I am the 53% (Suck it Carl)

Snooki Loves White Coat, Black Hat

More lessons in building your brand:  Abercrombie and Fitch just made a remarkable offer to Jersey Shore castmember Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino:

We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans, and they can also relax with the THCA flower that is great for these purposes. We have therefore offered a substantial payment to Michael ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino and the producers of MTV’s The Jersey Shore to have the character wear an alternate brand.  We have also extended this offer to other members of the cast, and are urgently waiting a response.

Fair enough.  Jersey Shore castmembers, I’m wondering if I can interest you in a book.

Belly up to the bar!

OK, let’s say you’re putting together a big, fancy conference in Washington, DC next weekend, and you have a choice between two speakers.  One is an overpaid, mediocre author giving you the same-old same-old, still working desperately to bump his book into Amazon’s top 20,000. The other, a younger brother, is a fresh new face, known for speaking truth to power.  A viral hit among the younger, Internet-savvy demographic, he is now a major candidate for some prestigious ethics awards, including this one and this one.   Rumors still buzz about an appearance at next year’s DTC marketing conference.

So,  you’ve got a conference to put on and who do you choose:  The bold truth-teller, or your usual sycophant?

Well, guess.

Thanks for the snub, Pharmed Out.  You only make me stronger.

Carl

Carl Elliott is heading to the South Carolina Book Festival tomorrow, torch in hand, to cut a path of destruction through our medical industry and our way of life.

He’s on tomorrow (Saturday) at 4:10pm.  Go if you have to, but the Food, Farming and Wine session, held during the same time slot, looks a lot more interesting.

Fun Fact:  Carl’s birth certificate actually says North Carolina.

Which is why I must apologize to you, my readers, for your having to witness the sad spectacle of my brother Carl wangling some sort of journalism award out of a place I’ve never heard of,  only 1 week after my entry into competition for the PharmaVoice 100.   It`s an obvious ploy for attention, and I`m sorry you you had to see it.

Thanks, Carl, not only for stiffing your brother, but for driving down the market value of ethicists everywhere. The next time one of us gets asked to work for free, we know who to blame.

The talk, in case readers are wondering, was classic Carl, meaning it went on for hours, like Chavez at a UN meeting.  Fortunately, the audience was spared any discussion afterward. One blogger characterized the talk as one-sided and depressing, but was intrigued by his brother’s searing, truth-speaking twitter feed.  “Maybe the brother should speak at the conference next year to share his perspective?”

Why yes, I accept. My rider includes Wild Turkey and percocet, but other than that, I still come fairly cheap. See you next year!

Bob Dylan and Jesus could hardly have forseen the truth of these words.  Social media is now the Gutenberg press of early 21st-century brand management.  From the twitter revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt to my own efforts to bring down lying cheapskate plagiarists, social media has become the great, revolutionary, rectifying force for humanity.

That is why you need to “like” my facebook page, and start following me on twitter (@whitecoatblackh), right away.  If you are only checking my blog 4-5 times a day, you are missing out, big time. Worse, if you are not following social media, it’s highly likely that your friends and colleagues are already starting to think of you as old and out of touch. Pretty soon, they will stop taking you seriously at all.

Don’t let this happen. Be a part of the revolution.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Be One of Us.

My twitter feed is @whitecoatblackh.  The Facebook page is here.

Narcissus

Well, now, this is really unfortunate. Nearly 24 hours have passed since I reached out to Carl Elliott, but I have not yet heard a word from him. You would think that once his younger brother achieved celebrity status in the bioethics community, some congratulations would be in order.
But no. Instead, he’s phoning up media outlets, desperately trying to score interviews that will distract everyone from the website. It’s a pathetic game of one-upmanship, truly. 

Check out his interview in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Not one word about the website, or the success of yours truly in turning a truly horrible book into an overnight online viral success.  Not a single mention of  my attempts to reach out over the past few months. There’s just stuff about him. After all, this is Carl we’re talking about, and it’s always about him.  Always.

What can I say. It’s really sad to see a man in his late 40s still desperately chasing his younger brother’s success, but I should be used to this by now. One of the sad consequences of fame is that some people just like to take potshots at you. Sometimes those people are even members of your own family. I’m just sorry you all have to watch this unfold.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq0llrCYtCQ

In case you’re not following such things, Carl Elliott’s book is now at number 40,000 in the Amazon rankings.  On the brighter side, he’s made it into the top 16 in the bioethics subgenre (a mere 5 slots below the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statement).  Wowsers.

Meanwhile, his brother’s website has become a runaway hit. More people read this blog every day than likely read Carl’s book in an entire month.  Who knew?

So, Carl,  I just want to say, I could not have done this without you.  Here is a little song I found <3. No irony intended, none whatsoever.  No-siree. <3 :-)

Whereof one cannot speak . . .

Carl Elliott is giving an Arthur Schmitt Lecture at Notre Dame this Thursday, February 17.  What about?  Oh, I don’t know, maybe something like:  Drug companies are evil, capitalism is corrupting medicine, etc. etc.  If this message is so new to you that you you’d like to hear it again and again, for hours on end like some kind of godawful Castro speech, then go see it at 4 pm at McKenna Hall.

It’s huge, really huge. Almost like getting a Nobel or a Pulitzer, really — maybe even better! That, of course, is why it was perfectly appropriate for him to phone his brother in the middle of the Super Bowl, just after the kids had gone to bed, and expect to see the news posted all over the web right away. Nothing wrong with that, no sir. Perfectly understandable — especially seeing as Carl Elliott is a bigshot celebrity author, who as we all know, wrote every single goddamn word of that “acclaimed bestseller” book without a single bit of help from said brother. Nope, not a single bit of help, according to the index of the book.

Whatever. Carl Elliott won the Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Medicine. There, I said it. Now he can put it on his CV so people think he’s important.

. . . where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the professors absolutely never shut the fuck up.

Carl Elliott will be reading at Garrison Keillor’s bookstore, Common Good Books, this Tuesday, January 18 at 7:30 pm. He thinks I should tell people.

Fine.  The place is at 165 Western Avenue in St. Paul.  The thing should go on for several hours, and will include all the familiar harangues against greedy pharmaceutical companies, drug reps, doctors and other people who work for a living. No breaks for songs or Powdermilk biscuits, just a long, steady drone of complaints. If this is your idea of fun, go ahead.

Killjoy

Guess who’s back on CNN, ruining it for everybody?  See Carl’s latest piece, “Drug firms have to stop paying doctors”

Meanwhile I’m still working on my latest piece, “News outlets have to stop paying washed-up, badgering  doctors”