12 Step Program, part two, chapter thirty-five

12 Step Program, part two, chapter thirty-five.
Whatever happened to Bob Jansen
As the years mounted, my search for Bob Jansen intensified rather than faded.
The bigger the mystery grew, the bigger the question.
I used any kind of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – to gather information. I added what I’d learn to the Jansen lore. What did happen to Bob Jansen?
Once again, I wrote Billboard, Variety, Rolling Stone, Spin but, without any evidence to offer, none of them was interested. The same with CNN.
One of the local news papers did a story but it was more about me than about Bob, and seemed to miss the point. I was just an ex-musician turned deluded fan.
I told myself I wasn’t. Deluded, anyway. It was weird when friends and family started to take pity on me.
I suppose I looked foolish, if not pathetic. I mean, my fixation wasn’t the fixation it became. It started off as a small realization that Fast And Bulbous, and every band after, was playing 12 Step Program but I knew so little about it. I discovered that it was written by Bob Jansen, who disappeared in 1982. Why? I had to know.
Most people don’t know Richard Berry wrote Louie Louie or the story about it and him. They probably don’t care either. Still, it’s better known and celebrated than 12 Step Program. I would like Bob Jansen to get some kind of recognition. He deserves some kind of nod. That’s what I’m fighting, that absence of curiosity. In a way, that keeps me going, the sense I’m on a mission.
There are people who read the songwriting credit on 45s or on the back of albums and remember that Bob Jansen wrote 12 Step. But who is he? A member of The Hi-Steppers, and whatever happened to them?
I just gathered what I could – like a Simpsons episode in which Homer does a wiggly dance while there is a snippet of 12 Step Program playing in the background before Moe, the bar owner , turns on the TV. Homer grunts something like, ’They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,’ and orders a Duff. To me, that was one more sign that Jansen had made an impact on the culture. Maybe, if I gathered enough material, I’d make a breakthrough.
Nobody knew anything. As before, a few people contacted me but it soon became obvious they weren’t Bob Jansen, nor could they lead me to him.
A few had theories – suicide, prison – that I’d already investigated and discounted. The one that had Bob recruited by the CIA to go undercover and investigate the international drug trade I liked even if it ignored Bob’s disinterest in drugs and was more fanciful than realistic.
Somebody thought it was Bob singing jingles that Ray Bedouin produced. He thought I should ask Ray what he knew. But I knew Bob and Ray had never met and Ray usually sang on his own productions. Good singer, too, but, nope, it wasn’t Bob’s voice.
Even better was how he’d resurfaced anonymously as a writer of Christian pop songs. One call to Nora Washington blew apart that theory. There were no publishing companies pitching unknowns. The sacred music industry is like the secular one in that it chases names and Bob Jansen, how ever he presented himself, wasn’t a name. Larry Norman he was not.
A couple of callers were convincing and tried to pass off themselves as Bob.
The usual back breaker I used on them was a “skill-testing” question that nobody could answer correctly. Name The Steppers’ least known single.
One morning, my phone rang, which was unusual as these days most people send email.
”Is Matt Brady there?”
“You got him. Who are you?”
“Bob.”
“Bob who?”
“Bob Jansen. You’ve been looking for me.”
Another Bob Jansen crank. I decided to stop the conversation before he got too far or before I got too rude.
“Ok, if you’re really Bob Jansen, what is your least known single?”
“You must be talking about Santa Clones, This “Bob” replied. “The label released it too late for the Christmas season and didn’t know how to promote it . Radio didn’t play it and Santa Clones died right there. It was about how Santa Clause seems to be everywhere at once. Clones! We lost faith in Speed Bump immediately. If it had hung on long enough, The Steppers had another song ready, Fifth Down, which asks who is the winner, the football star that wears a championship ring but is broke, or his friend, who did all the things expected of him, got a job, married, had kids, was a success and paid for the dinner? One risked everything; the other nothing.
“But you don’t want to hear about that.” said this Bob. “ Speed Bump folded shortly after and left Al and me to find another record label. You needed a label. That was how it was done in those days.”
“OK!,” I said, elated. “But how’d you find out it was me who was looking for you?”
“I read about you in my local newspaper.”
“But that story was basically only seen in Vancouver. Does this mean…?”
“Right, I live in Vancouver.”
“Since 1982? Right under my nose? How come I couldn’t find you? Where were you? What were you doing?”
“Easy sport. So many questions. One day I’ll tell you. First of all, though, maybe you were looking in the wrong places. You weren’t going to find me in Seattle and I definitely wasn’t back in L.A.. L.A. was one of the reasons I had to escape. The business, the lifestyle. They were killing me.”
“Then, why’d you come out of hiding?”
“Another question. Basically, you. I read about your effort to find me and was impressed. It forced me to reassess my past. Enough years had passed. I long ago made a new life and I was older. I figured revealing myself after so many years wasn’t going to change me.”
“A new life not as Bob Jansen.”
“Of course. A simple change to Bob Johnson was all it took. A new passport, a new credit card. I was set.”