On This Day I Choose To Be Proud Of Lothar Vosseler

One man, one chancellor and twenty tissues per pack

This man you see holding bread is Lothar Vosseler. He’s 57. When he’s not holding bread, he’s unearthing the grime on his brother, the Chancellor of Germany. They don’t really get along I guess. I guess Lothar put out a book called The Chancellor, Unfortunately My Brother, and I. And the Chancellor has worked to stamp out his brother’s many publications which divulge personal information about him.

To circumvent his brother’s censorship, Lothar Vosseler will be distributing his texts on tissues, twenty to a package, as a handkerchief newspaper focusing its art and prose on the Chancellor. It will be called Sniff and this article says Lothar’s tissue press is ”plainly targeted at the estimated 20 per cent of Germans who are currently suffering from colds.” He has promised to tell the story of the time the Chancellor crashed his car into a fence.

People, there’s just not enough underground press out there. Well, actually, there probably is. But it’s so underground that I never get to read it. I would love to be part of an underground press with our own language and our own special psuedonyms. Currently, I have no idea what is going on in the underground. I haven’t been receiving my usual unmarked parcels full of cassette tapes of scratchy lush heavy breathing.

Sniff. Here we have an underground press that any German citizen can participate in. And any German out there can reach into their purse, feign a nostril surge, but duck their face into a proletariat comic.

And so, just for a moment, I’m proud of Lothar Vosseler. And at least I have J & L.

For more bread shots, see: Finally! Tatsumi Orimoto! For more underground, see quiet.

Wave Your Arms Like They're On Sticks

In case you never learned to count up to 11.. or 12 even!

What few tracks The Dead Hensons have at their official site or their bassist’s site are pure gold and my sincere hope is that they play with foam banjos where you can bend the neck and whomp each other in the head with it for the finale.

The Dead Hensons play that flavorful soul and funk that took us all on a ride through the lower digits back in kinderschool. Seven individuals—a gender-balanced rock outfit—who throw themselves into the wakka-wakka with shaggy fervor. I mean, outside of the context of Sesame Street and various Muppet programming, these songs are glittery cool. I would start with Can You Picture That? and Eleven.

But, if you want to learn all the way up to 12, you’re going to have to eventually listen to The Pinball Number Count. This is what counting is all about. Stopping between numbers to get groovy and take a moment to wig out on the saxophone. Yes, most kids know the numbers. However, they usually race through their counting so they can go back to stuffing animals in their pockets. Sadly, few know how to enjoy the spaces between the numbers.

Incidentally, I’ve recently acquired a copy of the Pinball Number Count video and you can transfer it to your private collection by clicking on the image below.

The Pinball Number Count was the product of Walt Kraemer and The Pointer Sisters. A brief history is outlined here, in which Walt admits “it wasn’t until we had completed the project that I realized I may have stolen the first five notes of the Woody Woodpecker Song.”

The Woody Woodpecker song is here.

See also: We Are Drunk. Swimming Guests Face The Tuba.