I Saw This and Thought Of You
Pretty much everybody in the Milwaukee Music Community has heard of the passing of Geoff "Stinky" Worman last week. It was sudden to many of us (last Brian heard anything a coupla weeks ago, he was in Flipville and Stinky had told Brian, "Well, I'm gonna have to cut down my hours, so it's probably best to call and make sure I'm here and open") and the next thing we knew, I log into face book and get the awful news. And in the spirit of what everybody has to say about him, he knew his people. Brian walked in that day and Stinky had some terrific Blatz memorabilia waiting for him, as he knew Brian was a Blatz collector. He was the original "I saw this and thought of you" guy.
I'm not going to be nearly as eloquent as Lars Kvan is in this week's Shepherd so I'm not even going to try. I'm the wrong person to write an eulogy or obit for him. I don't go as far back as my native Milwaukee music community friends. All I can offer is a wonderful memory of first moving to Milwaukee and stumbling into The Landing on a snowy wintry night, where three musicians (one of them who turned out to be Stinky) were playing lonely Christmas songs in a surf style, loving the season but musicially wishing it were summer (and that aesthetic was absolutely perfectly rendered in the music), and realizing I'd picked a great town to lay down some roots. Oh, and I'm grateful that -- some 20 years, a wedding and two babies later -- my kids don't seem to realize the difference in "toys" when we would go visit Flipville (as opposed to the stuff you can get at ToysRUs) and the kids called it "the Toy Store." They don't fully get the aesthetic and $$$ value of all those vintage toys (and vinyl, don't forget vinyl) that were collected there. They just appreciated them for what they were ("Hey, look it's a Barbie with short hair"), and I'd like to think Stinky got a kick out of that.
Anyway, go read Lars' eulogy. As he was tighter than me with the man, he captures his spirit better than I -- or I suspect anybody at this point -- could. In the meantime, as as his "official newspaper obit" asks I'm going to go spin some vinyl. Surf music, to be exact. Rest in peace, Geoff. Saying you will be missed is the understatement of the century.
I'm not going to be nearly as eloquent as Lars Kvan is in this week's Shepherd so I'm not even going to try. I'm the wrong person to write an eulogy or obit for him. I don't go as far back as my native Milwaukee music community friends. All I can offer is a wonderful memory of first moving to Milwaukee and stumbling into The Landing on a snowy wintry night, where three musicians (one of them who turned out to be Stinky) were playing lonely Christmas songs in a surf style, loving the season but musicially wishing it were summer (and that aesthetic was absolutely perfectly rendered in the music), and realizing I'd picked a great town to lay down some roots. Oh, and I'm grateful that -- some 20 years, a wedding and two babies later -- my kids don't seem to realize the difference in "toys" when we would go visit Flipville (as opposed to the stuff you can get at ToysRUs) and the kids called it "the Toy Store." They don't fully get the aesthetic and $$$ value of all those vintage toys (and vinyl, don't forget vinyl) that were collected there. They just appreciated them for what they were ("Hey, look it's a Barbie with short hair"), and I'd like to think Stinky got a kick out of that.
Anyway, go read Lars' eulogy. As he was tighter than me with the man, he captures his spirit better than I -- or I suspect anybody at this point -- could. In the meantime, as as his "official newspaper obit" asks I'm going to go spin some vinyl. Surf music, to be exact. Rest in peace, Geoff. Saying you will be missed is the understatement of the century.
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