Dr. Morbius (Bill Weber) RIP

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