Dr. Morbius (Bill Weber) 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.