Furman and the pussy hound

I've been building a recording studio in the Bubbaland section of Austin, Texas, which means I get to meet many of those strange beings called pro audio dealers. One of my favorites is Morrison, who works as a sales engineer for Sweetwater Sound. (Motto: "If we don't know the answer to your problem, we'll make one up!")

I have a problem with the term "sales engineer." Semantically, it smacks of euphemism, i.e., sanitation engineer. If you take it literally, I guess it means the dude who engineers the sale.

"Yep. Just push that order though," Morrison says. It's a joke. I think.

Couldn't Sweetwater call the members of its sales staff consultants or advisors, if for no other reason than to give them at least the appearance of social dignity?

Whatever. I'm probably overreacting, maybe even being insensitive. Morrison once confided to me that one of the toughest decisions he ever had to make was during his junior year at Harvard when he had to decide between a major in sales or electrical engineering.

Seriously, sales engineer? Spare me.

That said, Morrison's a pretty good guy, and he tells me insider stories about the business. For example, I found out that Jack Furman, the guy who makes Furman power conditioners, recently underwent a sex change and is now Janet Furman.

Furman's not gay, though. He bought the sex change to pursue a lesbian lifestyle, and since he lives in Sonoma County, California, he's got a decent shot at that lifestyle.

Morrison and I had a good laugh about Furman's puddy tuck. Unfortunately, Morrison made the mistake of telling me that when he got married, he took his wife's last name. The way I see it, he and Furman will eventually get drunk together at a hotel bar during some pro audio convention and the conversation will no doubt end like this:

"...so, you see, you're the pussy."
"No, you're the pussy.
"Nope, nope. You're the pussy."
"No, you're the pussy."

But I'm not really writing this column about Morrison, I'm writing this column about his dad.

Morrison's dad recently had a heart transplant, which means that every guy Morrison knows is wholly dissatisfied with his vital organs. In fairness, the heart transplant should probably be called the-dick-needs-more-blood transplant, because Morrison's dad comes from that too-horny generation called the Baby Boomers and takes pride in his participation on the front lines during the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s.

Before the transplant, he'd get drunk at bars and rant like a drug-crazed Viet Nam vet. "So, you think you were in the revolution? You weren't in the fuckin' revolution. I was at Woodstock in 1969 and fucking Richie Havens old lady while he was on stage, baby. I was there! You weren't really part of the revolution unless you bedded blond twin virgins on the sands of Marina Del Rey. It was grisy, man grisly. Cops and blood everywhere."

It's been a few weeks since his transplant, but he seems to be getting back to his old form. When Morrison first visited his dad in the hospital, he told him, "Dad. You don't look so well. You're swollen everywhere."

Morrison's dad looked at his son with sparkling eyes and despite having a tube shoved down his throat managed to utter, "Yes... everywhere."

The first two weeks of his recovery were dicey and his blood pressure fluctuated in proportion to the cup size of the nurses assigned to change his bedpan each day. Then there was the nasty incident at admissions, when he and a proctology patient got their records mixed up and he had to endure a prolonged anal probing from Dr. Coldfinger before the hospital figured out they were working in the wrong arena. But as of this writing, Morrison's dad is now home and in stable condition.

So why am I telling you this? Well, after all the death I've seen in the last two years, maybe this time someone will cheat it for a change. Maybe this time we win one.

(In lieu of flowers, well wishers should send bottles of Viagra to Morrison's dad, c/o Hooters Hoosier Hospital, Fort Wayne, Indiana.)

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into it, you're on your own. Copyright 2002 by Mike Jasper.