Bob Reitman’s 12th House begins with death.
“Death waits like a frozen pillow / Death hides in the corner of a circle,” Reitman says. “Death sits on a wall too high to see, and whistles in Latin tunes we forgot to hear.”
Beyond death itself, “says” is the most important word in the previous sentence. 12th House is Reitman’s new album of spoken word poetry—a legacy-sequel follow-up to his 1972 spoken word record The Eleventh House. That’s a whopping 54 years between houses. Perhaps it’s only natural that time is on Reitman’s mind.
Bob Reitman, of course, is a Milwaukee radio legend. His work spans multiple generations and more than half a century. He was the Dylan-worshipping voice of the 1960s Milwaukee counterculture. He was the steadfast devotee of 1970s FM rock. In the 1980s and ’90s, along with Gene Mueller, Reitman was the bad-boy prankster who convinced the city a B-29 bomber would drop hard-to-find Cabbage Patch Kids over Milwaukee County Stadium. After his retirement in 2006, Reitman quickly revived his long-dormant “It’s Alright, Ma, It’s Only Music” show on WUWM; joined by his son Bobby, he kept playing that music until 2024.
And now, in 2026, Reitman is releasing 12th House. It’s a lovely and sincere collection of newly recorded spoken word that’s never pretentious or heavy-handed. It includes some of Reitman’s earliest poems (“The First One,” written in 1958), a few revisits from The Eleventh House (“A Kind Of Funny Feeling,” “Back Bay Park”), and a couple of pieces written in the ’80s. The bulk of the pieces date back to the ’60s and ’70s; typical subject matter includes everything from Buddy Holly and Martin Luther King Jr. to Albert Einstein and “Schultz the Cemetery Man.” Tasteful musical backing is provided by producer Gary Tanin, fellow producer John Hoier, guitarist Sam Llanas, and keyboardist Jack Spann.
There’s a dash of levity in 12th House (the cheeky “David Bowie / Dr. Kissinger Blues”), as well as plenty of on-the-ground ’60s idealism (“The Revolution Is Here,” written in 1969). But the record’s best moments are when Reitman muses on the gulf of time and the “sadder side of this transient life.” The latter line, from “Fragments” (written in 1971) concludes on a typically cosmic note:
Only the steady pulse of time
Now sends its beat through the chamber of eternity
And there’s nothing else
Throughout eternity, I will sit so very quietly and count each second of every minute of every hour of every day
For weeks and months and years and years and years
How very strange my heart relies on tender dreams born in her eyes
All other things recede to dust
To create this thing, I know I must
Both here and throughout 12th House (including opener “Death,” written in 1970), Reitman’s voice is quiet and weathered. It’s sometimes little more than an amplified whisper. And yet that voice is never mournful, never broken. It’s alive and full of life. It’s the voice of a man in his 80s reading the words of his younger self. It’s a reminder that, yes, all things recede to dust, but the things we create live on.
Bob Reitman will celebrate the vinyl release of 12th House at The Pabst Theater on Monday, October 12. The show will “take attendees through the twelve houses of the astrological wheel through local performers who will highlight the theme of one astrological house.” Proceeds from the show will go toward the creation of WUWM’s “Reitman Radio Camp.”
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