M4rk Cr4ig (aka Bimble) RIP

"he was having the sort of personal problems no one here was in any way responsible for"

RIP

i never argued w/bimble but I may have teased him a few times about his intensity and as I gradually realized he was a troubled soul this made me feel guilty. but I felt a kinship w/him too, as one of my few age-group peers on the ILX. recently, since he disappeared from posting, it occurred to me what an influence he's been on my own musical thinking esp w/r/t his beloved early 80s. his infectious enthusiasm, as many have pointed out, and his incredible OPEN-NESS to musical/cultural stimuli was no IS inspiring. at the risk of sounding corny, he will live on here every time a thread revive pulls up a flurry of bimble-ness. still, he will be missed. one of the fucked up things about life is you really don't appreciate some people until they're gone. RIP, dude.

Anyway, his problems obviously went much deeper than this and had little do to with ILM. Lately, they were mostly of a purely physical nature---something regarding a risky surgery---and that affected his mood a lot.

This is so frightening to me. Without over-disclosing, a lot of physical problems over the past two years have had me in & out of really crippling depression - moodiness is one thing, but feeling abandoned by one's own body is another. Sad to know a little about what that must have been like.

I had hoped some time to see him at a show so I could tell him Christian Death stories.

Yeah, one could find his posting style occasionally exhausting etc without being his enemy; he tired me out on the gay thread (I never knew him from ILM). But I wish he had found a way to still be here.

xxpost Tuomas:

And I haven't stated otherwise.

I just think it's particularly distasteful to come into a thread like this and go "he was such a victim." It strikes me as hateful and pointless. The guy's dead and obv. that's the sort of thing you say to someone who's living as constructive criticism, but I fail to see the the goal in saying that in a thread about his death. Is that so hard to understand? To me, it's basic fucking etiquette.

I only interacted with him a couple of times on ILX and not at all off it, and we didn't really see eye to eye on those occasions. Like many people it was clear he had problems, but I had no idea what they were, or that they were this bad. You can never really tell what's going on behind the screen name and no one should beat themselves up over this.

Still, for anyone to get to this point is a horrible, horrible thing to happen. RIP. And I hope his family/loved ones are coping okay.

I chatted with Bimble a few times over AIM, and he was a really sweet and fun person. I'm crying right now typing this so I won't belabor the post. Rest in Peace, Bimble.

I'm not sure if they've been able to find family yet - when I called I got the impression that they're still looking

i basically campaigned for him to get SBed off the board, but i talked to him every weekend and we loled a lot together. anyone acting like someone doesn't have the right to post condolences on this thread is experiencing a case of "R.I.P./this-is-about-me." what kind of etiquette, turangililia, are you displaying in pointing fingers on your friend's R.I.P. thread? Let people talk about Bimble whatever way they want to. He would have loved it anyway.

This is awful - I didn't have any dealings with him outside ilx but he was always so enthusiastic about the music which seemed to me much more important than if he went over the top. And I loved it when he went over the top about JD/NO because it reminded me of what a fan should be like, what I was like, in love with the music. And his youtube thread of women in music was one of my favourite threads. Glorious in it's mess. RIP for sure.

please for the good of all concerned lets not turn this into judging how people react to news like this.

this sort of news is always terrible. RIP.

I'm not sure if they've been able to find family yet - when I called I got the impression that they're still looking

Do the police know his birth name? Does anyone here?

I don't - I'd always been curious but never asked

Wow, RIP, horrible news.

He left a post on my last.fm page saying he liked what I'd been listening to, which I took as a great compliment, because he really knew his stuff as far as I could see, as well as being a great enthusiast.

I don't know if that's the case here, but I've always felt kinda angry towards families who break contact with a family member due to him going through a process like the one Bimble went through. It's hard enough for them as it is, and I think they'd deserve as much support as possible from family and friends.

Don't jump to conclusions

it wasnt like that tuomas. His mum even paid for one op.

Okay, I'm sorry for jumping to any conclusions.

2009, what a shitty year.

RIP man.

i dunno why they stopped talking but i know he called his mum a few months back and there was no reply. No idea if he tried again.

RIP Bimble. a sweet and enthusiastic guy. out of curiosity, what was he banned for?

RIP dude

I apologize for the defensiveness, all. :(

How old was he finally?

38 i think?

Poor buddy, I loved seeing him on the AIM, in chatz or solo. He told me once he'd like to get high with me more than anyone else, which I found (very oddly) flattering. He was always a funny, friendly dude to me. I'm sure he's the only late 30s dude I could have palled around with like an old high school friend. Great taste in music, great guy. I had a singular sort of pride in him, and respect for who he was. Obv he had a very complicated inner life, and we were always comfortable hashing that out with each other, if only in a superficial way. We'd share 'buh I am so depressed' depressio moments. It's tragic that he was to the point where he got in the frame of mind that doesn't allow you to feel or see any other solution.

It was weird, we even talked about suicide once; I went on my usual rant abt how odd and foolish it is. He didn't really opine either way. I hope no one feels like they 'could have done more' (or less); imo suicide is the biggest mystery. You'll never be able to figure out why a person did it; it comes from a very rarefied interior world that is pretty much just inaccessible from any rational or even empathic view. I've had too many friends (close irl friends) commit suicide and it's the ultimate cipher. fwiw I think the best way to deal with these things is to just cherish the moments you had, and how you thought of them in the good times, and not even try to figure out why it happened. To get into is to never get out of.

RIP buddy.

He was 39.

out of curiosity, what was he banned for?

I know this is an innocent question asked from an innocent frame of mind but there are other threads that discussed this already (use the search function); I personally wld prefer that stuff not get discussed on this thread but I am pretty sensitive abt the recently deceased.

ok np

Never got to know him as I tend to lurk ILM more than really interact but he was one of my favorite characters around those parts. RIP dude.

― °⌉ 3⊥∀N (╓abies), Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:42 PM (1 hour ago)

RIP

btw, even though he was banned, he could still vote in poll threads. That made him happy!

Fuck. I didn't interact with Bimble outside ILX at all, and not all that often on ILM itself either, although we did have similar tastes in many ways and crossed paths a lot. He (caps lock) shouted at me the other month for saying PJ Harvey had mellowed and that this was OK; he didn't think it was OK. I would have agreed a few years ago but I got old. He didn't. In some ways. I don't know what he thought of me; probably that I was an idiot or cynic. Suddenly it almost seems important to me to hope that he thought I was a good guy. He was OTT a lot of the time, a hundred posts in a row on Kate Bush or whatever, but, as I said, a few years ago I'd have done that too but I got old. He didn't. He seemed like a good guy to me. I don't really talk to many people off-board unless I've met them IRL and even then not much; the whole social... politics seems the wrong word. The meta-networks that exist beyond... not just ILM or ILX, but beyond the threads I read, is quite a mystery to me. This has made me very sad. I guess if I'd paid more attention I'd have taken his OTTness for the kind of mania that does often have a counter-balance of deep, deep sadness. What has been said about his physical problems is mysterious to me as I don't know the details but, having had a couple of (minor) operations myself this year I know that feeling as if you're body isn't working, or is working against you, or isn't you anymore, is a horrible, horrible thing. I remember the black flow of dread that came up through my gut and over my shoulders when I read about hernias online and realised I had one and needed an operation and it could go wrong and fuckfuckfuck and that was a very minor problem, easily fixed, and if he experienced that feeling often then I have... or had... no, I still have, massive, massive empathy and sympathy for him. But that's speculation. He was, definitely, a huge character on ILX, a massive presence. I know other posters, much loved posters, have also died before, but this odd, distant, abstracted death of someone you only know through text on a forum doesn't get any easier to get your head or heart around. I'll miss seeing his name on the new answers page as the last person to have posted to a thread. Seeing that used to make me click a thread.

RIP Bimble. Surprised and saddened.

Saw this thread two hours ago and still don't know what to say. It's sad to think about how much he was hurting.

first time i remember noticing bimble was during all the 'in rainbows' polling being done right after the album's release. he had such a spirited presence on those threads. i never interacted w/ him directly but i definitely remember his enthusiasm for music. i'd check ILM first thing in the morning and see all these threads revived throughout the night about bands i liked. i'd open them and see bimble's exuberant posts.

rest in peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YZk-2mVB5o

Pour one out.

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

He was 39.

i got the idea he was older -- in 2008 he started an ILE thread for "ILXORS in their 50s" (basically me & aimless) though the last post there was me asking bimble how old he was. he didn't answer and i thought it was a faux pas on my part. this is all so sad.

First post I remember reading by him was something like "Chic are better than the Beatles," which was the kind of ultimate challops that brought me here in the first place.

I remember asking him wtf he ever did before youtube and he said it was a long apprenticeship in record shops and asking questions, and I guess its really just making me sad that someone who had so much enthusiasm and energy, also had a black cloud that, in the end, blocked everything else out, even if it was just for one deciding moment. I don't think anyone should be blaming anyone else here, nobody can like everyone and its pretty hard to really reach out to someone through the internet. And those that really did make some sort of meaningful connection with him, it makes me glad to know that he knew you were there, even if he was done with this world.

I'll miss seeing his name on the new answers page as the last person to have posted to a thread. Seeing that used to make me click a thread.

Yes, this. Thanks Nick, so otm.

Fuck.

Rest in peace, Bimble, you full-on, old-school, Factory-loving star.

We had occasional off-board correspondence and even from those brief e-mails it was obvious that he was a tremendously troubled soul. And I realise from this thread and from others that I didn't even know the half of it.

I think Curtis is absolutely right: regardless of what was sometimes a difficult relationship with ILX, he knew there were people here who really cared for him. And that's what matters: that so many of you were friends to him and did everything you could to help him.

Nobody here has let him down; no matter what support ILXers offered him, his troubles transcended that.

He will be thrilled to meet tony wilson and ian curtis at last. I hope they appreciate him

I liked a world with Bimble in it better than I like the world without Bimble, but I don't have to live Bimble's life

Two sentiments beautifully put.

RIP, Mark.

I never had contact with Bimble outside of ILM either, but he always seemed to be around in the middle of the night (which I now realize is because Seattle is 3 time zones west of me). I was there when he'd get really excited about some band and create a thread just for them, asking for recommendations or when he'd play a record and essentially live blog the experience through successive posts. Our tastes were very similar, and I appreciated that a great deal.

Still, even without ever really knowing Bimble/Mark, he reminded me of another person I knew only by online contact a few years ago. There was a sadness behind his mania/enthusiasm, and I always feared there would be a thread about his death one day. It's something I have experienced before with someone who behaved similarly, but that doesn't make me any less sad.

RIP Mark. I enjoyed you a great deal.

Aw man, rest in peace

does anyone know what Bimble meant, where it came from?

Often wondered that.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bimble

pretty sure it was the 4th def?

RIP

All of them seem oddly appropriate.

omg, one more reason to miss him. Figured it was a Joy Division lyrics or something