Who Is Otis Twelve?

... and why is he?...

As a newly inaugurated proud owner of a Substack thingie… i.e. Otis Twelve Redux, it occurred to me that it might be proper to introduce myself. So, pardon my omission, and without further delay here is a brief “Bio” as they call it. I have written it in third person because it’s amusing to write about oneself in the third person, I recommend it to everyone. And, yes, that is my foot.

…

Otis Twelve (aka Douglas Vincent Wesselmann) has been writing ever since the Sisters of Charity introduced him to the Palmer Method of cursive penmanship.

Twelve was a founding member of the Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band, made famous on the Dr. Demento Radio Program for such songs as Dead Puppies, Daddy’s Money, and Quicker and Easier than a Frontal Lobotomy. The band’s album Stuffed (recorded surreptitiously at the LA Record Plant) is now either a valuable collector’s item, or evidence in several Hollywood civil trials.

In the distant past. Twelve won a Debut Dagger from the British CWA for his novel “Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe.” His first novel, concerning a sociopath who manipulates a psychopath to kill a pedophile, “On the Albino Farm,” won the 2005 London Book Fair Lit-Idol Competition. Pulitzer Prize winner, Richard Russo named his short story “Life Among the Bean Bugs” runner up for the North American Journal’s Kurt Vonnegut Prize, and his tale, “The Goodness of Trees,” received a $10K Templeton Prize that allowed Mr. Wesselmann to purchase an antique blacklight, a songbird kiln and pay off his oncologist’s gambling debts.

His fiction has been published by The North American Review, Crimespree, The Reader, and in anthologies such as the cult classic, “Expletive Deleted” (Bleak House) – including Otis’ triple XXX homage to O’Henry, entitled “Fluff” – and “The Purpose Reader” (Cosimo). His novel Tales of the Master: The Book of Stone (Grief Illustrated Press) was released in the US in 2015. His Not Funny essays, observing life in these interesting times, have been featured in the Omaha Magazine for decades.

Otis was a fixture in Omaha Radio/TV for forty years, working at Z-92, CD 105, KETV, KPTM-TV, KFAB, KKAR and, his final posting as host of the morning show on Classical 90.7 KVNO until his retirement in 2024. He is an inductee into the Nebraska Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Radio Hall of Fame and the Nebraska Broadcaster Association (NBA) Hall of Fame.

Of late he has fallen in with bad company – poets, and does occasional readings with such reprobates whenever asked. He has recently launched Otis Twelve Redux (otistwelve.substack.com) because he is not to be trusted in unstructured situations. Despite rumors to the contrary, Twelve lives in the middle of North America, though he is considering moving to one of the edges.

NOTE: Otis Twelve Redux on Substack will feature near daily publicly available essays on any number of topics for readers… Paid subscribers will have full access to the archives, and all Fiction and Poetry posts including in coming days; Tales of the Master… On the Albino Farm and its sequel, Sometimes a Prozac Notion… Imp: Being the lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Dearth of Edgar Allan Poe, and a new project harkening back to Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Thanks for supporting an old writer who knows only two types of writing pay regularly, bad checks and ransom notes.