Oh, Say Can UC? (Sorry)

Fernando Pisani is living with ulcerative colitis (or UC) (not to be confused with the University of California, which due to budget cuts is suffering its own stomach pains these days--hyuk!) (but we digress).

Who's Fernando Pisani, you ask?  Well, you could look him up in the handy-dandy Google search bar atop "The Solipsist" (talk about shameless sponsor sucking-up), but we will tell you: He is a hockey player (Hockeyist?  Hockeyator?  Sorry, it's not a sport we follow).  We know he suffers from UC because of his presence as a television spokesplayer for a UC organization, "In the Zone for Ulcerative Colitis" (or ITZFUC--oooh, bad acronym there).

Yesterday, WOS and the Solipsist were watching TV when Pisani's commercial came on.  WOS perhaps uncharitably commented that this guy has no charisma whatsoever.  (He DOES suffer from UC--that could sap the verve from anybody.)  She wondered why the UC organization would hire HIM as a spokesperson, instead of someone more charismatic like, say, Magic Johnson or Shaquille O'Neal.

Now, the obvious answer is that neither Magic nor Shaq suffers from UC.  But then we got to wondering if that was, in fact, an important consideration.  After all, Magic can probably afford to buy his own ottomans (say), but that doesn't stop his doing commercials for Rent-a-Center.  (For that matter, we assume his personal accountant doesn't work for Jackson-Hewitt.)  He does those ads because he is paid well for doing them.  If the folks at "In the Zone for UC" really wanted to draw attention to this disease, wouldn't it have been better for them to hire a spokesman with some panache (even a non-UC sufferer)?

One can imagine that meeting:

In the Zone for UC: Magic, we want you to be the face of ulcerative colitis!

Magic: But I don't HAVE ulcerative colitis!

ITZFUC: You don't?

Magic: I don't!

ITZFUC: Not even for. . . .ONE-MILLION DOLLARS?!?

Magic: Oh!  My tummy!

Tomorrow: More on athletes and the trendy diseases they have!