The Great Master's bedroom, our final stop on the second floor of Stewart Manor, was small but tastefully appointed. On the walls were dozens of portraits of themselves and their many loved ones.
"Few artists were as forthright about their romantic history as the Great Master," opined Slingsby as we examined the Stewarts' wedding picture. "The vast majority of his songs were about women he'd dated, or attempted to date, or thought about dating, or would have dated had they had the decency to live in the same century as him, or...."
"The vast majority?" repeated someone incredulously. "I thought most of his songs were about history."
"A favorite metaphor to which he frequently returned. Nonetheless, all of his songs save one were about romantic encounters. Take 'Antarctica', for instance. While the lyrics speak of the frozen tundra and the explorations of Shackleton and Scott, the song itself was inspired about a young female fan who politely but firmly rejected the Great Master's advances."
"Remarkable!" exclaimed the elderly lady. "But surely not all of his songs were about women."
"Try me," smiled Slingsby, crossing his arms.
"How about 'What's Going On' ?" asked the middle-aged man in the RiR T-shirt.
"A passionate affaire d'amour with a gifted animator for Hanna-Barbera Studios which ended upon her conviction for embezzlement."
"O-K," he replied slowly. " 'Warren Harding?' "
"A steamy but ill-fated relationship with a sensual New York City bootlegger. The Great Master broke it off after she spiked his Ch. Cheval Blanc with grain alcohol. He never forgave her."
" 'Nostradamus'? "
"A platonic affair with Erika Cheetham. During a private tarot card reading, she informed him that his financial future was linked in some mystical way to cats. That very evening he decided to rewrite the lyrics to one of his newer songs, 'Year Of The Porcupine.' "
Suddenly, one of the VR tourists shot up her hand. "Wait a minute! What about Broadway Hotel?" she asked in a triumphant tone. "There are only two characters in the song. Either the Great Master is referring to himself in the second person, and thus the story is about a singular *homosexual* encounter with no women involved, or else the song is about someone else!"
"Nope. The 'you' in the song is indeed a woman. The Great Master was the bellman. He was moonlighting for a little extra cash between 'Modern Times' and The Scottish Album. The tryst in question resulted in his being fired after other guests called the front desk to complain that no one left those little mints on their pillows that evening."
There was a noticeable pause, which gave me an opportunity to chime in with a question: "Um, Slingsby, you said every song save one was about his love life. Which was the exception?"
" 'Love Chronicles'. It's actually a biography of Hugh Hefner's adolescence. After it became a hit the Great Master saw no need to correct any misconceptions, although he did wisely drop the final verse about the mansion and the bunny costumes."
There was a long, pregnant pause. "Slingsby," said someone softly after a while, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you were putting us on."
He shrugged his shoulders. "My sister Stephanie says that all the time."
Quietly, members of the tour group fanned out to inspect the room. I happened to gravitate towards the twin closets by the far wall. Inside the Great Master's, I found the following table scribbled on the back of an old traffic summons:
1995 ASML BOAP: Gender Gap - Largest Male-to-Female variance
# Song Album Male Female Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Accident On 3rd Street RAA 4.61 3.21 1.40 2 Murmansk Run / Ellis Island 24C 5.74 4.61 1.12 3 Here in Angola IS 5.17 4.06 1.11 4 Time Passages TP 6.38 5.28 1.10 5 "1-2-3" RAA 3.72 2.64 1.08 6 Paint By Numbers 24C 4.72 3.77 0.95 7 The Candidate RAA 3.89 2.94 0.95 8 Princess Olivia IS 3.10 2.27 0.83 9 A Small Fruit Song ZSF 5.38 4.57 0.81 10 Optical Illusion 24C 4.70 3.91 0.80
...and in Lady Kristine's closet I found its complimentary table on the back of a deck of playing cards:
1995 ASML BOAP: Gender Gap - Largest Female-to-Male variance
# Song Album Female Male Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 My Enemies Have Sweet Voices ZSF 5.75 4.48 1.27 2 The Carmichaels BI 4.15 3.19 0.96 3 Carol MT 6.71 5.78 0.93 4 Peter On The White Sea FLW 4.76 3.87 0.89 5 Bedsitter Images BI 6.11 5.33 0.78 6 You Don't Even Know Me O 4.89 4.22 0.67 7 Joe The Georgian BTW 6.16 5.51 0.66 8 Angel Of Mercy FLW 5.22 4.57 0.65 9 Timeless Skies TP 6.01 5.38 0.63 10 Josephine Baker LDOTC 5.79 5.16 0.63
Interesting. It appeared that the Great Master's male contemporaries were more forgiving of his hard-rock endeavors of the early 1980s than their female counterparts. The latter seem to have preferred his older fare.
Also, the presence of The Candidate on the "Male-to-Female" list was no doubt a reaction among female fans to one of his more unfortunate choices of rhymes. The same couplet is also the reason why, when invited to the White House to sing at the 2013 Willen-Landey inauguration, they served him a cold rubber chicken for dinner. Though they both loved his work, I believe they were trying to make a point.
Anyway, that was an easy set of results to find. Didn't even need my temporal sight restorer. I sidled over towards the bed as someone asked another question of Slingsby. I heard only the reply:
"Yes, Lady Kristine was several years his junior, but the Great Master was quite young at heart. Even in his octogenarian years he remained spry, energetic, and boyish. The only significant changes were that his hair turned grayer and he lost his predilection for wearing oversized fur coats in public.
"Is it true that there was something of a 'generation gap' in those days?" asked an older man.
"Indeed there was," replied Slingsby sadly. "It peaked during the era of the Vietnam War, but it persisted to some degree for several decades thereafter. It was especially pronounced in the music industry where, as a means of rebelling against their elders, teens would embrace the most nihilistic and shocking artists such as Kiss, The Beastie Boys, 2 Live Crew, Tony Bennett, and the like. A striking example is 'Everybody Sucks', the 1998 album from Green Day featuring the hit single 'I'd Kill My Parents In Their Sleep But I Hate Getting Up Early.'
"It wasn't until the turn of the 21st century that the older folks fought back. Check out some of the popular Adult Contemporary hits of the day: 'Fix Your Own Damn Breakfast' from Anne Murray. 'Diss Me One More Time And You'll Sleep In The Tool Shed' by Englebert Humperdink. 'Touch Social Security And I'll Leave Your Inheritance To The AARP' by Wayne Newton. The battle lines had been drawn, and the war waged on for quite some time."
"Did the Great Master enter the fray?" asked someone.
"Not really, although it would have been interesting to see which camp he would have joined. Throughout his career, the Great Master always seemed to be swimming against the tide of popular culture. In the 1960's, he wrote verses of love and relationships while other folk singers were releasing political works. Conversely, the 1980's were his political years whereas pop artists had returned to simple love songs.
"In between were the 1970's, known alternately as the Disco Decade or the Era of Cultural Dementia. While his contemporaries donned polyester suits and composed vapid songs of mind-numbing repetitiveness, the Great Master released the string of brilliant, encyclopedic albums that marked his 'Essential Years'. It is remarkable in hindsight that he garnered two Top Ten records during an era otherwise barren of good taste."
"Did he not write any disco songs?" someone asked.
"None that were released publicly. The regrettable 'Shake Your Hot Booty (Like Apollo and Terpsichore Shook Theirs)' appears only on his 1997 outtakes album 'Good God, You People Will Buy Anything'."
As the rest of the group listened intently, I knelt by the Great Master's nighttable examining its contents. A toothbrush, a passport, and an old cookie tin of loose change -- no doubt his toiletries kit. The Great Master preferred to travel light.
On top of the nightstand was an old-fashioned analog clock. A quick scan with my TSR revealed this table etched onto the face:
1995 ASML BOAP: Generation Gap - Songs Preferred by Voters 35 and Under
# Song Album 0-35 36+ Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 I'm Falling O 5.06 3.96 1.11 2 Optical Illusion 24C 5.07 4.01 1.07 3 The News From Spain O 5.81 4.76 1.04 4 The Palace Of Versailles TP 6.20 5.17 1.04 5 Helen & Cassandra LDOTC 5.58 4.63 0.95 6 Fields Of France LDOTC 6.91 5.96 0.95 7 Cafe Society RAA 4.56 3.71 0.85 8 Ghostly Horses Of The Plain LDOTC 4.77 3.93 0.84 9 Where Are They Now LDOTC 5.97 5.14 0.83 10 Merlin's Time 24C 6.50 5.69 0.81
A major surprise. Both "I'm Falling" and "Optical Illusion" scored slightly above average among younger voters, but both were near the bottom of his older fans' list. I was especially startled to note that almost all of the songs in this table were slow-tempo ballads. I thought the younger generation would've gone more for his hard rock songs like 'Valentina Way' and 'Mondo Sinistro'. Guess you can't judge an electronic book by its CD case.
I had a pretty good idea where this table's partner was hidden, but first I'd have to make my way across the room. That would be tough since the tour group was clustered at the foot of the bed.
"The 1990's were interesting decade," pontificated Slingsby. "The Great Master released two very fine studio albums in succession, those being Famous Last Words and Between The Wars. While they sold well among his core group of fans, neither produced a charted single despite several very attractive candidates.
"This did not faze the Great Master, but he decided nonetheless it would be best for his career if he penned one more Top Ten song. That would satisfy his record company and thus allow him and Sir Laurence full artistic freedom for their next few albums. Plus, as devoted husbands and fathers, the additional financial security would be welcome, what with the mortgages, tuitions, orthodontic fees, and Internet bills piling up.
"They retired to the studio and created 'The Millennium Curtain', a magnificent album that featured the Great Master's most commercially accessible works to date while maintaining his trademark historical sensibilities. Sir Laurence was particularly brilliant in crafting a variety of melodies and arrangements, one for each of the major radio formats of the day: Adult Contemporary, Top 40, Urban Contemporary, Alternative, AAA, ASI, AOR, ...."
"ASI?" I asked.
"Anything Soft and Inoffensive," explained Slingsby. "I understand it was all the rage back then. Mesa Records launched a major promotional campaign coinciding with its release, and they all sat back and waited for the hits to roll in.
"Alas, as usual, the Great Master was out of step with the times. It seemed he and Sir Laurence both possessed the one quality that absolutely precluded them from air time on any major radio station of the mid-90s."
"Talent?" asked someone.
"Intelligence?" offered another.
"A relatively traditional lifestyle?" suggested a third.
Slingsby shook his head sadly. "Worse than that: a pulse. The Great Master and Sir Laurence were both very much alive and kicking in an age that celebrated necrology. Check out the artists with Top Ten singles during January, 1996: The Beatles, Queen, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, Jim Croce, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin,..."
"Bob Dylan wasn't dead yet!" protested the middle-aged man.
"For all practical purposes, he was. The pop culture's morbid fascination with the dearly departed had begun a few years earlier with the release of 'Unforgettable', a duet from Natalie Cole and her late father, the legendary Nat King Cole. Archived tapes of his singing were electronically mixed with new tracks by his daughter, using what then passed for state-of-the-art sound technology."
"Disgraceful," muttered someone.
"Not at all!" answered Slingsby with a touch of indignance. " 'Unforgettable' was, in its own way, quite haunting and touching. Nat had died when Natalie was just 15, after all. The problem was that the people of the era couldn't leave well enough alone. Soon it seemed that every dead artist had a new single out, culled together from demo tapes and outtakes and other low-quality sources. It was the belief among music executives of the time that death was a very poor excuse for an artist's not fulfilling his contractual obligations.
"Mesa Records, for their part, did the best the could. They switched gears on 'The Millennium Curtain' and began billing it as 'a prehumous album of pluperfect pop'. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Mesa briefly considered a double contract killing, but they had fortuitously exhausted their promotional budget. The Great Master gamely offered to spend a year dead for marketing purposes, not to mention the tax benefits," added Slingsby as he casually flipped through an old, souvenir menu of a far-away restaurant kept on a shelf under a clean white towel, "but this was rejected by his management as having a negative impact on his tour schedule.
"Folks, look, it could have been worse. Several other ghastly musical trends of the 90's failed to catch on. An example was Recording A Song While Having Your Wisdom Teeth Extracted Without Novocain, which formed the basis of Whitney Houston's mega-hit 'I Will Always Love You'."
Indeed. We should be thankful that our ancestors enjoyed a few scarce remnants of good taste.
In the meantime, I had found another poll result. It was just where I thought it would be: written on the face of the digital clock on Lady Kristine's nightstand:
1995 ASML BOAP: Generation Gap - Songs Preferred by Voters Over 35
# Song Album 36+ 0-35 Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Swiss Cottage Manoevers BI 4.94 3.57 1.37 2 Love Chronicles LC 5.44 4.22 1.22 3 Josephine Baker LDOTC 5.82 4.85 0.97 4 Genie On A Tabletop FLW 6.12 5.23 0.88 5 Russians And Americans RAA 5.04 4.30 0.74 6 Bad Reputation LDOTC 4.08 3.39 0.69 7 Old Compton Street Blues LC 4.69 4.06 0.63 8 Song On The Radio TP 4.57 3.98 0.59 9 Life Between The Wars BTW 5.25 4.71 0.53 10 Strange Girl RAA 3.62 3.12 0.50
Another mild surprise. Seems that the older voters were more receptive to songs dealing explicitly with sex. I wonder what that said about late 20th-century culture.
The elderly woman raised her hand. "Slingsby, getting back to that list of deceased artists with hit singles. You do realize that Elvis Presley wasn't dead yet either?"
"Quite true," he replied. "It was something of an open secret that he faked his death in 1977 to escape the pressures of stardom. He moved clandestinely to Michigan where, living under a variety of pseudonyms, he operated a convenience store for many years before becoming a computer operator for the state university. Still, at the time a few very naive souls believed he was actually dead, hence there was a market for his new work."
Slingsby opened the bedroom curtains and glanced out across Greater Los Angeles. "Perhaps the Great Master should have tried that route," he said reflectively, "but faking his own death was well beneath him. Besides, I believe he was quite happy living in sunny California."
"A bit different from his native England," offered someone.
"Not entirely. It's said that the British and the Americans are separated by a common language, but they share much more than they do not -- history, mores and customs, forms of entertainment, et cetera.
"For example, one of the more popular pastimes in Great Britain is a game called 'Mornington Crescent', in which people travel through the expansive London Underground, adhering to a set of largely amorphous rules, in an attempt to be the first to arrive at the title station. In Greater L.A., they play 'Morning Commute' in which drivers navigate the expansive city freeways, adhering to a set of largely amorphous traffic laws, in an attempt to arrive at their jobs by lunchtime without being shot."
I missed the rest of the conversation because I ducked into the master bathroom. I found a third set of poll results in a very odd place: sewn into the seams of a set of his-and-hers decorative towels hanging from hooks by the shower. On the "His" towel was the following table:
1995 ASML BOAP: Culture Gap - Songs Preferred by North Americans
# Song Album NA World Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Red Toupee LDOTC 4.40 3.10 1.30 2 The One That Got Away RAA 4.46 3.21 1.25 3 Post World War II Blues PPF 6.77 5.62 1.14 4 One Stage Before YOTC 5.67 4.81 0.86 5 Princess Olivia IS 3.18 2.42 0.77 6 Joe The Georgian BTW 5.79 5.06 0.73 7 The Last Day Of June, 1934 PPF 6.38 5.66 0.72 8 Turn To Earth TWIMC 2.67 1.97 0.70 9 The Age Of Rhythm BTW 4.69 4.03 0.67 10 Denise At 16 BI 5.31 4.64 0.67
...and on the "Hers" was this:
1995 ASML BOAP: Gender Gap - Songs Preferred by Non-North Americans
# Song Album World NA Delta ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Old Compton Street Blues LC 5.39 4.00 1.39 2 Trains FLW 7.25 6.08 1.17 3 Song On The Radio TP 5.17 4.02 1.15 4 Life And Life Only LC 5.41 4.33 1.07 5 Helen & Cassandra LDOTC 5.97 4.90 1.07 6 Manuscript ZSF 6.36 5.29 1.07 7 Lori Don't Go Right Now RAA 4.83 3.80 1.03 8 Murmansk Run / Ellis Island 24C 6.30 5.29 1.01 9 In Brooklyn LC 6.25 5.26 0.99 10 Marion The Chatelaine BTW 6.20 5.35 0.84
Very, very large delta numbers for these two categories. Perhaps one could infer that differences in age and gender were not as significant as differences in nationality. Then again, perhaps not. I clicked off the TSR and rejoined the tour group in the bedroom.
"Well, folks," announced Slingsby with a clap of his hands. "Shall we go?"
"Sounds good to me," I replied. "What's the next stop?"
"The front door," he said matter-of-factly. "The tour is over. I want to thank you all for coming, and I hope you found the excursion a pleasant one. I personally had a splendid time! Please stop by the official Stewart Manor gift shop located just off the driveway for souvenirs, knickknacks, stuffed Great Master dolls, litter boxes,...."
I didn't hear the rest. My mind was reeling -- the tour was over? It can't be!! I hadn't found the two most important poll results yet: Best Song and Best Album! I must've overlooked them in one of the rooms, but which one?! I buried my face in my hands and thought hard. The conservatory? The kitchen? The wine cellar? They could be anywhere. I needed more time!
I opened my eyes and reached out my hand, but I was all alone. The rest of the tour group had followed Slingsby down the stairs.
"Slingsby!" I shouted as I ran after them. "WAIT!"