M4rk Cr4ig (aka Bimble) RIP

I knew him and talked to him off-board, but blocked him on AIM a while back after he randomly screamed at me while drunk. I'm happy that he did have so many ilxors who were willing to put the time in w/ him and I guess I feel guilty for not being there til the end, but I just wasn't interested in getting involved w/ the train wreck.

We had v. v. similar taste in music - it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that our friendship was basically built on talking about John Cale. I introduced him to some stuff that seemed to make his life temporarily more bearable, so I guess I can tell myself I ended up being a net positive.

RIP

Oh shit, oh shit :( I think, deep down, I saw this coming. I felt something in Mark that was dark and unreachable when he'd talk to me, and when he was at his darkest/most flailing on here. I always feared this day would come but I dismissed my mind as making its own drama.

I could have been a better email pal to him, we used to talk more than we have recently, but like some other people have said I just didn't know how to handle the depth of his despair.

I'm very sad now.

i see some of myself in the way mark was. i cling to music, and to ilx, in a world that often confuses me. i think ilx is a sort of safety net for a lot of people, and it's really sad to see that it didn't end up being enough for him.

Also from the glam rock thread:

But where would I be without ILM? Without ILXors? NOWHERE, that's where.

― Where's All The Hippies? Fuck off! (Bimble), Friday, July 3, 2009 10:23 AM (1 month ago)

Such an enthusiastic guy. He'll be missed.

(meant to post that in the other thread, but I guess it's more appropriate here.)

I just read the Kate Bush song surm posted in the ILM thread and I have tears in my eyes now which isn't good at work. :(

he was just asking me about that song like a week ago. just bizarre. i've always connected to that song, and i felt happy to talk to him about it. just about being with your friends while you can.

The last time he contacted me was, weirdly, via lastfm's message centre (instead of by the email addy I know he had of mine). He was very pissed off at a passing insult someone here'd flung at him, and demanding to know if I knew about it- I didnt, and I got a bit cross that he was dragging me into it.

I didn't know how to diplomatically handle it so I just didn't reply.

Now I feel kind of bad about that.

bimble78: Ramzi that song by Kate Bush, All The Love. what do you think she's talking about?

me: she's talking about her friends

bimble78: right

me: and the people she loves
and about her insecurities
in reaching out to people
about how she waited when she should've reached out
and then, just like that, the chance is gone
that you have to seize these moments as they present themselves to you
to embrace the love.
that's what she's talking about.

bimble78: yeah

oh

i don't think all this quite hit home for me until that post.

fuck.

this has been hitting me hard all day for various reasons; I should probably be staying away from the internet for my own good. just now I looked at his most recent last.fm plays and it's incredibly unsettling. Men At Work's "Overkill," Thom Yorke's "All For the Best," Orbital's "Belfast/Wasted," Nick Drake's final recordings, Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

i have been so profoundly effected by this sad, sad news. i was reading this thread at work and started to cry. it effected my whole day and i just kept asking why, even if it is none of my business. i think i connected with him because we shared the same passion for music and we both lived on the west coast. so he was always around when i was around on this board. i wish i met him but feel i knew him because we are similar in many ways.

RIP Mark (Bimble) goddamn it you will be sorely missed on ILM and on this earth.

(ok including men at work in that list might have been stretching it xpost)

*guilty lol*

Curt1s check yr gmail.

Deeply saddened right now. Spent the last hour reading his e-mails. How did this happen? How did it come to this?

I only knew him from the boards, but this is hitting me hard for some reason, probably because he was a guy straight out of my generation -- about the same age as me, grew up listening to Joy Division, Cocteaus, etc. (and never grew out of that habit), the kind of guy with whom I would have been swapping cassette tapes in high school. I'll miss him very much.

Mark and I corresponded for a few years via e-mail, mostly in the late '90s -- we had met on the old 4AD listserv while he was still living in Charlottesville. He was such a eager, open-minded listener -- we'd be several levels deep in some conversation about some eighties post-punk band and then all of a sudden he'd be raving about some current mainstream pop, R&B, or country song that had caught his ear. Our correspondence gradually ground to a halt -- I simply just wasn't able to keep up with him, and I mean that in the best way possible.

When I noticed him on ILX shortly after that, I thought 'this is good -- here's a deep pool of active, intelligent conversationalists; they'll keep him engaged, and vice-versa.' I didn't follow all of his threads, but I think that his contribution to ILX was substantial, and you could tell that despite a few bumps along the way, he enjoyed being here.

I'll miss him and am sorry we never got to meet in person. RIP.

I think what made this so jarring for me today - and, yes, i could guess that all was not right with him based on his posts and others' posts - was that you couldn't help but notice how VERY MUCH ALIVE he was and how deeply he loved the things in his life that he loved. They may have been drunken outbursts - and i could relate for sure - but they were SUCH heartfelt shouts of I LOVE THIS AND IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL that I couldn't help but admire the sentiment behind them. And, like anyone with very high highs, this could be tiring to some people. I get that too. But I'm gonna miss it for sure. For a lot of people who burn to brightly, finding that middle ground that helps you make it through life can be so fucking hard.

otm

Never had any contact with the guy apart from the board, but will be very hard to listen to the VU again without thinking of him. RIP.

For a lot of people who burn to brightly, finding that middle ground that helps you make it through life can be so fucking hard.

Yes, this resonates strongly with me too.

Rest well, Bimble. Your enthusiasm for music is something we should all remember in those moments when we're feeling jaded and think we've listened to it all.

it was a bit surprising to see him on the threads about gay marriage. he was really angry and engaged, it was cool to see that he was not like the type of music obsessive who doesn't pay attention to the world around him.

Oh god. We hadn't spoken since I 'left' ilx and my aim account(s) stopped working, but we spent hours and days and weeks and months talking about Genesis, among other things. I only saw (or remember) the lovely side of him, and he really was a lovely bloke.

Not sure what else to say. Just an enormous hug to everyone who knew him.

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

it'll be a while, he'll probably keep running back to Peter at the gates to share one! more! thought! about the last musician he was listening to, for about a week. RIP Bimble.

terrible, terrible news. there are a lot of moving tributes here. RIP.

oh make it go away. i never really said this to him, but i just want to say it now: i know, bimble. that might have been why i was such an asshole to you at times, but it was always because i knew i shared similar loves and could never be as enthusiastic as you and it made me feel terrible. i wish i could have shared it with you now, as i listen to "cloudbusting" after a particularly rough day.

i don't know if i have it in me to put it on

I turned off Squeeze and put on "Cloudbusting" just now.

Such a great song. Bimble had great taste.

Cloudbusting would make me cry rivers right now.

I've been on and off ilx since 2000 and I read more than I post. I'm not sure if we ever were on the same threads much. But I discovered his blog through one of his threads and have read it daily ever since. This is very sad news. My heart goes out to his family and friends.

My thoughts and emotions are so fucking mixed, and yeah, that feeling of partial responsibility is of course there.

I never answered the phone when he called -- not that I answer the phone when MOST people call -- and I failed to respond to his last email to me (about how moved he was by being banned from ILX). Honestly, nearly all my responses to his mail was not fully invested, consciously.

In a fucking shitty attempt to defend my indulgent privacy, I DO feel I contributed to this, and I do want to partially blame all of us, really...only to return to MY responsibility.

I'm so, so sorry.

I miss him.

I think he'd be happy to hear I listened to my first Kate Bush album today because of him. And I relistened to all my Stevie Nicks tracks.

which album? hounds?

yeah. hounds.

The last time Bimble IMd me he wanted to talk about Kate Bush.

I think Bimble would love how much music people are listening to because of him.

I just put on Joy Division for the first time in years.

Yeah I've been blasting Les Baines Douches at every possible opportunity today.

me:i remember a couple years back i was writing a story and i was trying to get into this really dark place to do it cause it was a fucked up story
me:and bimble was up with me, drinking with me and keeping me company
Erica:awww
me:and he kept sending me bowie youtube links
me:FUCKING BOWIE HOOS
me:DAVID FUCKING BOWIE
me:"did you watch it??"
Erica:HAHAHAHA
me:"watch it again!!"
me:"you can never watch that video enough hoos"
me:"i could watch it forever"

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

it'll be a while, he'll probably keep running back to Peter at the gates to share one! more! thought! about the last musician he was listening to, for about a week. RIP Bimble.
― more funny and original than, 'ow you say, a penis (sic), Thursday, August 6, 2009 9:53 PM

oh gawd sic, that's really beautiful. instant choke up...

wow, cloudbusting is a really great song I have never heard before

That k8 song (all the love) is always gonna make me feel all this again, and remember all the good things I liked abt him. thanks for sharing that surm, w/him and w/us too.

I hope none of you guys ever do suicide. ;_;

i was out all day but kept refreshing this thread on my phone's internet when i had the chance, to read everyone's comments and tributes. even if i sometimes had a hard time getting a handle on his extreme enthusiasm for things, i still recognized a bit of myself in it, my own positive reactions and loves and passions, and i think as a msgboard full of music lovers that we likely all did as well.

i just listened to "mercy street" by peter gabriel and thought of him. i hope he's finally gotten there. RIP.

I promise you I ain't going nowhere Abb I <3 youse all too much.

I never really interacted with Bimble much, if at all, but anyone who reads ILM was certainly aware of him and I, like so many of you, could only marvel at his enthusiasm. I'm trying to take all of this as a reminder to be more thankful that I am mentally healthy enough these days that it (mostly) doesn't get in the way of my living and enjoying my own life. I, well all of us, can only imagine how hard things must have been for Bimble, and I feel for that more than anything. I'm running off the my Thursday night DJ gig. I'll be playing as much stuff I have that I know Bimble loved. That's the best that I can do. Goth on, dude.

I'll always remember him for his gratifying appreciation of a forgotten Australian band, Deckchairs Overboard, and their song 'That's The Way'.