag them off the shelf in his memory.

I only met him once and can affirm that, in person, he was a really sweet guy. Fun, too, and interesting. This is devastating

Too sad. Never met him (though we lived in the same neighborhood) but as big a mensch as I've ever encountered online. So smart on film, I'll especially miss his "last (x) movies you've seen" contributions.

I know I antagonized him like anybody on this board did, but there was one point I posted here at a very low point where I'd woken up in a hospital after a night of drinking, really upset and freaked out about my loss of control, and he posted calming, kind words of encouragement with anecdotes from his own life. was incredibly sweet and helped at a time where I needed any encouragement. and considering my attitude towards him, not something he had to do/say.

rest well,Bill.

bill was the first ilxor i ever met in real life, at a mets game in 2009. he was sweet and funny in person. he was easy to talk to, especially if the conversation shifted to baseball or movies. life didn't deal him a very good hand over the past several years but i know how many people here loved him and i hope at the end he felt it was a life well lived.

Gutted.

Had been hoping that getting out to CT with his family and recent discharge meant a turn for the better.

This place will never be quite the same.

Ah, fuuuck. Rest in fury, you lovable asshole. So glad that he decided, and then was well enough to, get out of the city and end surrounded by love and family.

xp I thought he had implied that when I asked him about it a few months ago. awful news

I loved this guy too even though we ripped into each other so many times here. I’m really sad. God, fuck this year.

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Sad he’ll never get to see Georgie Minifer get his comeuppance. RIP loved reading his movie commentary.

i didn't cry like this when my dad died

such an asshole on the board and such a sweetheart irl

lol xpost

this is hard news. i only lived in brooklyn for a couple years, but Bill was a reliable friend. he would reach out to me, and ask if I wanted to see a movie (we watched several together, including a full viewing of Andrei Rublev) or catch a Mets game with him at Citi Field (especially when the Cardinals were in town). he was a good friend, very warm, very attentive, and always very witty. i think he would surprise a lot of you who never got to meet him, with his gentleness. i really valued his friendship. and he was really, really generous in listening to me go on at length about all sorts of naive thoughts on art and film and music, and taking me seriously. i hate to emphasize our age difference, but i always thought he was fatherly, in a way. like the way i would want someone to listen and care for me. crying a bit now, sorry.

RIP Bill.

Mookie I was seriously thinking about messaging you here to ask how he was just a couple hours ago !!!

I’m just really glad I got to tell him how I felt in an email before he passed. I think I’d be even more of a mess right now if I didn’t. I wish we had some old FAP pictures from back in the day to share. I’m going to miss him.

crying a bit now

me too

Reading this post is tough b/c for reasons I can't explain I got a premonition early this morning.

I met Bill seven or eight times, often in the company of KJB. In 2017 he came down to Miami for a baseball conference, and we enjoyed drinks and dinner and spent several fabulous hours together.

He's my movie sparring buddy and I'll miss him terribly.

i didn't cry like this when my dad died

yeah, i don't expect to either

xps yeah i was about to email him because he'd been unusually silent on the subject of the world series

ffs

i think he would surprise a lot of you who never got to meet him, with his gentleness.

this cannot be emphasized enough

OK the tears are coming now

I always had a soft spot for this dude no matter what.
Just gutted right now

Bill Weber was an example of Catholic dialectical grace: fight tooth and nail, offer words of comfort you wouldn't think are possible.

really sad news, sorry to all who knew him irl

bill was one of the first ILXors i met IRL, we met up for drinks at beauty bar (he carried an anthology calendar so i'd know it was him). my last weekend before i left NYC for LA we went to see 'uncle boonmee' at NYFF together. i'm pretty sure the last time i saw him he, kevin, get bent and i went to a jack smith show in soho, then we all got drinks in a mostly empty irish pub afterwards and it was such a fun afternoon - it made me miss living in new york. i loved his sense of humor and his strong opinions about politics and i always wanted to know what he thought about new and repertory films that were out (we agreed more often than not). i'm heartbroken and i'm really gonna miss him. RIP buddy.

Very sad. I didn’t know him at all outside ILX, but I loved talking Jerry with him. And his politics were spot-on. I’ll miss him.

RIP you loveable crank.

RIP :-(

damnit

fuck fuck fuck. privileged to have met him in person and slightly guilty that I'm behind on czech new wave films he nagged me about.

we never met irl but we bonded over arguing whether Maddie in True Grit was a cunt or not (morbs for the affirmative, me for the negative), standup comedy & our shared love for Krassner’s JFK assassination hitpiece (who doesnt love the image of LBK skullfucking JFK’s eyesocket) ... i was so very fond of that kindly old cynic & will be over here crying for a while

xp elvis,

haha yeah, looking through my emails with him, i was laughing at

Feb 20 at the Walter Reade... I'm not crazy about the two Zukawski films I've seen, but all the Cool Kids like him.

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/on-the-silver-globe/

he was one of the first people I took notice of on ilx. he had a memorable screen name and was willing to engage earnestly with my naive film opinions

A truly unique individual I’m glad to have met and kept in touch with outside the board. Even when he was being insufferable here, I could never really be mad at the guy. He was who he was... I’m honestly surprised by this news, I would have thought him too stubborn to die.
RIP

RIP Bill – I will miss him a lot. I've typed and deleted a lot more, but -- I will miss him a lot.

Ah, fuck. I was just thinking about him the other day since he'd been noticeably absent from some threads he usually popped in on. RIP Bill.

arguing whether Maddie in True Grit was a cunt or not (morbs for the affirmative, me for the negative)

I'm with the good doctor on this one

that’s so sad, rip dr. morbius and condolences to everyone who loves him and will miss him

Oh shit. I was hoping he would live to see the donor restrictions on The Day the Clown Cried expire. I'm going to miss him on the film threads.

I just saw the news and I’m so bummed out

This is really fucking me up

a great, maddening, valuable and deeply, unseriously human presence. will be badly missed.

ah geez, Morbz was one of my fave people to hate Ronald Reagan with ... not that I'm in any way religious or believe in heaven or anything, or whether one has the ability to punch other dead people in the face, or communicate your belief that they are fucking pieces of shit ... but Bill, if you can read this, feel free to punch Ronald Reagan in the face and/or tell him that he is a fucking piece of shit.

Bill Weber was an example of Catholic dialectical grace: fight tooth and nail, offer words of comfort you wouldn't think are possible.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 21, 2020 8:57 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i love this alfred

xpost cosign sarahell

Your posts, especially on film, were always a highlight ever since I started lurking here. Rest easy.

Hope there's some justice wherever you are, buddy.

only knew him from here on ILX, but will miss him very much all the same... sincere condolences to his friends and family, RIP.

deems said it better than I could have said it. RIP.

I never got to meet him (or any of you), but I'll repeat what I said on FB: One of the only curmudgeons I've ever seen that was a genuinely good person underneath it all.

He was the last ILXor I saw IRL, right before lockdown. He’s probably the one I saw most.

This sucks so much!!!

Oh man, this is sad. I met him twice: once in Chicago in 2007 and once in NYC in 2010. But I think of him foremost as a reliable (and ever-cantankerous) presence here. I'll miss seeing his name.

We butted heads plenty over the years and he could drive me absolutely up the goddamn fuckin wall, but the guy seriously knew his shit, unlike 99% of humans out there, including myself. It was always clear that he deeply loved the things that he loved, including this place. Even when he was being poisonous I could always tell it was fundamentally bc he was mad the world wasnt a better place. I will always remember him.

This sucks.

R.I.P., good Doctor.

As I was just texting to Flappy: "I didn't always agree with him but always loved seeing what he'd say about whatever, and was always curious about his life. He was a major part of the firmament and will be missed."

love morbs, this is terrible, RIP

I've learned more about film from this man, who I never met, than almost anyone else in my life. He was the #1 reason why I posted here. I can't believe I'll never get to meet him or talk about John Ford or Fassbinder again. Posts of his are burned in my brain. Fuck this

KJB, thanks for bringing the news here, and please tell Cathy how infuriated by & appreciated Bill was, by so many who knew, met, or conversed with him.

Even when he was being poisonous I could always tell it was fundamentally bc he was mad the world wasnt a better place. I will always remember him.

this is very otm. I never spotted him being mad about something not worth being mad about.

Well, damn.

Whenever I show someone the movie They All Laughed, I always paraphrase one of Morbs' posts about it: "Watched the first 20 minutes of They All Laughed. I didn't."

I called him a cynic to his face and he said "Fuck you" and laughed. He knew. He was a sentimentalist. He was pissed off the world wasn't as good as he wanted it to be.

i finally met morbs irl in february, at a reading arranged by ilx's own jbr, and he was exactly as much of a sweetheart in person as described, even though he introduced himself to me on the defensive (as, iirc, "the hated dr. morbius"). i thought of that night fondly and often over these past few months

man, this sucks

just saw JBR's post

only met the guy for 10 minutes, in line for 77BOADRUM, but he's an intrinsic voice in my online life & every one of his posts made total sense after that 10 minutes

RIP

& love to all of us here

Bill more than any ilx0r I have ever met was someone who once you met him you were like “ohhhhh now I get it” and then all of his posts made sense

RIP Dr Morbius

I never spotted him being mad about something not worth being mad about.

Very much so.

(And wb, deems.)

(This kind of underlines how much I need to meet all of you in person, finally - something I thought about often in the few years leading up to this awful year. More intense after these past 6-7 months.)

Only met him once IRL and he was, in fact, as affable a guy as you could ever hope to meet for hours of beers and chatting. I admired how easily he navigated the world, meeting up with ILXors at various ports of call. And I similarly appreciated how he navigated ILX in his singular way. I will miss him a lot.

:( man that’s just awful. Rest In Peace Doc.

oh no :( RIP morbz

Aw, man. Pouring one out.

Peace and healing to those who knew and loved him.

Respect to the man and his memory.

I can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said. An intelligent and opinionated poster I always enjoyed hearing from.RIP, Morbs.

Damn, I’m sorry to hear this.

The more time passed the more I found myself understanding his cynicism about politics and appreciating what he'd seen. Will miss him being here.

was this him?

https://www.metacritic.com/critic/bill-weber

yes

"On average, this critic grades 3.5 points lower than other critics" lol

“ On average, this critic grades 3.5 points lower than other critics”

Yes.

Omg ha ahahahaaa!

Spent a lot of today talking about a different friend who passed tragically after touching many lives, and feeling that familiar sense of shame over not saying it to them (more) while they were around to hear it. In that spirit, FYI: all of you here, in this place, are important to me.

The positive reviews still outnumber the negative and middling ones tho.

Yeah, it was

Lol xps

I haven't posted in approximately 37 years but I wanted to express my extreme sadness and condolences to those who were friends with him. I am happy and honored he came to my wedding last year despite his extreme illness and I am devastated that this year took away my opportunities to see him. I didn't know I wouldn't have another chance to go watch the Kentucky Derby with him - he was such a caring person and I'll miss him forever. RIP.

It should be said: he was a helluva writer.

”On average, this critic grades 3.5 points lower than other critics" lol

He was probably one of my best-known ilxors, I have lost track of how many times we have hung out and if he wasn’t present at my very first ilx hangout (2007? 2008?) it was very soon after. I loved how he was like basically doing a stand up routine 24/7, he was so full of wit and commentary and humor, so observational, so much fun to be around, so full of warmth and kindness towards those who deserved it and an incredibly righteous anger to those who did not. I loved how unwavering he was and how steadfast he was in his worldview, and I truly admired how left-leaning he was for someone his age. He was really, really, really super, I loved him a lot and I’m gutted I’ll never get to have drinks with him at Julius again.

Omg ha ahahahaaa!

:D

Bill more than any ilx0r I have ever met was someone who once you met him you were like “ohhhhh now I get it” and then all of his posts made sense

I4n trailed this effect at my first American FAP, saying something like "once you see the twinkle in his eye IRL, you can never take his threats of murder seriously again." Stevie has summed it up even more perfectly.

Yeah, that was an excellent summary steve

Until you met him, you realized not so much that his ILX persona was "bluster" but that the bluster was his way of forcing me not to take shit for granted, whether Assayas films or life.

<3

Will miss his withering contempt in general, but especially for people that don't appreciate Spielberg.

"I loved how he was like basically doing a stand up routine 24/7, he was so full of wit and commentary and humor, so observational, so much fun to be around, so full of warmth and kindness towards those who deserved it and an incredibly righteous anger to those who did not. I loved how unwavering he was and how steadfast he was in his worldview, and I truly admired how left-leaning he was for someone his age. He was really, really, really super, I loved him a lot and I’m gutted"

loved reading this Stevie

Bill more than any ilx0r I have ever met was someone who once you met him you were like “ohhhhh now I get it” and then all of his posts made sense

this is incredibly otm; i feel like it’s somehow damning with faint praise to talk about what a nice guy he was IRL, but he was a really nice guy IRL!

aww, Dan M thank you for finding that. it's perfect.

i've been typing and erasing and typing and erasing and... idk... no matter how clearly he told us this was coming, there's a part of me that truly believed he'd survive us all through sheer cussedness and bc there was still so much more to drink in.

such a generous spirit, deeply written into the walls of this place... wishing peace and comfort to his loved ones and better days for us all.

The best way to honor Morbs without schmaltz? Fucking watch an early '30s John Ford film tonight.

and give Dennis Perrin tweets a few clicks

Well, shit.

yeah i could never get seriously mad at his posts here after meeting him. we met up again in boston in 2015 and had a couple beers on a sunday afternoon and he was the same old bill, attending baseball stats conferences and catching up with friends. i guess in the back of my mind i thought we would hang out again someday but isn't that how it always is.

and watch a lubitsch movie

When we finally arranged to watch a movie in Manhattan a decade ago and he wanted to nail down meeting details, I said, "You talk as if you don' own a cell phone."

"I don't," he said.

I love that this was the first post in his own thread, Brigitte Mira 1910-2005:

Someone who was associated with more great films than Tarantino or Teresa Wright...
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,345411,00.html

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 9, 2005 1:33 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Teresa Wright, who died the day before.

Essential morbius

"I’m gutted I’ll never get to have drinks with him at Julius again"

co-sign

co-sign

I’m so, so sad. We only hung a couple times but he was absolutely the sweetest. Love to Cathy and Stevie and those of you who were closest to him

When we finally arranged to watch a movie in Manhattan a decade ago and he wanted to nail down meeting details, I said, "You talk as if you don' own a cell phone."

"I don't," he said.

and give Dennis Perrin tweets a few clicks

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

doug henwood's reach is going to be cut in half overnight

<3

RIP Morbs, one of my favorite posters

as a millennial it was SO baffling and also like “wow so this is what people did, huh”

lol stevie d

by the time i met him (2016) he had a cell phone, but proudly not a smartphone! <3

A flip phone in 2017 lol

he'd still be like every action movie film character in 2020 who inexplicably has an LG flip

he actually had a laptop in the hospital! but i couldn't walk him through opening the baseball book epubs i sent him

fuck

this is awful, i'm so sorry. good bye and take it easy, Dr.

Awful news. Never got to meet him in person, but he was very clearly a passionate guy and I learned a lot from him. RIP.

by the time i met him (2016) he had a cell phone, but proudly not a smartphone! <3

factual error! my brooklyn stint was 2014-16, so that was 2014

one of the few people who drove me up a fucking wall but i read everything he wrote. and, if it matters, he would probably get the last laugh as my politics have gotten closer to his as years advanced. what an awful thing.

I’m going to honor his memory by trying my best to move further to the left as I age. Not joking. If we all try to be a little more Morbius we can start to fill in a little bit of the gap that’s left today.

Bill Weber was an example of Catholic dialectical grace: fight tooth and nail, offer words of comfort you wouldn't think are possible.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 21, 2020 8:57 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Beautifully said.

rip bill

Here are the charitable organizations that Bill asked us to support: WFMU, Amnesty International, Society for American Baseball Research, Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, Silent Clowns Film Series.

he was a sweetheart. gutted. i don't think he was a big biden guy but i wish bill could still be here on nov. 3rd to see trump get socked in the jaw.

Goddamit all anyway. I’m glad he’s not in pain anymore.
I liked you bill.

He and I met here sparring on the Brokeback Mountain thread. I admired his prose here enough to ask him to write for the long defunct Stylus Magazine as a film critic. He genuinely scoffed at this job and what he did in Slant, but he was no fan: an incisive, precise writer who'd spent decades thinking about shit in film to know what worked and didn't. I especially admired him for throwing GREAT and GOOD at everything. "Don't lose your cool until you have to" is not a bad way to approach art.

uh for NOT throwing

That makes a lot more sense.

Oh, no.

Even if I hadn't been able to see through his cantankerous persona to the frustrated idealist underneath, the numerous indications from those who knew him as a person offboard were enough to tell that he was good and well-loved.

I mentioned to him recently that I dreamt I'd met him irl (which I never actually did, unfortunately) and sang the opening refrains of 'Wedding Bell Blues' to him. He has the distinction of being the only ILXor to appear in my dreams.

Bill, I love you so and always will.

I'm really sad right now.

I met Bill pretty soon after I moved to the city - maybe 2005 or 2006?
I can't articulate anything but he was one of the best people I've had the privilege to know. Fierce af and also hilarious and kind and so smart.

Love you Bill.

but i wish bill could still be here on nov. 3rd to see trump get socked in the jaw.

I thought this too, but didn't post bcz it'd be even better to have him still here on Jan 3rd 2025, shouting about Biden

fuck, RIP

I thought this too, but didn't post bcz it'd be even better to have him still here on Jan 3rd 2025, shouting about Biden

― Un-fooled and placid (sic),

otm

Ahh reminds me of morbs in the noise board days xxp

damn. really sorry to hear this. loved chatting with him on the Brewers threads. I assume he was a Wisconsinite??

bumped WFMU, demanded that they air a once-a-month hour of mekons called the king morbs flower hour

ok not really but definitely the first part

was anyone else surprised that Justice Stevens didn't hand Biden his robe and say "I quit" the second the VP oath was done?

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 12:35 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol there it is

xp: He was from Newark iirc... Essex Co for sure.

does Pseu post here anymore?

for his dislike of the zing thread, he landed quite a few great ones. this one still makes me giggle
--------------------------------------------------------------------

i'd call faster melting of the icecaps a result

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Saturday, April 1, 2017 11:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That tends to happen each spring no matter who the president is, though.

― Frederik B, Saturday, April 1, 2017 12:10 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's how you were freed from that glacier

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Saturday, April 1, 2017 12:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha yes

i met bill a few times i think all in bars that no longer exist, he was quite gregarious and did not wish physical harm upon me even once, damn this is sad

I just realized

Eric H, Morbs, and I will never trade inapt All About Eve quips again

fuck

Ah hell. RIP. Loved talking with him about 80s NYC downtown performance art and so on. A blazing emblem of that city’s accessible, rent-controlled culture, now going away.

When the next Tarantino movie gets announced, the new thread will be agreeable and missing his horseradish.

he was quite gregarious and did not wish physical harm upon me even once

he had so many opportunities to introduce jon williams to the pavement, and yet

damn, rip morbs. this place won't be the same without you

rip morbs. i hope the mets pull one out for you soon. 💕

I don't really have any worthwhile words to add. I got to meet Morbz just a couple of times in NYC - one or two FAPs, and one time, sitting down at BAM to watch a program of Mabel Normand silent shorts, and lo and behold who was in the seat right next to mine. "Bill?" I said, and he remembered who I was. He posted once about hoping to see me at a movie again sometime, even though that post was, I believe, mostly about thinking my opinion that day was fatuous nonsense. I wish I'd taken him up and made some plans.

Everyone is completely right about what he was about. Meeting him for even a couple hours, your whole perception of his writerly and ILX persona reoriented itself, came into focus as a specific kind of carefully-cultivated, irascible crank tone. It stemmed from genuine high standards for how things ought to be in a more decent world with a greater appetite for both art and for intellectually honest discussion of it. If you just read him on here it was easy to sketch in a blustering, self-satisfied grouch who would be impossible to be around, but in person he was an old-fashioned gregarious enthusiast, unashamedly opinionated but not vitriolic or difficult to talk to at all.

All of you all otm, Alfred especially. He was a tremendous guy. I wish I'd spent less time being pissed off at him for things posted on this board, but I think he liked it that way. RIP Doc. You gave me a lot to think about, and this place will truly, immeasurably, not be the same without you.

RIP Morbius, condolences to his family and to all who knew him here

For all his vinegar, he rarely took things personally, which, from what I knew about him, confounded him about The Kids with their Cancel Culture. Lord knows you can ctrl-F a million threads in which we pound each other to sauce yet not once did he hold a grudge.

One thing I really loved about him other than his absolutely exquisite grasp of movie history was his very un-American trait of freely expressing his loathing of shite US politicians and political parties. And his delightfully Morbsian worldplay like: Toady Blair etc! I've barely ever conversed with him on here tbh, but it still feels like a death in the family:( RIP Morbz

and twat

Oh fuck. We only ever really interacted in the midst of general film sparring, but he was an institution. This news is so awful. RIP man, and love to all of you who knew him well.

“I’m going to honor his memory by trying my best to move further to the left as I age. Not joking. If we all try to be a little more Morbius we can start to fill in a little bit of the gap that’s left today.“

Hell fucking yeah man. I really only interacted with him on the politics threads but he was such a vital presence. He gave no quarter and sometimes that was frustrating but goddamn it makes me cry to think how beautiful this world could be if everyone was half that fierce

he had so many opportunities to introduce jon williams to the pavement, and yet

― mookieproof, Wednesday, October 21, 2020 10:34 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

missed connections...

his delightfully Morbsian wordplay

lol fair

Ah I was thinking about you, Morbs. Wondered where’d you gone to since you’d been so quiet on here. May they show no kiddie garbage where you are now and may the seats always be comfortable - but only just enough to keep you from dozing during those film marathons. Rest In Peace, Doc.

I never met him IRL but he was a distinctive presence on this board and I’ll miss him.

the man was truly one of a kind. moreso than even his opinions or personality, what i will remember most about bill is that he was a walking history book. it's not an exaggeration to say that a piece of new york died today as well. it will surprise no one who knows either him or me that he was constantly incredulous over me not knowing basically anything about much of the pop culture that made him who he was -- our conversations were classes for me, punctuated by impressions of bygone actors whose lines he would recall from memory and with recite relish. many ppl know he once dabbled in stand up comedy -- he was in his own way a performer at heart. he soaked up such an incredible amount of new york culture that you cannot access online -- mets games from the 60s, richard pryor stand up sets from the 70s, yo la tengo hannukah shows, WMFU call in shows, leather parties... i'm barely scratching the surface. his memory of these things was so clear. and he never let up, even as he got sick and the world became cruel to him. i was decades younger than him, much healthier, and he made me feel like i was wasting my life in this city. he would drag me to mets games, to movies, even when it was obvious that simply climbing the concourse stairs at citi field was taking its toll. there simply isn't very many people like him left in new york. there are many things killing this city, but people like bill are taking history with them, and we will never get it back.

his appetite for introducing ppl to things was just voracious. i believe the last time we saw each other was earlier this year when he took me to see gregg araki's "totally fucked up" at moma. loved it, still think about the movie often, and it's something i never would have done otherwise. lord knows how many times he had seen it, how easy it would have been to not ride the subway an hour into manhattan on a cold weeknight. i got there late (typical), and since bill proudly refused to own a cell phone, i wasn't sure if he had actually made it. even as the lights went up, i thought maybe i would just be left to walk out alone into the night. but of course, that was never the case. a hand shot up and waved at me.

i will miss his companionship, i will miss knowing i was even a small part of what made him want to criss cross brooklyn queens and manhattan, and i will miss learning from him. he had an incredible run given the cards he was dealt, and yet it's still far too soon. he was a legend to everyone who knew him. rest in peace morbs <3

For all his vinegar, he rarely took things personally, which, from what I knew about him, confounded him about The Kids with their Cancel Culture. Lord knows you can ctrl-F a million threads in which we pound each other to sauce yet not once did he hold a grudge.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 21, 2020 10:37 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ha i remember really getting into with him on here once then he said something to the effect of i know you dont really mean it just like i dont and we both clocked out like the loony tunes wolf and sheep dog

Oh man. Never met him but at times felt like I’d become him in 20 years or so, what with the shared love of the Mekons, Yo La Tengo, Bob and Ray, etc. He always seemed like an essentially kind person and it’s very nice to see that so widely confirmed. It’s so sad, makes me wish I had lived in NYC, I feel like I would have inevitably met him even if I never posted here.

thanks for that post, jordan

Yes thanks jordan

I just found out and am so sorry to hear this. While I never got the chance to meet him I know others who did and they all spoke so highly of him. Reading through these posts it’s clear that so many people loved him. Rest In Peace Dr M.

Jordan, very well said. Bill's enthusiasm about classic film and his truly encyclopedic knowledge of so many things were an education for me too.

That was really lovely Jordan

and we both clocked out like the loony tunes wolf and sheep dog

― lag∞n, Wednesday, October 21, 2020 10:44 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

also i love this image and it's such a perfect metaphor for his online persona

ha i remember really getting into with him on here once then he said something to the effect of i know you dont really mean it just like i dont and we both clocked out like the loony tunes wolf and sheep dog

― lag∞n,

love this

I am loving these remembrances so much. Much love to all.

he soaked up such an incredible amount of new york culture that you cannot access online -- mets games from the 60s, richard pryor stand up sets from the 70s, yo la tengo hannukah shows, WMFU call in shows, leather parties... i'm barely scratching the surface

otm

my last time hanging with Bill was with j0rdan in the summer of 2019 after a wedding, sex, and a couple of post-wedding hangouts. I tried to get all cocky with him and he said, "Soto, don't boast about your Halston tea dance."

Ha that’s amazing,

of course it took a few minutes to figure out who Halston was

ahahahaha

I still laugh every time I remember him referring to the MoMA theater as “God’s waiting room”

j0rd thx for sharing those memories <3

hen I saw him that last time , he asked if I’d seen The Love Parade, Ernest Lubitsch’s 1930 musical starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. I hadn’t. He scoffed — not because he had something on me, but because he knew I could do better.

I should’ve watched it by now.

*when

I'm glad I got to read his film takes on FB these last few years

RIP to a true iconoclast with a good heart

Lol

lovely post j0rd <3

I'm so sorry to hear this, and Kevin thanks for posting the news. Morbs was one of my favorite ilx personalities, including all his endless arguments and snark. When I lived in NYC we hung out a few times and saw movies and had drinks, and he was a great conversationalist and a deeply interested person. Smart and funny and much more warm-hearted than he liked to pretend. And as others have said, an old-school New Yorker through and through. A fine mind and a better person and we'll all miss him.

I wish I'd taken him up and made some plans.

fuckin killing me how many times morbs and i threatened to meet up at a screening on this board and we never fuckin did it

quoted from the revived Morbs poll thread bc its too perfectly Morbsian not to share:

i'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but you wouldn't have a good time.

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, July 24, 2013 9:36 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

via his sister just now:

It is with great sadness that I share the news of Bill's passing today. He faced Multiple Myeloma bravely for 8 years; the last 5 months were very difficult. Gary, Christy and I want to thank all of you for your support - the money you so generously gave helped Bill feel some independence and get things he really needed that were not covered by insurance. He was able to live a little, enjoying some good food, films, books and music and getting outdoors to our yard for some evening fresh air. Bill's unique point of view on life gave all who knew him reason to smile; a wry smile, but a smile nonetheless! He will be greatly missed, fondly remembered, and always loved.

I opened the politics thread and started reading, with increasing dread, posts about Morbs. I never met him, but like many of you, found myself butting heads with him from time to time. Over the years it became clear that there was a lot more heart in that fighter's instinct than I had first understood. He liked to throw bombs, but he did it because he truly cared, and wasn't going to let you forget that.

:(

I'm so sorry to his family and all of his close IRL friends -- Bill was the best. He was brilliant and hilarious, and I'll never forget him. I feel lucky to have drunk beers and gone to baseball games with him. RIP Dr Morbius.

I never fully appreciated until the remembrances shared itt how the tenor and style of posts made on here can give you a sliver of insight into the actual people who make them - if only a sliver.

Oh man! I never met him, but he was definitely one of the greatest presences for me on the board other than the people I have met, like someone I really had a distinct mental image of without knowing him in person. A witty curmudgeon with a heart of gold is how he came across to me. Very sorry for Kevin's and everyone's loss

i didn't know bill irl but i loved morbs. reading him in movie threads was one of the things that drew me to ilx. when i was 17 and trying to understand what i liked and didn't i looked up to him as someone who could figure that out without the use of dogma. once he called a post i made "perceptive" and i'm still proud of it. (same goes for when he called me an "obama lackey".) he was almost always otm, including about spielberg and american politics. even online it was clear he was full of love for what he loved. i wish i coulda gone to a movie with him and yall who did are really lucky. rip.

rip to the good doc, always a distinct and welcome presence even (especially) when he was being a crank. will miss him in the baseball threads and everywhere else.

Aw man

RIP

I have heard time and time again before this day even started the same thing: "Oh, you wanna know something about Morbius? He's like the nicest guy IRL. I know!"

Armed with that info, and I dunno, projecting Paul Lynde behind each of his bloodthirsty posts, it all came together for me too. Something else that I realized was, you know what? This guy is right a lot more times than he's wrong.

From one of the few last remaining chickenshit hillbillies posting on this rotten message board, I echo what the rest of you are saying tonight. We lost a real one.

https://i.imgur.com/4yQWKvy.jpg

i take my big-dicked swagger in and out of the clinic, pp

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Friday, June 5, 2015 2:18 PM

RIP Morbs and if there's a god I hope he lets you pop back to fuck with Quentin Tarantino a few times.

adding to the thanks pile for J0rdan's post

Something else that I realized was, you know what? This guy is right a lot more times than he's wrong.

― pplains, Wednesday, October 21, 2020 11:40 PM (thirty-seven seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

one of the funny things about the ongoing degradation of our world is how its proven the cranks right

oh shit. Yeah, i'd see him in the politics threads here and there and did not recognize him as the same person I'd met many times IRL. There is/was a contingent of ILXors who'd come to my little DJ nights now and again and he was often there and always a total sweetheart, though last time I ran into him was a coincidence when we both ended up at Jupiter Disco where a common friend was DJing a happy hour. He was always a total sweetheart and seemed quite cheerful to have a beer and hang out.

Bill was a mensch and the most passionate devotee of baseball and film I'll ever know. He gave our kid a talking Mr. Magoo doll that caused him to develop a Jim Backus impression basically the moment he learned to speak. Love you Bill. https://t.co/O6EcYrfcFu

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) October 22, 2020

Do you guys know who took that picture?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Paley

all i can think about right now are all the times morbs would reach out to see if i wanted to catch a movie and me turning him down because of, i don't know, some bullshit . i hate this. rest in peace, bill.

It’s been a few years now, but Bill was truly kind, fun, good company, full of thoughtful and funny conversation, and was, yes, utterly sweet and charming. Also crucially self deprecating! I had a vague idea that we’d continue to encounter each other from time to time, so this is a terrible shock. A unique good presence in the world, now gone. I honestly can’t believe it still. Just saw reference to him in the politics thread and got real worried. His crankiness re: politics probably made me laugh as much as anything on ILX!

reading and refreshing this thread and crying and thinking about how i love y'all very much

<3

aw, a beautiful picture in which a beautiful soul comes through

thanks guys... it helped me remember him more clearly getting those words out

it might sound crazy if you just read his posts on this board or knew morbs the character, but we would all do good to live like bill. it's so easy to live a sedentary existence now (i'm not talking about covid), to feel like there's so much culture at your fingertips that you might as well be drowning in it. bill was from a different era, he never changed, and his rigidity and pride in being that way came thru loud and clear even if you barely knew him. but behind that was someone who valued tangibly experiencing the things that mattered to him, even when that thing was watching the sorry ass mets score 2 runs on a windy april night. (and btw he would never leave early.) i'm posting this as a reminder to myself as much as anything

hope he's still here in the ether, seeing that this thread is already up to 200+ posts, and realizing how beloved he is.

This is crushing. Someone I was never lucky enough to meet but I appreciated the contribution he made to ILX and will miss him deeply and watch a Marx brothers film this weekend.

RIP, this place is worse without him

https://i.imgur.com/fDcHvui.jpg

oh no! not morbz. I don't know what to say....this is so sad

fuck

This is such terrible news... all kinds of tears reading this goddamn thread
Only met him once (the same time treeship met him, when wins was in NYC. Dr C was there too)
Motherfucker was alive

oh man, RIP legend.

i only really know him from the movie threads. his posts usually pissed me off. for whatever reason, i'm really affected by this news. i know very few ilx people irl but it's somehow helpful for me to have occasional remote anonymous conversation, specifically on here, and it's all much appreciated.

his very un-American trait of freely expressing his loathing of shite US politicians and political parties

Until our current era I thought Morbs' dogmatic rage about, and cutesy nicknames for, Democratic Party politicians was as tedious and ill-directed as general US poster consensus held. When I became aware of how general US poster consensus also treats politicians as a murmuration of Tinkerbells, all requiring baseless faith to be vocally expressed lest we cause them to let us down, I realised he had been OTM all along.



Except about the nicknames.

Toady Blair is pretty good, though.

it's true, the nicknames were terrible

also fitting

Why is Morbs dead

Morbs and I never tangled over anything directly. I'd be surprised if he even knew me on ilx, but we all knew him. Endlessly infuriating and, in retrospect, one of the pillars of this entire place. Cancer is a fucking menace.

ha i remember really getting into it
with him on here once then he said something
to the effect of i know you dont really mean it
just like i dont and we both clocked out
like the loony tunes wolf and sheep dog

― lag∞n, Wednesday, October 21, 2020

<3

ILX has its "the day lady died" now is how i break it down to an extent

Multiple Myeloma

I met Bill at a fap in Chicago one time, he seemed like a gracious person and I appreciated his commitment to his political points of view. I hope he and his family and loved ones find peace.

i remember yelling at him on the Ken Burns’ Vietnam War doc series thread, I called him
Jacob Marley’s ghost bc he kept showing up randomly to shit on Burns & the series & of course never watched a second of it bc why would he lol

and he drove me round the bend with those fkn Dick Nixon tweets he always posted

but i’d welcome all of that bullshit again in a heartbear right now ;_;

*heartbeat

:(

I never did and never will meet Dr Morbius but his determination to live precisely as he pleased, harming none, outside of making all of us furious at his unwavering ideas of justice, will stay with me. I never did figure out how old he was.

Appreciated your write-up Alfred, that was lovely. I never really interacted with him much on here, other than maybe absorbing a few of his glancing blows, I am far too ignorant in film and not nearly as observant in baseball as he was to even attempt genuine sparring, but I always appreciated his passion and grit.

this sucks, RIP

I didn't want to know what Morbs looked like but that's somehow exactly what I imagined.

but i’d welcome all of that bullshit again in a heartbear right now ;_;

Morbs really was a heartbear tbh

Fuck cancer, over and over again. I’ll remember him with genuine love.

I didn't know him well. I got drinks with him maybe a dozen times. A great guy. Unbelievably smart as much as anything.

I once asked him for recommendations for Broadway, and his suggestion seemed fine so I got tickets for myself and my then gf now wife. A couple of months later we sat down for the show and he was in the seat next to us. It was honestly kind of awkward! And then we realized we were getting the same long slow weeknight train home. Oof! But he was such a kind, social, quiet person. We chatted (well, he spoke extemporaneously and wittily) about Off Broadway in the 1980s all the way home. I wish I could remember any of the things he told me that night or any other. He was so full of knowledge and he loved to share it, but he was never overbearing about it.

Jordan put it better than me, but an example of a New York life lived well. It's so sad he's gone, but the main thing I feel right now is that I miss New York and if I ever go back I want to be more like he was.

Also 100% otm about US politics always.

So nice to see retired/infrequent posters here.

Also I remember standing in front of the fridge in a bodega at Ft Greene and Fulton with my wife after got off the train home and telling her "I was reading that guy post stuff on a thread called 'I Lost A Coughdrop in His Asshole' earlier today".

omg lol
I frequent that bodega
crazy to think how long I’ve been crossing paths with Bill
He had a special place in my heart

RIP

I *believe* that the second-to-last time I saw Bill (before the poetry reading Brad mentioned upthread) was when we spotted each other on the street as the Pinefox and I were leaving a free Mountain Goats gig in East River Park. The amount of board representation there makes me happy; wish we'd been able to say hi to J0hn.

I never had much in the way of interaction with him, but have been missing his posts over the last several months. RIP, Dr Morbius.

Last time I saw bill was five seats down on the train at rush hour. I let him be because no proper New Yorker wants to be talked to on a train at rush hour. I got annoyed at The morbs character in the way you get annoyed with someone who is doing your shit but better. The last time I went to the real Shea stadium was with bill and mook.

This is horrible, I never interacted with him much but I saw his posts all the time and I hoped, like everyone else, his treatment would work. Really horrible. RIP, i am so sorry for his family.

RIP Morbz

Fuck! Never got to meet the good Dr but he's always been one of my favorite posters and I've definitely missed his presence lately. Deep condolences to those who knew him well. Will be sure to watch some Keaton and talk shit about the Dems this weekend.

RIP, i love morbs

Me too. <3 x x x

such a beautiful photo up there^

Visiting friends in NYC in 2015 to see Complete play at Union Pool. I’m in my very early years of posting here and a friend points to this fellow clad in Mets apparel and says that’s Dr. Morbs. To this day, I don’t know if that’s true or not but I always liked to believe it was. RIP yr work is done

It’s been years since I’ve seen Bill or logged in here, but this is obviously the place to be tonight. He was my favorite curmudgeon, and also a caring and thoughtful friend. I’m flooded with memories of derby parties, films, and nyc hangs. Of waiting to meet up while he made his way to a pay phone to check messages and find out where we were. Of the autographed 8x10 headshot from his stand up days he gifted me for my birthday one year. I enjoyed watching him get under others’ skin although I somehow never managed to tangle with him. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to see him in recent years but I will remember him fondly. Rest well, Morbs.

Just seeing all these old names again wow

RIP - among many other things, Morbs' commitment to seeing new films was inspirational, and definitely motivated me to 'keep up' with modern film culture too.

it’s lovely to read that so many of you hung out with him irl frequently, going to baseball games and movies and bars. im sure he appreciated your company tremendously.

it’s nice to hear that he was a sweetheart irl. im not surprised; i always saw his whole persona on here as an incredible extended bit and was in awe of his ability to always be locked and loaded with a barbed witty reply. dude was genuinely funny in a way that very few people alive are anymore

Horrible news, rest in peace bill. I have v fond memories of that ny fap, he was such a sweet guy. I know we made fun of him for being an old* but surely way too young

* haha is it true that he didn’t actually have a twitter account but just went there every day to check Dennis Perrin, Doug henwood and that terrible Richard Nixon account?

horrible news to wake up to, rip morbs - absolutely one of the cornerstones of this place, it won’t be the same without his uniquely irascible style

So sad to hear. RIP.

I think our only direct interaction was him calling me "boringly anti-canonical" on the horror poll thread but he was a reassuring and strong presence. Such sad news - RIP

Waking up to this , fuck. I’d sometimes post in the movie threads and at back of my mind I’m wondering what would Morbs think. Loved to hear him talk about Bill Forsyth or Jerry Lewis. Such a prescence here, just wish I could have met him irl as he sounds utterly charming.

shit. this is fucking awful. i teared up when i saw this. deeply sorry i never got to meet him.

Such a loved member of this community and often equally right, interesting and funny. So sorry for the loss. RIP

Fuck, one of the only ones with any real sense here. A lovely and gentle man with a sharp and furious sense of fairness. I'll miss his great knowledge of films, his passionate politics and confusing taste in hot guys.

I will miss his trenchant opinions and articulate, caustic discourse. Won’t be the same without him. Fuck cancer.

God if there was one thing I was on the exact same page as Dr Morbius on it was Adam Driver being hot

No

But bless you both

I didn't want to know what Morbs looked like but that's somehow exactly what I imagined.

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 22, 2020 12:44 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes!

RIP Morbs. Feeling very sad.

This is horrible news to wake up to. It's beautiful how many of you knew and cherished him in real life. I only knew him online but I cherished him too and I'm gonna be very sad today.

RIP Morbs ❤️

How lovely to read all the stories from people who knew him in real life. Even as someone who was only familiar with him from here, it was always apparent how many posters knew (and loved) the man behind the persona. I was on the end of a few of his (rightfully dismissive) barbs in the occasional film thread down through the years and always considered it some small honour. This place will genuinely be diminished without him. RIP

Unlike a lot of people I never really interacted with him that much on here but I remember having a beer with him and most of New York ILX in the run up to Christmas nearly 13 years ago. Like many of the internet's proudly irascible cranks he was lovely in person, but before then I don't think I'd appreciated the obvious and visible love and affection in which he was held by a group of people much younger than him, and I always read his posts differently after that.

I wish I could remember the details of our conversation but hey it was the week before Christmas and not really the kind of night you remember the details of. RIP, and condolences to the people who knew him well.

Just got the news and haven’t read these posts yet but I will. This is some shit fucking news.

RIP Morbs, I always enjoyed his inimitable ILX stylings, and it's evident from this thread that behind his veneer of irascibility he was a great guy. Condolences to all his friends & family here and elsewhere.

a beautiful thread worthy of a champion poster whose artfully-pitched interjections and the reactions they got so often delighted me. always had a soft spot for him. love you morbs x

really sad news. RIP morbs

I'm glad I met him when he came to London a few years ago, as everyone said he was lovely in person in a way that coloured my reading of his posts afterwards.

Society for American Baseball Research

They could definitely make this a bit easier - am I right in thinking that the final page is nearly entirely blank apart from a link to a pdf of your invoice?

Oh man, fuck.
I only know him from his presence here and we never interacted (as I’m mostly a lurker in the non-ILM part of town), but this hits me hard. His curmudgeonness notwithstanding, it was always clear how lovable he was and how much affection the people here who knew him irl held for him.
I was genuinely happy when he announced his return recently, and I feel like a fool now for not telling him so then.
Rest in peace, Morbs. May your spirit live on here.

Fuck... RIP Morbs, you beautiful cranky bastard.

I didn't want to know what Morbs looked like but that's somehow exactly what I imagined.

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 22, 2020 12:44 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes!

At the very east I'm glad he was taken care of by his amazing sister, who did everything and more for him, so my condolences to her as well.

I'm glad he was loved by so many. Great tributes for a great one.

wow. RIP Dr. M. you were one of my favorites here

RIP Morbs. He looks familiar, I'm sure we were at certain events together, WFMU things maybe, sorry I never got the chance to say hello.

RIP. Have always loved hearing his variegated and amusing opinions on film. A lovely thread that captures the impression he left on the people here.

he didnt suffer fools which means he didnt suffer me when i was preferring to be daft on here but that huge knowledge of something increasingly bygone was a motherload to be cherished and defended -- i'm barely even a tourist new york-wise but i like and feel i recognise j0rdan's description, of BW as a holdover from an otherwise vanishing city, a connection to something real but threatened, and a great implacable bulwark against that threat

and as everyone correctly says, he was a sweetheart and a heartbear in person -- were you actually older than me? who can say? sleep well old dude we will not see the like ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Rest in Peace Morbs - one of those people i never interacted with really here, but I liked his style. Condolences to those around him.

a fundamental part of this place has closed. rip to a legend. rename detrius morbius imo

This is extremely sad. RIP Morbs.

fuck fuck fuck

He was definitely one of the first personalities that jumped out at me when I started lurking here years ago and indelible to the character of this place. Next WFMU donation will be in his honor.

Very sad news to wake up to. His knowledge of film was astounding and his curmudgeonly presence always delighted me.

I was very lucky to meet Morbs when he came to London. We didn't know what the other looked like (there must've been some description), he didn't have a phone so I spent about 10-15 minutes walking around this full pub in central London on the lookout but right enough we spotted one another and went on to drink and talk for a few hours over film, politics and lots of gossip of course. Really sweet, although I detected some irritation at my request at the end of the evening to contribute to whatever film poll we were going to do next when he said he wasn't going to. But of course he did contribute - his grouchiness at the film poll results became a highlight of sorts for me. Like people say it came from a place of knowledge, he always wanted you to know more, to not forget that what we liked about this film was a thing already made by someone or other decades ago. Nevertheless (as Ward noted) he was always watching new stuff and engaging with it.

At the end of that evening I wish I had made plans to watch a film together, but of course there was no time. A couple of years later he posted a thread on Ritwik Ghatak, and he opened by citing my posts and that we'd see many films together if we were in the same place and its really, really true we would have.

Thanks John for posting the thread and condolences to all his family.

Rest in Peace, Bill.

Goddamn, just waking up to see this. What sad news.

I clashed with him more often than anyone else on this board, which I regret, but he was a great ILXOR and seemed like a great person I really wish I could have met in real life. RIP Morbs, this really sucks.

So sorry for all of you who have just lost a friend, its been good to read your stories. RIP morbz

he didnt suffer fools which means he didnt suffer me when i was preferring to be daft on here but that huge knowledge of something increasingly bygone was a motherload to be cherished and defended -- i'm barely even a tourist new york-wise but i like and feel i recognise j0rdan's description, of BW as a holdover from an otherwise vanishing city, a connection to something real but threatened, and a great implacable bulwark against that threat

Mark S's comment is very good. One of the things I liked most about Dr Morbius was how, from the off, he was deeply invested in things that seemed slightly old-fashioned (and the more charming for that): moviegoing (especially old black & white movies), baseball (New York Mets), maybe even newspapers.

The way Mark S describes him here strongly reminds me of Jonathan Lethem's character Perkus Tooth in CHRONIC CITY (2009). Which is more apt the more I think of it - Perkus, who eventually dies of illness, breaking his friends' hearts, is eccentric, irascible, expert in old obscure things and especially in New York, to which he has a backward-looking, dissident political commitment. Did Dr Morbius read that novel? Possibly.

Dr Morbius riled people a lot on, especially political, threads here, but I couldn't especially see why. I suppose it wasn't my world. I quite liked the fact that he insisted, not merely that politicians were all always bad, but rather that something specific and historical and had gone wrong: that US politics up to Carter or the end of the 1970s had operated within different ideological norms from what developed later. (Perhaps that's a misrepresentation of his thought, but I think he would have been one to make the point that even Nixon did things that would have appeared progressive by later standards.)

I saw Dr Morbius briefly in August 2019, on the Lower East Side with Jody. In this very passing encounter, he mentioned his experiences with cancer. Touchingly, he remembered when we'd met before and where it was: the back garden of Boxcar Lounge, East Village, June 2008. I have a couple of pictures from him from that night. I remember him commenting on his ILX name - something like 'Well, what d'you expect from a galactic villain?'. When he left, we (or maybe it was just I) called: 'Bye, Dr Morbius!'.

Bye, Dr Morbius.

Really sad to hear this. As a bit of a lurker we never crossed paths but he seemed like a good dude and he really knew his cinema. Condolences to all who knew him, RIP Dr. Morbius.

Sad to hear the news. We didn't interact much on here and I never met him but I'll miss his posts - even the snarky politics ones, some of which I used to bristle at but have increasingly come to realise that he was right all along. There are so many great stories on this thread; thanks everyone for sharing your memories.

RIP Dr Morbius and condolences to his friends, family, and verbal sparring partners, on ILX and off.

He was a better, more hopeful, less angry, and less hateful person than most of the people who went after him on this thing.

May the earth be light upon him eternally and may some of y'all's consciences be very heavy on you for a bit.

never interacted with him much but always enjoyed his views, even when I disagreed with them. He was definitely a singular presence on this board. RIP Dr Morbs and condolences to all those who knew and loved him.

I'm even sadder this morning after combing through all of the remembrances itt. A loss is always painful but moreso when there are so many people feeling it so profoundly.

The sheer amount of ILXors who crossed paths with him irl is frankly staggering. My condolences to all.

Despite our many disagreements in recent years, Bill was always extraordinarily kind and generous in our past meetings. He would show up at strange parties I was DJing and hang out with me, and once even met me outside the porn studio where I had been working and treated me to an afternoon of beers and burgers at the bike messenger bar down the street. Last time I saw him was a random event-- I was in NYC for work and visiting friends at Julius. I hadn't been posting on this board in a while. And there he was, sidled up at the bar after a film screening. We gave each other a big hug and promised to see each other soon. Nearly eight years have passed since then, and I'm really sorry we never were able to make it happen. RIP.

This is unbelievably sad but I hope his family finds comfort in how much he is loved and how his life was so full.

My last memory of Bill was seeing him one Sunday afternoon at a MOMI screening that was only 20% full and everyone was seated rows and rows apart. He waved and smiled from way downstream and we all did a pantomime of mulling over getting up and all sitting together but it was Sunday and life makes you lazy. It was enough to just be in the same room as him.

If we can draw a lesson here, it's to meet as many ILXors irl as possible.

Did Morbs post on music threads? I knew him for film, politics, and baseball, and I find myself wondering today what he liked musically.

I only remember him really loving Stephin Merritt/The Magnetic Fields.

As a long time reader/occasional poster, Morbs is one of those folks (like so many of you on here) who I pay attention to with interest when he talks about subjects close to his heart. Film, in this case, I know nothing about Baseball.

I would follow up on things he brought to light and without having any direct exchange with Morbs, he tangibly expanded my appreciation of certain corners of that world. He was a pillar of ILX. So, thanks Bill, and go gently.

Dan Petersen, one of the more remarkable things about him hanging out with me at DJ gigs was that I was often playing Ableton techno/house sets to crowds of drunk 20-somethings like myself, and he didn't care much for the music I was playing...but he hung out with me anyway.

iirc he was a Replacements fan and would post about them and other 80s US underground bands, no doubt others will know a lot more though

Absolutely a foundational ILX figure for me and though I've never met anyone here irl near the top of my list of posters with whom I would want to have a drink.

I only tangled with him once here when his constant withering political fury drove me over the line and the short exchange taught me how smart he was and not to tug on superman's cape.

RIP, Dr. Morbius. When our Mets finally win the World Series again I will be thinking of you.

RIP

Beautiful picture, and lovely words from j0rdan where I heard about this on twitter. Thx Jordan

i hate to hear this. loved him so much. he was the ilxor for me whose in person personality seemed to differ the most from his online one - he seemed so fun and loveable in person, but then after meeting him i realized that's what he was like online too, i'd just been reading him wrong. learned a lot from him about such diverse things.

I’m so sad. This thread is beautiful. Bill was an essential part of NYC visits to me, even if we only chatted for a few minutes or were in the same space for a few hours. I haven’t been to NYC is about 7 years, sadly, bc life. I’m glad I got to see a baseball game with him once, and sad we never got the Expos back here in Montreal because I would definitely have gone to games at the big O if he’d come up for them. He was a grounding presence to me, always smart, always kind. I wish he could’ve met my kid; I think he would have made him laugh. He had a good laugh. Sigh. Rest In Peace, Morbs.

RIP, Dr. Morbius. When our Mets finally win the World Series again I will be thinking of you.

― He was very mean to Mr. Chamillionaire (PBKR), Thursday, October 22, 2020 8:18 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

my baseball fandom is waning a bit but this..
always valued his film posts and loved reading yall's remembrances

terrible, terrible news. RIP Dr Morbius

He was one of the first people to engage with me on here, in a film results thread, haha
We were scathing about each other’s opinions but I could have been anyone and his engagement was a type of generosity. Later we were left-liberal or left of liberal in the Obama years, a somewhat lonely position. now all of witter is dsa, ml or anarcho-communist ofc. I always felt a bond with him in threads from jean simmons to Louis Malle. fondly remembered

count me among those who occasionally butted heads with him and didnt have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. but seeing everyone -- including some very missed old regulars -- and their stories of shared experiences and passions...it enhances the myth and legend of dr morbius for me. this board and this world are lesser for his absence.

Very sad news but glad to hear how well loved he was, condolences to all who knew him. This place won't be the same without him.

If we can draw a lesson here, it's to meet as many ILXors irl as possible.

Despite what you're reading, we're all still figments of your imagination, Ned.

It is (or at least was) easy to do if you live in a big city that attracts tourists and have a social life that's built around cultural events, and it certainly sounds like Morbs had that.

It's also astonishing to think that you can post on the same message board as someone for 15-20 years and still miss aspects of their character that are there plain to see, I had no idea he was one of ILX's go-to baseball experts, for example.

Very sad news. You all who knew him off the board have my sincere sympathies--I'm also jealous, these stories about him are deeply touching and we shared a lot of interests (we also clearly read many of the same blogs during the W years--e.g., I had actually heard of Perrin before ilx). As many have said, he was a pillar around here and, due to my habit of reading old threads after watching classic movies, I may have read more from him than almost any other poster. I doubt I registered much as a poster for him, but I will miss him.

Did Morbs post on music threads?

I can't think of any specific examples, but sometimes in his very infrequent appearances on ILM, I think you saw a bit more clearly the gentleness others have been giving such wonderful testimony to.

Despite what you're reading, we're all still figments of your imagination, Ned.

I have met Ned in person, and let me tell you, you never forget how lovely and luxurious that mane is once you witness it

Essential to understanding Bill was his coming of age in every sense at the dawn of the Reagan era. The Democratic Party he read about and experienced -- the union-strong FDR coalition -- was in its death throes. Then AIDS happened. There's no way around the fact that he came across as a irascible curmudgeon because he grew tired of having to repeat himself as the consequences of those death throes and Reagan's influence spiraled past the GOP and into younger Dems and liberals. That's why I keep coming back to my definition of a cynic: a closet sentimentalist frustrated by the stubbornness with which life doesn't match one's ideals. Lord knows we fought in person and on this board: we shared a sensibility but not taste. But I know he respected and loved me, and part of those things means annoyance that I couldn't see things his way lol.

To his immense credit, Bill's passion for film and baseball kept him alive in every sense until his body couldn't anymore.

RIP to the good Dr Morbius. Condolences to those who knew him. Will miss him here, especially on baseball threads. He got me to dip my toe into sabermetrics, before i found myself overwhelmed and dipped out again. So many great reminiscences itt. Thanks especially to j0rdan for his.

I think his presence on ILM is more focussed than infrequent - 36 posts on the 2020 WFMU Fundraising thread.

I think you saw a bit more clearly the gentleness others have been giving such wonderful testimony to.

Yeah, up to a point: Regis Philbin "When You're Smiling"

I just meant he was obviously less invested in ILM. And while Regis Philbin isn't really the kind of ILM thread I had in mind, I did say "sometimes" :)

rip morbz!

Believe there will be an WFMU tribute early next month. I can say no more.

It's no exaggeration to say that I've slowly come to take those scratchy, juddering, old-timey no-color films more seriously in part due to his needling. I doubt I would have so much pre-WWII film in my collection without his influence.

I love when I go to log some obscure '30s short subject on Letterboxd and see that Bill was among the single-digit number of people who've done likewise. It happens a lot. And I hope it continues to happen a lot.

When it comes to Jerry Lewis there's only the French left now :(

Did a Gmail search and found an 2008 email from Bill, subject line "Indie Juno crap," with a link to an article about what "indie" means in the context of the movie Juno (a very 2008 topic and one I was especially interested in at the time). "Wow John," he wrote, "better your interests than mine..."

It's a small thing, but I think it says a lot about him: He couldn't help being dismissive, but I'm touched that he saw something and thought to send it to me.

Gutted. I've got nothing more to say other than The King of Comedy is as great as he promised.

Heartbroken

He also seemed to have more than a passing familiarity with and affection for pre-rock modes of popular music and cabaret culture. I remember him once praising the lyrical stylings of Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

This is very sad, I will miss Dr. Morbius very much.

thanks to everyone who knew him irl for your posts, he always seemed the curmudgeon with a heart of gold and i'm glad to hear that he was.

don't have anything to add other than he will be greatly missed, i consider him one of the handful of real ilx legendary posters and the few times i sparred with him sufficiently in a politics thread to have him snap back at me i was secretly kind of thrilled to be on the receiving end one of his volleys.

RIP morbs the internet won't be the same without you.

Sad to hear this. It's really nice to read all of these beautiful remembrances.

Oh, Bill. He let me like my dumb martial arts movies and even took me to a kung-fu film fest once--pearls before swine, given my ignorance about any kind of film. Another time, we saw "Kiss Me, Kate" in 3-D at the Lincoln Center Theater just because we could, on a week day when everyone else was working and the other 5 people in the theater were obvious retirees.

I skated over his most venomous posts because they just didn't register as coming from the gentle, affable friend I knew, who knew everyone, it seemed, and knew a lot about everything. His lifelong rejection of cell phones and his perambulations around NYC while he waited for the rest of us to show up to places are just a small piece of the legend.

before then I don't think I'd appreciated the obvious and visible love and affection in which he was held by a group of people much younger than him

Bill met all of us where we were and whatever we were interested in, generously sharing everything he knew on a variety of subjects, and never foregrounding himself. It was years before I realized, as someone whose gay friends were mostly much younger, that Bill had lived through AIDS in NYC when a generation was lost, and what that meant to who he became.

As always, he's gone down the road a little ahead of us and will no doubt have some caustic observations to share when we catch up.

I think I think of "how fast could i k.o. this chickenshit hillbilly?" about once a month

RIP Morbs
In honor should post some Dennis Perrin tweets

wow in orbit thank you for writing that ;_;

RIP. Dr. Morbius. A legend of ILX.

Damn, this thread makes me misty all over again every time I open it.

I think I think of "how fast could i k.o. this chickenshit hillbilly?" about once a month

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, October 22, 2020 11:00 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It only grows more relevant with time. That and "you *will* sequentially meet me and Brooklyn pavement" are evergreen.

may some of y'all's consciences be very heavy on you for a bit.

― Three Word Username, Thursday, October 22, 2020 7:36 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

one of the things that made Morbz great is he would never post something this smarmy

Agreed.

For real. Morbs was not afraid of conflict and he was always 100% himself whether people liked it or not. He wasn’t some wilting flower people should feel guilty about arguing with.

We mourn the loss of Bill Weber, a beloved member of the WFMU family. His sister wrote: "A champion of the oppressed, Bill fought for the rights of all people 'othered' - LGBTQ+, Black, Brown, disabled, imprisoned, asylum seeking. Bill loved his NY Mets, WFMU, SABR, & film." 1/2. pic.twitter.com/QxlldOWvBN

— WFMU (@WFMU) October 22, 2020

Bill was a dedicated WFMU supporter and volunteer for decades, and a welcome presence at our Record Fairs and fundraising marathons. He was also a big part of the ILX community, and we share in their sorrow over his passing after facing a challenging illness for many years. RIP.

— WFMU (@WFMU) October 22, 2020

<3

just donated $20 to WFMU

$20 that won't go to Joe Biden, no better tribute.

This is heartbreaking. And there’s so many lovely posts in this thread.

I thought of Morbs frequently while reading the compilation of NY Press movie reviews, musing that Morbs really seemed like the best kind of synthesis of '90s-era Cheshire and White sensibilities.

x-post Nah, some of you are playing like it was loving fun and on your part it very clearly wasn't. There was real nasty, nasty shit aimed at Bill and it's self-serving to pretend there wasn't. I said you consciences should be heavy, but I have no reason to expect it will happen. Just expressing my disgust at some of the self-serving hagiography the way Bill would, I like to think.

shut the fuck up

There's the true face, you shitbirds.

cool tribute you sanctimonious prick

fp-ing and moving on

Just saw this. I'm a sporadic poster and had few if any direct interactions with him, but I knew he was dealing with cancer and was glad that he'd gone to be with family — was glad to know that he had family who'd care for him! Always sensed the world had really changed in a profoundly dispiriting way for him, as Alfred suggests, and admired his sheer persistence despite it. I read the occasional review he did on Slant and would be kind of surprised by how smart and sensible he sounded when here he seemed so much to be a needle in people's sides! But he was a quintessential presence on this board, and I'm particularly sorry to hear of his passing for all of you who've been close to him over the years. RIP.

fp-ing and moving on

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

otm. neither the time nor the place for that kind of thing.

I knew he was dealing with cancer and was glad that he'd gone to be with family — was glad to know that he had family who'd care for him!

We commiserated a couple times on how our nieces charmed and exasperated us as gay bachelors.

Alfred, your tribute was lovely. Slow curtain. The end.

I detest cheap sentiment.

Thanks, Eric. It's you and me now, kid.

Killer to killer.

I remember us throwing back G&Ts at Julius', and very shortly after that seeing Julius' major supporting role in "Can You Ever Forgive Me" and realizing CYEFM is as much as a Bill Weber New York Fever Dream of a movie as I've ever watched -- it's utterly within his universe. That stubborn tenacity of being the kind of aging New Yorker who writes Tallulah Bankhead biographies no one reads and chats with the bartender as the afternoon light streams through the window of the battered old gay haunt.

Was happy when he finally started The Sopranos (library copy) and for once had nothing snarky to say about contemporary television, since he knew and recognized the New Jersey terrain so well. Good to see a different side of him in those threads.

i really looked up to him in spite of having a few bad interactions with him over the years. i thought of him as one of a few parental figures on the lgbtq threads. i'm sadder than i thought i would be just because i didn't apologize or connect with him beyond the bullshit. weird how someone can approach being 'family' even when you don't make enough of an effort. really nice to read all the tributes.

gb I was thinking about Morbs and that movie when I was lying awake last night contemplating the end and feeling isolated, provincial, ungenerous, and unambitious. xxp

Underneath the Morbs persona he was truly a scholar & from all accounts an IRL gentleman. He was one of my few almost-peers back in the classic ilx day, we bonded on vintage NYC anecdotage and didn't agree on much else but I respected his perspective. I knew he had health issues from his discreet FB posts, but hoped he was on the mend. So his loss is a sad shock. fuck 2020

I wish I had talked to Dr Morbius more about Jack Benny

xp map

don't feel too bad, map. sometimes just continuing to be there (here) says a lot. i think it definitely said a lot about bill, over the years, that he kept coming back too. around the time i joined ilx, it seemed like he was battling half of the board (sometimes the other way around, too). i think i probably said some mean or unfair things to him then, a couple of times, almost as a rite of passage. he never mentioned any of that stuff to me (and i hoped he had forgotten). he really was familial, in that way, and i'm sure if you would have met him, map, he would have been the same way toward you.

Pseu Braun giving a very sweet tribute to Bill right now on WFMU.

lol she just shouted out ilx and "Dr. Morbius"

RIP Morbius. One of my favorite posters ever here.

thanks km

RIP Dr Morbs

Always true to himself.

It's good to see so many of you got the chance to spend time with him in the real world and have such great memories.

Aw man, this is such sad news. I always loved having an unabashed leftist like Morbs on the politics threads. This place will be diminished without him.

one of the more remarkable things about him hanging out with me at DJ gigs was that I was often playing Ableton techno/house sets to crowds of drunk 20-somethings like myself, and he didn't care much for the music I was playing...but he hung out with me anyway.

lol just remembered when he came to a DJ night i did in brooklyn - i played this house-y edit of "you make loving fun" and he came up to me and said "what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??"

hahah

lol

that's great

finally had a chance to read all of this, very touching

ahaha, excellent.

of all the ILXors to be a dependable supporter of various ILXor DJ nights, he's not the first person I would've thought of.

"what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??"

:D

What a loss.
Rest in peace, Morbs.

Terrible news. RIP Morbs.

I didn't interact all that much with Dr Morbius on ILX, but one of the threads we would both post on was the "fuck cancer" thread, a sentiment that remains as true as ever. RIP Morbs. Fuck this year.

it was only a few nights ago that I found myself looking at ilxor.com for the first time in a looooooong, loooooong time, and thought about dr. morbz; mentioned it to gr80 and he told me he wasn't well. then 36 hours later, this news.

we never really got along and it is clear to me I never really "got" the guy the way so many of you did, and I regret that. I think there was one time, maybe in toronto, where our paths almost crossed and he invited me to join some folks for drinks—all I could think was, I thought this guy hated me! why would I join him?

of course, like so many moments in my life I can think of... I was being an idiot.

loved reading everyone's remembrances. hope you are all reasonably well and healthy in this harrowing time.

Without going into much personal detail, my family and I just spent an agonizing five days awaiting some test results which, thankfully, came back negative. Got to spend the following day elated, and then this news came through. Fuck cancer.

The Salon headline about Pauline Kael has been floating in my head all day -- "A gift for effrontry." Morbs, more than just about anyone else here who wasn't an out-and-out troll, had that.

One of the greats!

I have many photos of Bill, but I ain't in them. But I love this one taken last year:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs36FvBH-nytYV77XjOvAmXqsSTMXR4Q2ZZ0AM0/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs36FvBH-nytYV77XjOvAmXqsSTMXR4Q2ZZ0AM0/

Private Account! (I don't even own an insta!)

I thought I did it right this time. Hold.

It might be easier sharing them via twitter, Alf. There is no sign in requirement like with insta.

Right. Here's my little obit to him, with said photo. It's not so fresh because I used a few lines here.

I wish I had talked to Dr Morbius more about Jack Benny

― all cats are beautiful (silby), Friday, 23 October 2020 3:18 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is reminding me to good look for those threads where he talked about old radio shows. There’s some absolute gold in there.

This has really ambushed me emotionally. I regret never meeting him in person, but Bill was one of the most fun people to argue with. I am going to miss his wit and crankiness. I had to post this here because you all are the ones who are going to understand.

I want to post a heart emoji here but I can feel his disapproval already

haha yeah i've been alternating between feeling mushy and rolling my eyes at myself all day.

I’m not much of a poster but have been lurking for 10+ years. He was among the most distinct and singular posters on this board, his voice was strong (and funny!) and he’s leaving a big void. I will miss him very much.

That's a really beautiful obit, Alfred.

I haven't been to the fuck cancer thread in awhile.

Reading his posts over there and, whew. Definitely not the same guy who once asked me how much I ejaculated whenever Obama gave a speech.

did he ever completely get through The Sopranos to the end? I used to think it very amusing that in the era of the binge-watch, that even years after acknowledging he liked it - he still seemed to be on season 2 or 3, bless him!

this is sad, I'm sorry to see this. I had no idea what his real name was, but I saw Ally post this on Twitter and I just now made the connection. Awful.

I love when I go to log some obscure '30s short subject on Letterboxd and see that Bill was among the single-digit number of people who've done likewise. It happens a lot. And I hope it continues to happen a lot.

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 22, 2020 10:16 AM bookmarkflaglink

same.

It was Halloween night, a Saturday, 2015. The Mets were playing Game 4 of the World Series at home against the Kansas City Royals. I didn't have tickets to the game, but I went to Citi Field just to check out the atmosphere. The New York Post was giving out free orange towels with Go Mets! written on them. I picked an extra one up for Bill, who I was meeting later at the Station Bar in Woodside, because he wanted to watch the game in Queens and watch the Mets in their natural habitat. When I met Bill, I proudly presented him the towel. He looked at it witheringly and scoffed, "Baseball fans don't wave rally towels!" He did not accept the gift. The Station Bar, which Bill had traveled over an hour from Brooklyn to get to, was boring and kind of sad that night (as it is most nights--I'm not sure why we picked it), so after a while we went to my local in Sunnyside, where he proceeded to bicker about baseball facts with a friend of mine. The Mets lost the game, 5-3, and the next night they lost the series. The Mets haven't made the World Series since then, though they did make the postseason the next year. I never again attempted to gift Bill a dreaded towel.

I often ran into Bill at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. I live nearby, but he took the messed up weekend trains, when delays and out-of-service lines extended and frustrated his travel time. Neither the journey nor the weather ever dissuaded him. I often saw him at MOMI on his second screening of the day, when he had come from Film Forum or MOMA or Lincoln Center. As others have said, he continued doing the things he loved even after his diagnosis, and I'm sure he saw at least double the movies I saw in theaters over the years. We lost touch in recent years, but I felt like he would always be traversing the city, hitting the revival film circuit, and I would run into him again, ready to be schooled on baseball, film, or any other topic. I lost my mom to cancer in 2013, and while she got longer than Bill, I can't get over the unfairness and sadness of this disease. Thanks to everyone who has shared memories--it's so nice to read about peoples' experiences. But how did I not know about Julius' Bar?

I just saw the news on Twitter and immediately came here. This is terrible. Thank you for these posts; they’re lovely. I was not close to him, on ilx or in life, but he always seemed so fully human in his posts here, so smart and so puzzling. Just want to echo some of you that I got my feelings hurt at his posts in politics threads at times, but he was right about everything, and I was an idiot.

What a good life he seems to have lived.

Nah, some of you are playing like it was loving fun and on your part it very clearly wasn't. There was real nasty, nasty shit aimed at Bill and it's self-serving to pretend there wasn't. I said you consciences should be heavy, but I have no reason to expect it will happen. Just expressing my disgust at some of the self-serving hagiography the way Bill would, I like to think.

― Three Word Username, Friday, October 23, 2020 2:33 AM (five hours ago)

lolol at the idea that Morbs wasn't at least 3x more unwarrantedly nasty to anyone than they were to him

I remember us throwing back G&Ts at Julius', and very shortly after that seeing Julius' major supporting role in "Can You Ever Forgive Me" and realizing CYEFM is as much as a Bill Weber New York Fever Dream of a movie as I've ever watched -- it's utterly within his universe. That stubborn tenacity of being the kind of aging New Yorker who writes Tallulah Bankhead biographies no one reads and chats with the bartender as the afternoon light streams through the window of the battered old gay haunt.

― A Smedley Adoption (get bent), Friday, October 23, 2020 2:54 AM (five hours ago)

thanks for this comment, JB - not only in its own quiet poetry, but for helping a few more of us to contextualise the bar being cited so often itt.

Reading his posts over there and, whew. Definitely not the same guy who once asked me how much I ejaculated whenever Obama gave a speech.

hahaha

did he ever completely get through The Sopranos to the end? I used to think it very amusing that in the era of the binge-watch, that even years after acknowledging he liked it - he still seemed to be on season 2 or 3, bless him!

aw man, I don't think he ever finished Twin Peaks S3 either

Haha oh man. Such principles! :/

He really reminds me of this passage in Oliver Wendell Holmes' 'Poet at the Breakfast-Table':

He stirs me up, and finds me occupation in various ways, and especially, because he has good solid prejudices, that one can rub against, and so get up and let off a superficial intellectual irritation, just as the cattle rub their backs against a rail (you remember Sydney Smith's contrivance in his pasture) or their sides against an apple-tree (I don't know why they take to these so particularly, but you will often find the trunk of an apple-tree as brown and smooth as an old saddle at the height of a cow's ribs). I think they begin rubbing in cold blood, and then, you know, l'appetit vient en mangeant, the more they rub the more they want to. That is the way to use your friend's prejudices.

I too have been to The Station Bar with Morbius. I'm pretty sure it was before a game, when the Mets were still playing at Shea.

The eulogy and short playlist-for-Bill on WFMU Pseu's Thing with a Hook today (starts around 24:00) was just lovely (and had me feeling intensely nostalgic) ;_;

Alfred, your obit is truly lovely. Thanks. x

re: rrrobyn's post:

https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/97785

The reference to Can You Ever Forgive Me? is soooo otm. I associate Morbs w/the Manhattan 1980-1997 where you grabbed a martini in the middle of the afternoon in a Midtown bar after a Visconti retrospective, reading the NYROB before they piled up.

Alfred, your obit is truly lovely. Thanks. x

― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_)

Thanks, jed and tangenttangent,

He finished twin peaks, liked it, and said something like “50% shit like most lynch” iirc

Agreed with others, Alfred, and that photo of Bill and J0rdan is lovely.

He finished twin peaks, liked it, and said something like “50% shit like most lynch” iirc

phew!

From Pseu's on-air eulogy: Bill will be buried in his favorite WFMU t-shirt.

and pants!

Listening to that eulogy and literally lold when the DJ said he was always thoughtful and measured online.

Lurked and posted here under various names for fifteen years or so, and this is really very sad to hear. His humour and attitude made him one of the personalities that you really couldn't miss. A piece of ilx is now missing.

I honestly couldn’t tell if she was being tongue in cheek or what ha

xp

haha i dunno that sounds like a parting shot to me lol

Listening to that eulogy and literally lold when the DJ said he was always thoughtful and measured online.

:D

and she leads straight into "i need a new heart". it's a lovely tribute to him.

Will miss his withering contempt in general, but especially for people that don't appreciate Spielberg.

Lmao I literally told the story of him calling me a vacuous tart/whore (would change depending on the convo!) because of my opinions on Spielberg just a few weeks ago on a work call, weirdly. I will never back down, sorry Bill.

He gave my kid a little Mr Magoo doll when he was a baby; he still plays with it and every time I hear it talk it cracks me up. I don't even know where he got it or where one would even think to get such a doll! I put it out on his little display shelf in his room today and it cheered me up.

Really sweet, although I detected some irritation at my request at the end of the evening to contribute to whatever film poll we were going to do next when he said he wasn't going to. But of course he did contribute - his grouchiness at the film poll results became a highlight of sorts for me.

When we all met up for drinks the director poll was going on and he did have a quick mock-rant at the placement of Ford (he also had just come from seeing phantom thread and was fulsome in his praise: “best American film in x years”) (can’t remember x sorry)

The other thing xyz’s quote reminds me of is that I would always have a go at him for always loudly announcing that he wouldn’t vote in the annual film polls that he always voted in, and he would always tell me to piss off - and then last year he randomly apologised to me about it. It was v weird cause whatever he said to me won’t have been worse than “go fuck yourself” and the thing I was carping about was really only an extension of his classic announcing he was leaving the room bit

We definitely had way more unpleasant interactions at an earlier point; I don’t remember any of the things he said to me then, I reckon just generic gfy stuff again, I guess I didn’t warrant anything quotable - but I remember well him saying to me “take care of yourself, please.”

We weren’t pals but now I wish we were

Aw Mr Magoo <3

Is there a link to the eulogy?

yep: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/97785

it starts about 20, 21 minutes in

When I met Bill, I proudly presented him the towel. He looked at it witheringly and scoffed, "Baseball fans don't wave rally towels!" He did not accept the gift.

lmao

"Is there a link to the eulogy?"

I lost a good friend in Bill Weber yesterday: a part of a vanishing NYC, a film historian of astonishing debts, a fiery liberal, a warm dude. I'm fortunate to have met him a half dozen times. https://t.co/V51IOcFL4n

— Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (@SotoAlfred) October 22, 2020

oops sorry, misunderstood. thanks calzino!

it might me be me who misunderstood the question, god knows!

nice words, Alfred

I don't know what he would think about being called a "fiery liberal" haha

oh so that's why I heard a burst of static in the stream there

That’s a beautiful post, Alfred.

i've been thinking about what s1ocki said, like, "i thought this guy hated me!" years and years ago morbs mentioned on some thread (not replying to me; i don't think i was even on the thread) that i "seemed like a good kid" even if i seemed to dislike him. i think we had argued on a couple of film threads and i had called him some nasty names. i was stunned when i saw that he had such kind words for me, given that i don't think i had ever said anything particularly kind to him at all. that left an impression and even tho i certainly sparred with him again after that i tried to keep that moment in mind. but i don't think i ever thanked him for saying that; i guess i always figured eventually i might meet him and we could hash it out in person. so it goes.

(thinking about the story now i'm also a bit melancholy thinking of a time when someone could call me a "kid" without being ironic about it.) 

One time he referred to me on here as "one of you Brits" (or something like that), and after being shocked to learn I'm from Texas, he said I was 'Spiritually British'.

lmao

hahaha! i'm sorry, but that is great

lmao

Some absolutely lovely tributes on this thread. I only hope morbz knew in life just how liked, loved, and appreciated he was. I had very few direct interactions with him (I’m neither a film buff, baseball fan or political junkie) but he was such a distinct personality on ilx, he was impossible not to know. I lol’d over many of his posts and noticed he wasn’t stingy with words of support when someone was having a particularly rough time. I can only imagine how devastating his loss is for those of you who knew him well.

Rest In Peace, Morbz. I’m glad you at least won’t have to suffer through the total shitshow that is coming after nov 3.

Man, it was even better than that [Context: I sniped at him for saying that The Good, Bad And The Ugly didn't have enough memorable scenes in the Action Films Poll]

I did not forget any (OK, not all) of those from GB&U, Grisso (jeezus where do you Brits get these handles?). I simply think they pale next to the climax.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 17, 2012 3:09 PM (eight years ago)

Oh, I see.

Also, I'm from Texas and the handle you singled out is my IRL last name.

― Mike Love Costume Jewelry on Etsy (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, February 17, 2012 3:24 PM (eight years ago)

nevertheless, Grisso, you are spiritually British, if I may use an oxymoron.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 17, 2012 3:32 PM (eight years ago)

sorry to hear this; I didn't know him well but I did work with him for some time. condolences to those who did.

I remember he popped up on one of our baseball threads and congratulated me on becoming a father after my daughter was born. I guess he saw on facebook and maybe that was his way of letting the sub know 🤷‍♂️
I was a simple thing, but was not expecting it from him and I appreciated it.

this was the encouraging exchange i referenced upthread (edited a bit). was very nice since I ribbed him a lot.
----------

woke up in the hospital this morning due to alcohol intoxication. yep, major changes forthcoming in my life.

― Neanderthal, Monday, July 25, 2016 4:31 PM bookmarkflaglink

Neanderthal, you can do it. I had a similar exp about 4-1/2 years ago, haven't been blackout drunk since....

Good luck, KM! :/

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 25, 2016 4:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

this post of his got to me, I wanted to be reassured:

"I'd like to thank everyone who was shown support for me during my current medical crises in any way whatsoever. It's humbling and so deeply enriching just to feel loved, and so many of you have done that for me. (ie, I am back in the bosom of my family after spending several trying stints in the hospital.) I hope I can see you all in forthcoming times.

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Thursday, September 10, 2020"

hope we can all see you in forthcoming times, morbs

yeah it was great to hear from him, that's kinda the post that broke me last night, remembering it

In the Fuck cancer thread, when I came back with an update on my surgery and other things, he wrote, "glad to hear you're living well, fella!"

Punch me in the gut.

Ha the

One time he referred to me on here as "one of you Brits" (or something like that), and after being shocked to learn I'm from Texas, he said I was 'Spiritually British'.

:)

Rest in peace, Bill.

Condolences to everyone.

makes me happy to see former ilx posters here again

I feel like I should honor his memory by actually forcing myself to watch all the amazing movies that I haven’t had the attention span for during the pandemic. I own multiple Ozu movies and haven’t seen a single one!

i watched The General for the first time, last night

It’s so good, I should watch it again (or watch all the Keaton I’ve never seen).

Oh my, I will miss his posts on movies. His knowledge was intimidating. I respect that. Condolences to those close to him.

Oh no. I never met him but will miss his thoughts on movies, WFMU, the Mekons, other early 80s music , and even politics.

watched Ford's Mister Roberts tonight, wish I could ask him about it

Realizing now that yet another thing to love about ILX is that Morbs may be gone but years of his history with the community are still here, cast in amber and ripe for revisitation. I've found some comfort in recognizing that this evening.

Yes, completely otm

Yup, can't wait to comb the archives for how many different times he ripped me to shreds in the last 16 years.

Aw flappy Mister Roberts is an old fav of mine. <3 Jack lemon. Would have loved to hear his thoughts on it too.

yep: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/97785

it starts about 20, 21 minutes in

― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Thursday, 22 October 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Thanks I really enjoyed that, maybe Bill was measured on ILM idk :)))

Um, Alfred, “astonishing debts”?

Realizing now that yet another thing to love about ILX is that Morbs may be gone but years of his history with the community are still here, cast in amber and ripe for revisitation. I've found some comfort in recognizing that this evening.

Someone that I never got to know very well was Rickey Wright, "If Timi Yuro would be still alive..."

Yet, I come across posts of his all the time that I OTM. That guy's been gone for ten years, and I feel like I've only gotten to know him better since then.

(Well, gotten to know "If Timi Yuro would be still alive..." I don't want to say I know Rickey Wright any better.)

I usually read ILX just from bookmarked threads so took me a while to see this. What a loss. I'm so sorry for all those who knew him well, and for everyone here, really. I remember a few years ago being exasperated with Morbs on film threads as I wrongly had him down as a miseryguts who just hated everything, but in recent times I'd turned around and he became one of my favourite posters. I knew the cancer was bad but I guess I never quite believed this was imminent. Love to all.

Is there an ilxor memorial thread, maybe with links to the R.I.P. thread of people we lost? That might be worth having if there isn't.

that's a nice idea

Yeah! Like an ILX Memorial Garden.

Morbs
Bimble
Rickey Wright
Martin Skidmore
Laura/Ms. Laura (?) [Was killed in the London terror attacks]

There has to be more...

Laura/Ms. Laura (?) [Was killed in the London terror attacks]

Liz D.

Thanks. What 15 years does to memory.

There was an Ask A Drunk regular who died a long time ago as well iirc

Maybe a sub-board with reminisces? Provide walls and a separate space to delineate purpose and manner?

Jack Cole:

Where is jack cole? Will you make us poetry?

that was "gygax" right?

aka Steve Shasta? geez memory is hazy

I don't believe so. Jack Cole lived in Portland and Steve Shasta lived on the beach in Malibu iirc.

no, those are 3 different people I'm 99% sure

actually Steve Shasta talks about hanging with jack Cole in that thread

ah, thanks.

The AAD regular was Zen Clown, but such is the anarchic spirit of his RIP thread that it's hard to know whether he was a real person who died or a construct/sock/etc. Anyway we should probably do this somewhere else and give the floor back to poor dear Morbs

no, those are 3 different people I'm 99% sure

― here comes the hotstamper (jim in vancouver), Friday, October 23, 2020 2:12 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haa

nick k-reg

gygax! is the same as steve shasta but jack cole was not either of them

george gosset

wasn't there someone who pretended to die in 9/11

we're straying further from the light here folks :)

this is such a sweet thread, thanks to everyone who has posted in it. still very sad about bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVsW_6AomOQ

no, those are 3 different people I'm 99% sure

― here comes the hotstamper (jim in vancouver), Friday, October 23, 2020 2:12 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haa

― lag∞n, Friday, October 23, 2020 11:35 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

doh. I guess maybe gygax ere Steve Shasta might be before my time

GODDAMMIT ALL TO HELL. Fuck this is sad. I haven’t been on ILX in a couple days so I’m late to this. It warms my heart to find out that Morbs was nowhere near the asshole in real life that he portrayed online and was actually rather sweet. Fuck. RIP you cantankerous bitter old crank. Fuck cancer.

still kind of a bit in shock about it. expect to see him sparring in the US politics thread, or posting dick Nixon twitter

doh. I guess maybe gygax ere Steve Shasta might be before my time

― here comes the hotstamper (jim in vancouver), Friday, October 23, 2020 3:54 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i didnt know the answer either just thought the exchange was funny

I wonder who'll tend to the Ernie Kovacs thread?

I might take over that responsibility, in honor of my old friend, if you will have me.

watching movies is depressing knowing that he's dead

fuckin hell, I feel his absence

I was wondering whatever happened to Steve Shasta today.

Also, got together with the person who introduced me to ILX (who no later nger posts, afaik) tonight, and we had a beer for Bill

aw that’s lovely <3

The kind of guy you see the Mekons with in 2009 and he tells you what it was like to see them in 1989. The kind of guy who'd explain the correct way to hate Ed Koch. A kind of guy we're running out of.

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) October 22, 2020

I didn't interact with Morbs much, and I really only post here occasionally these days. I don't think I could explain to anyone off-board why I feel so bummed out since yesterday. The best I've got is "ILX is my NYC". It's loud and confusing when you first arrive, and there are a bunch of people who seem like assholes. And there's more culture than most people could consume in a lifetime. And many of the inhabitants are people who don't just have the expertise and knowledge of some topic, they're willing to share it with you if you engage. Morbs was a pillar of what ILX means to me. It's heartening to read the fond memories of those who knew him better and I'm glad he got the wake he deserves on here.

The first NYC ilx get-together I went to, the big attraction was supposed to be a Morbius showdown with j0n williams. It’s possible Morbz had threatened to kick his ass or some such thing. (That thread is presumably still around somewhere.) in the event, there were no fisticuffs and everyone got on fine as far as I recall. But it was funny to meet Bill in person after this big blustery build-up and realize he was just a New York smart-ass.

A kind of guy we're running out of.

this made me especially sad. i hope it's not true.

The first time I met Morbius was seeing the tin drum (hated it!) With him and jw at MoMA. Had never interacted w jw but knew who he was which was awkward as he barely spoke to me and I'm a chatty Cathy. Morbius was all sweetness but it was when we went for drinks in London that I really felt I 'met' him irl and very funny and without the vinegar he could have online. I don't remember him ever being rude to me in a way that I didn't deserve and enjoy tho! I've loved reading people's recollections of him on the various threads, particularly those accounts of deadly accurate shade.

watching movies is depressing knowing that he's dead

― flappy bird, Friday, October 23, 2020

I watched a movie last night imagining his scathing appraisal of it, it comforted me thinking about that

oh that pareene tweet made me teary all over again

The first NYC ilx get-together I went to, the big attraction was supposed to be a Morbius showdown with j0n williams. It’s possible Morbz had threatened to kick his ass or some such thing. (That thread is presumably still around somewhere.) in the event, there were no fisticuffs and everyone got on fine as far as I recall. But it was funny to meet Bill in person after this big blustery build-up and realize he was just a New York smart-ass.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, October 23, 2020 5:24 PM (twenty-one minutes ago)

I was terrified of Bill & his acerbic wit until he came to my housewarming where we ended up roughhousing & became friends. Over the years, he was a fixture at my debaucherous Christmas party, no matter the weather. He was a principled crank & kind friend. 💔 https://t.co/BsWQQcm1IK

— Jon Williams (@wizardishungry) October 22, 2020

A kind of guy we're running out of.

we absolutely are, though.

i've lived in brooklyn for 14 years now but am still basically a transient newcomer. i will leave eventually, having neither left a mark or truly understood the city.

morbs arrived in nyc 40 years ago and survived aids -- something i cannot even fathom -- and gentrification and the fucking mets and became part of its fabric. he was never an auteur or hot young novelist -- he was a medical proofreader, ffs, then lost his job and was hired back as a contractor doing the same thing for much less money.

i know nothing of his life as a gay man in the 80s (or ever), apart from having certain LES ratholes pointed out to me, but he was *there*.

let's slide past his brief stand-up career because awkward

he was a *real* New Yorker who knew all that was going on, filled his life to the brim with the art that interested him, and bitched about the parts that didn't.

i'm not sure that he ever really zinged me on ilx -- perhaps because he knew it would sting me, much more likely because i was always otm.

but yeah we've run out of him, and it sucks.

Didn't he work as a reader or something in advertising too? I remember him being reluctant to start Mad Men because he'd 'been there, done that, hated it'.

oh mookie that was perfect

except the part about you always being otm but we can let that slide i guess lol

morbs arrived in nyc 40 years ago and survived aids -- something i cannot even fathom

this is the part of his biography I wish we emphasized

that's the part I can most relate to

mookie, nicely done.

morbs arrived in nyc 40 years ago and survived aids -- something i cannot even fathom

this is the part of his biography I wish we emphasized

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 23, 2020 7:20 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's the part I can most relate to

― Dan S, Friday, October 23, 2020 7:26 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I cannot relate, as I was born right as the crisis began, but I will say that I become simultaneously weepy and viciously angry even imagining what my older gay friends went through. I have a friend who has been positive for more than thirty years now, still lives in SF. I miss him terribly, and hope I get to see him again.

HIV, quietly and insistently, has shaped my outlook; it has shaped my approach to men. Having an uncle die wretchedly will do this.

hanging out with morbs and jon and tza back in 2006 was right about when i decided i was maybe gonna make it after all

<3

A lifetime ago, both Pseu Braun and Morbs were regulars on the Fake Matador Bulletin Board, a place many of us came from as ilx was growing in the early 00s. Pseu posted under the moniker "iman" and would tag team with someone else under the moniker "david bowie." They turned harassing me into a part-time hobby and, in fact, the reason I showed up at ilx lo these many years ago is because "david bowie" began posting here as me and I had to come over and put a stop to it. I never left, as it turns out.

In the years since, I've gotten to know Pseu online as herself reasonably well, so I finally asked her yesterday if it was indeed Bill who played "david bowie," as I'd always suspected.

Her response: "No, Morbius was Morbius. He stayed classy."

xpost
that was about when i met those guys too (not morbs at that point for some reason, but jw, tza, laurel, bell labs, ian, dmr and vic). weird that i didn't meet you til a bunch of years after that forks

also i was already too old and lame to really hang out much

jw became part of my d&d campaign for a couple of years though lol

xp <3

couldn't find a matt dc + morbs photo, but here he and laurel are behind ridiculous hippie max the same evening

https://i.imgur.com/yLolD0d.jpg

A kind of guy we're running out of

give me 5-10 years

In the future everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutesclaim to have been at that initial pavement-free JW/Morbius bro-down. Hoping nabisco will come back and tell us his version, as I recall he was there as well.

I went looking for photos and couldn’t find any of him, but I did find a photo of a Bill Clinton baseball I took at the presidential library in Little Rock and emailed to him.

Here's an update from Bill's sister Cathy. Good to know that Sunday breakfast is settled.

Thank you all so much for all your messages of sympathy and concern for us. Losing Bill Weber is devastating to us and I know to all of you who knew him. I just wanted to give you some info as the "official" obituary will not be published for a few days.

1. There will not be a memorial service until it is safe to do so, which sure as heck ain't now. I don't know when it will be as I don't have a crystal ball, and even if I did, I don't know how to use one. Bill implored me not to have any kind of gathering that could endanger anyone he loved; then I reminded him I am a scientist and he said, "Oh, right, of course!" Bill requested that his remains be cremated, so Bill's wishes are my command (Scientist by training, Genie as a side hustle).

2. In lieu of flowers, Bill asked that people give in any way they can (volunteering, monetary gifts, etc.) to the following organizations. So follow your inclination to support:
WFMU - wfmu.org
A freeform radio station in NJ that Bill has supported as a volunteer for decades. Many of the DJs are his closest friends. Great bunch of folks.
The Silent Clowns Film Series - silentclowns.com
NYC's Longest running showcase for classic silent film comedy. Bill's friends Steve Massa, Ben Model and Bruce Lawton run this series. It is virtual right now but post pandemic they will be back at the NY Library for the Performing Arts at the back of Lincoln Center. Ben plays live accompaniment to the films - it is quite an entertaining and unique experience.
Amnesty International - amnesty.org
Amnesty International campaigns to end abuses of human rights all over the globe. Bill has supported this organization since high school.
SABR - sabr.org
Society for American Baseball Research
This is a global organization for anyone interested in baseball. Bill has been a member for decades. If you love baseball - check them out.
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation - mmrf.org
These are the folks who fund research and drug development to treat the disease that Bill has dealt with for the last 8 years. They are a stellar organization.

3. Pancake Sunday - Bill almost always had pancakes for breakfast on Sunday. Simple, straightforward - just maple syrup on them. And Bill did not hold back on the syrup. I once said to him - "You know you just poured about $7 worth of syrup on there." And he said "Yes, don't worry." And when his pancakes where gone, he picked up his plate and drank the syrup that remained. Such a hedonist, that Bill! May I suggest you have some pancakes on Sunday morning (even if morning is 1 PM for you) and take a photo and post it as a tribute to Bill? I know he would think this was more than a little silly, but he would know right away it was me suggesting it. As Bill often said to me "You're such a girl."

I promise to post some photos and stories about Bill in the coming days and weeks. Love to all, Cathy

Thanks again, Kevin. Pancakes it is.

Memorial page: I learnt of Paul in Santa Cruz's death a few months ago.

https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/08/nauert-in-memoriam.html

couldn't find a matt dc + morbs photo, but here he and laurel are behind ridiculous hippie max the same evening

So this thread is the motherlode for pictures/memories of that night, although it appears to be 90% pictures of Max.

Also it contains this truly iconic picture of Morbs.

to the extent that Morbz thought of me at all, i'm sure it wasn't pleasant. the two of us really pissed off each other here and got into some nasty fights. so it's strange to think that we did meet IRL once and he was very nice and pleasant. and i did think that his posts on movies were always interesting and insightful.

after reading all of the touching testimonials here, i really wish that i could have patched up any bad blood that existed between us before he passed. perhaps we could've done so at a Phillies-Mets game at Citi Field, or at an old-timey movie in NYC or Jersey City.

RIP, Bill -- i will contribute some money to WFMU in your honor.

Aw, hello Tadeusz xx

Thanks Kevin. Lots of good organizations there that could always use donations, for Bill or for anyone.

Memorial page: I learnt of Paul in Santa Cruz's death a few months ago.

Oh shit, that guy was an amazing poster too. Awful news!

I had no idea that Paul in Santa Cruz was Paul Nauert-- a friend who teaches disability studies with a focus on art practices has written about him, so I've known of his work for a while.

damn... RIP, Paul.

Yeah Paul was great, we even ‘collaborated’ for the Wire tribute though he did the work, really. I last spoke with him some years ago and he was already very ill.

ALS is just awful

It is. A music writing colleague in the Terrastock fanbase -- one of the best of them, Lee Jackson by name -- died of it early last decade, a horrible thing to contemplate. We ended up putting together a tribute for him as a fundraiser.

https://forleejacksoninspace.bandcamp.com/

watching movies is depressing knowing that he's dead

― flappy bird, Friday, October 23, 2020

i've had the opposite reaction--i watched Ernst Lubitsch 'To Be Or Not To Be' (which morbs once recommended to me) and relished every second of it with renewed zeal :)

i also saw "Tetsuo: Iron Man" at the local rep/art house theatre and made a donation in Morbs' name. not sure what he thought of j-horror tho

I could take a guess.

(Actually, I vaguely remember him loving Pulse, but that could've just been his hatred of cell phones/internet/etc.)

i've had the opposite reaction--i watched Ernst Lubitsch 'To Be Or Not To Be' (which morbs once recommended to me) and relished every second of it with renewed zeal :

So you're the one they call "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt!

on the topic of Morbs being cantankerous on ilx, imho his combo of crankiness and thick-skinnedness created a foil for everyone to lob zings at. his foul mood was a fuel for comedic banter; morbs was anti-cuddlestein par excellence <3

_i've had the opposite reaction--i watched Ernst Lubitsch 'To Be Or Not To Be' (which morbs once recommended to me) and relished every second of it with renewed zeal :_

So _you're_ the one they call "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt!

lol :)

I had a few work colleagues with whom I would always often do this bit. We would both do it, as kind of a greeting.

watching movies is depressing knowing that he's dead

― flappy bird, Friday, October 23, 2020

i've had the opposite reaction--i watched Ernst Lubitsch 'To Be Or Not To Be' (which morbs once recommended to me) and relished every second of it with renewed zeal :)

That and a certain scene from Twentieth Century.

I don't really think of him as thick-skinned though? He was always leaving forever.

loved to exit with a dramatic flounce, he did

Performative thin-skinnedness. As everyone who's met him can attest, he was a sweetheart in person, albeit still quick with a quip.

He may have recognized that as part of his schtick, and gradually ran with it?

He was furious at me in 2012 (in private FB msgs) when he was tempbanned but it was all water under the bridge within a few months. His willingness to let it all fall away (and to regather it as needed) gave me a bit of insight. Crabby or not, inconsistent or not, I'll miss him as long as I post here.

What Morbs/Bill was going for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJOn9DFeINo
How he often came across:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MULMbqQ9LJ8

RIP fellow Mets fans & WFMU lover. This place won't be the same....

I always loved Morbs "leaving" a thread forever aka 12 hours

ya lol

45 minutes morelike

A brimful of Morbius.

Sunday morning in Australia. I was hoping that was a suitable amount of syrup and end up glad I bought another bottle.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jtymkwcs4h3x13n/IMG_8457.jpg?raw=1

xp lol yeah for real.

although we had irl mutuals i never got to meet him in person, to my great regret now. so while i never got to experience the irl sweetness that made his online persona click into place for so for many people, the longtime consistency of his character on ILX sort of ended up serving that function for me. Early in my posting career (an amount of years ago i dont even want to count rn) he threw some nasty stuff at me that really hurt my feelings, but as the years went on and I got a sense of the way he operated it took the sting out of it - called a worthless shithead for saying something nice about a movie he didnt like? morbs being morbs man, he's forgotten it already, so should you. I'm not sure how much I ever totally understood how sincere or in-character his posting style was or wasn't, but the fact that it was so consistent that you could set your watch to it made me understand that it was never really about 'me' - the guy liked what he liked, hated what he didnt, and if you understood that and still got into it with him, well, thats on you. He put himself out there and the rest was your move.

Pancakes and Lubitsch not a bad idea for a sunday tradition.

:) Ed

although we had irl mutuals
This is always interesting, how it works.

RIP Morbs. I had drinks with him once in Park Slope and can say he's a much more charming presence irl. ILX won't be the same without him

really happy to see you post here Extended Mix

He was almost always angry at the right things and for the right reasons, even his relentless hate-on for Obama, the most effective liberal (well, center-left) president of my lifetime. I never met him in person, and read his abrasiveness the wrong way plenty of times, but more often than not his rage was cleansing. I’m going to miss his presence here terribly.

"i have a confession to make to you, baron: you are a CROOK!": the ERNST LUBITSCH poll

I just wrote 2,500 words about Bill and I'm tapping out before I add links and more quotes. I'll post when it's up on Monday. Obviously won't mean anything next to Alfred's or anyone else's, but he really was my cinematic North Star the last five+ years. And the figure I invoke is Ben Johnson's Sam the Lion, and his final speech to the boys once they've taken advantage of Billy: direct, forthright, unsparing, never mincing words and using even fewer, indignant and disappointed about things that mattered. We have this archive on ILX, but I'm not sure I'll ever go through another end-of-year movie roundup without wondering what he would've thought about this or that movie, whether by a new filmmaker or one he liked (or loathed). Not something that can be quantified or predicted. He's had more of an influence on me than most, and Alfred is sooooo otm that one of his great attributes was NOT using "good" or "great" very often. Because when he did, I took notice.

making a half-past midnight offering to the avatars of NYC countercultural comedy

https://i.imgur.com/2tMMbTm.jpg

I do not usually have this amount of maple syrup https://i.imgur.com/W01NkXe.jpg

Never met him (or anyone else here) in real life, never interacted that much (other than a stretch where I’d fp every Nixon/Perrin tweet) but it’s always sad and endearing to see people memorializing someone they knew and loved / respected.

Fuck cancer - a former colleague, a former colleague’s husband, a good friend’s wife, and my dog have all died this year from it. Pointless and stupid and brutal.

We often make pancakes on the weekends, but I don't usually partake. Made an exception this morning. I'm not slurping down the leftover syrup, though. (Sorry Morbs.)

https://i.imgur.com/FVMJsZt.jpg

spaced out and forgot to take my picture but did join the pancake session.

re: Morbs walking out of threads: it plays better if you imagine him knowing that some variation on "i'm out" was the catchphrase for his vaudeville comedy character

https://i.imgur.com/GzAEYpL.jpg

I don't understand pancakes, so I'm glad my and Morbs' differences persist.

what’s to understand? carb & maple syrup delivery system

Eating dessert for breakfast.

I don't understand waffles, blintzes, or French toast either. I do like jam!

I made my kids French toast and took a little slug of syrup myself in Morbs' memory.

xpost What about donuts, scones and muffins?

https://accordionuprising.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/6b11f26b9c7e0e5e63ce24edccd589b4.jpg

dessert for breakfast is one of my top 5 reaons for living

shortly i will be making buttermilk pancakes for breakfast to honor the great Morbs

What about donuts, scones and muffins?

― Josh in Chicago,

No go on donuts or muffins. I might have a scone with coffee at night.

https://imgur.com/gallery/lEIDrkL
Pancakes Sunday. Real maple syrup only ever.

I am bad at ilx now
https://imgur.com/gallery/lEIDrkL

i made pancakes for dessert last night, just because i was craving pancakes and hadn't made them in ages. didn't realize i was paying tribute!

Pancakes for Morbs <3

https://imgur.com/gallery/SL8O17h

https://scontent.fphl1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/122791707_10158573219684000_7584295452374846400_o.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=2&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=Xg-ePArvTw8AX-SbjeW&_nc_ht=scontent.fphl1-2.fna&tp=6&oh=0ffbaf3655c98e2d5116e65ebef6d159&oe=5FBC31B6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BNOfL2ArR4

In the meantime, this week's The Silent Comedy Watch Party (URL above) will feature Buster Keaton's The Haunted House (1921). I'm sure Morbs had already seen it, but it should be a good show.

https://i.imgur.com/EtMg50i.jpg

RIP Morbs, I owe a lot to him.

didn't have pancakes today but am about to watch a film that he gave 5 stars to on letterboxd (that list is here: https://letterboxd.com/wjweber/films/diary/rated/5/)