[After a lengthy hiatus, The original Spleen of Cincinnati returns to reclaim the persona that was stolen!!  The piss-poor imitator who stole your humble Spleen's moniker was so ashamed after his blatant theft was exposed, that he removed all of his blog entries.]

Some will refuse to believe it, but there is a part of me committed to doing comparative discount shopping until the moment I pull my bascart into a checkout lane.   I always remain open to one store swaying me over another. 

That said, I still advocate for whichever store provides the best deals, whether it be clothing, dishware, or sporting goods.  And, at this time, I happen to be enjoying the great deals at Value City - beautiful furniture, stylish clothing,  colorful candles, and fragrant jars of potpourri.

So yesterday I decided to exhibit my appreciation of Value City's amazing prices and friendly customer service by handing out Value City coupons and circulars at the Target in Mount Healthy.  Although a big box store like Target is supposedly "open to the public", I was surprised by my rough treatment.

1.  Foul-mouthed hypocrisy

Walking around the Target men's department, one Target shopper who I'd just given a Value City flier asked me "Who the hell shops at Value City?"  I then replied, "Who the hell shops at Target?"  Not that I believe Target is all bad, I just wanted to reflect his negativity back at him.

Amazingly, this pathetic excuse for a frugal shopper acted offended that I would say the exact same thing back to him.  Hypocrisy, anyone?  That move just cost you Target shoppers and your ilk 42 points.

2.  No Value City coupons allowed inside.

I was eventually told by several Target employees and then management that I couldn't distribute Value City circulars at Target.   I'm not sure if passing out Value City fliers and coupons at an open-to-the-public Target location should be that big of a deal, particularly since all kinds of people there were carrying Target circulars with them. 

But here is the thing: Target's motto is "Expect More, Pay Less".  Target is supposed to value discounted items..  Essentially they are supposed to value value, the kinds of values provided on a daily basis by Value City.   So, when Target shows they support cost-cutting values at their store, but not other amazing discounts which don't happen to be available at Target, it just makes me a bit disillusioned.  Minus 35 points for Target.

3.  “If you don’t leave, we are going to call the police.”

I’m not sure why my meager distribution of Value City information would incite anyone to extreme actions, but I couldn’t believe I was receiving this threat from a mindless Target employee drone who attempted to intimidate me.

I double-dog dare any Target store manager to press charges against me for exercising my freedom in a public place.  In the meanwhile, I’m taking 38 points more for the supreme disrespect for my right to peaceful and nonviolent distribution of Value City coupons.  That takes Target down 115 points.

4.  “I’d shop at Value City, but they don't have much selection.”

Before I was unjustly kicked out of the store, one of the Target shoppers had the nerve to tell me this. 

If everyone who said this went ahead and actually shopped at Value City, then they would have a much larger selection.  Enough said!

Target and stores like it are guilty of large-scale brainwashing so they can maintain their market dominance.  I’m taking 27 points for the sheer stupidity at play here.

5. Forcing the debate between Target and Wal-Mart

After being kicked out into the cold rain by a supposedly free market-espousing Target manager, one "savvy" shopper in the Target parking lot informed me that there was no real competition between Value City and Target - He condescendingly informed me that Wal-Mart is the only real competitor for Target out there, as if Target and Wal-Mart are the only stores in existence. 

When I asked this Target shopper about the values to be found at Stein Mart, Value City, and Family Dollar, he laughed in my face.  That arrogance just cost you Target shoppers another 25 points.

Final total -   The Spleen: 167, Target and all Target shoppers: 0.

The Dealer received a lot of mail in response to recent developments at Pulse, formerly known as Downtowner .  The following are our 3 favorite letters.

Dear Editor,

I loved the spoof of the P&G rap label (P&G to Take Over the Rap Game).   Props to Burt Safer for sending up A.G. Lafley as a gangster rapper.  Burt's rhymes are the tightest - a perfect 10!  Thanks for making my Wednesday morning.

All the best,
Burt Safer 

Dear Harold,

Please print more stories by Manny Milquetoast.  What an irreverent and whimsical story (Group asks Papa John's to dis Chad Johnson).  I loved it so much that I called up Papa John's today and demanded that they dis Chad Johnson... Hahahaha..  You aren't paying these guys enough!

Your friend for life,
Manny Milquetoast

Thanks again,
Ted Beverage  

  Yes, it is time for the Dealer 2008 Best 'Stuff Edition.  Thank you to our graphic design team, whose brainchild was this year's original "Pig" design, with the cool Bauhaus font.

Best excuse to make a random category for something random: Our Dealer "Best 'Stuff" edition, of course!

Best way to prove that you have absolutely no idea what a vegetarian restaurant is:  Year after year, vote for vegetarian-friendly non-vegetarian restaurants like Myra's, Mullane's and Melt in the Best Vegetarian Restaurant category, so long as they start with the letter "M".

Best ploy to show your city really counts for something, gosh:  Make sure to mention Ikea to all your visiting friends because this city is actually a trendy real city now that Ikea is here.  West Chester, that is.

Best way to use up space: Add silver, bronze, copper, and aluminum awards to your "Best of" edition.  Did you know that Biggs came in 2nd place for Best Grocery Store this year? Congrats, Biggs.

Best scheme to hype up a politician:   Talk up Roxanne Qualls as the anti-Mallory mayoral candidate. Anything Mallory does, Qualls does the opposite.  Obviously, everyone will recognize this as a sign of true leadership.

Best "who's your daddy" moment: Kroger agreeing to circulate CityBeat again, and practically single-handedly keeping this rag alive.

CINCINNATI - Cincinnati journalists got all self-conscious and shit this week, about everything from saying "Happy Easter" to shopping at Ikea.

In today's Enquirer, Carolyn Pione wondered aloud about the supposed lack of Easter coverage in today's Enquirer, despite the Enquirer's own pointless "Easter coverage".   Did Pione really need to get all self-conscious about it, or was this editorial merely an attempt to increase the number of times "Easter" is mentioned in today's issue?

If, as she proposed, Pione wants to go further and start including "coverage" of her own religious beliefs, maybe Pione should start with less personal stuff like publishing news articles about her teeth-brushing techniques.

In this week's CityBeat, Joe Wessels bemoaned that people aren't shopping at Ikea, since he is feeling self-conscious about shopping at Ikea himself.  I would like to assuage Joe Wessels's insecurity about shopping at Ikea.   In fact, I recommend that he purchase a Mongstad mirror (pictured right) the next time he wants to get all reflective and crap.   (After all, it goes without saying that Ikea will need Wessels's business to stay afloat since he is apparently the only one who shops there.)

Wessels's feelings of self-consciousness continued as he extrapolated one woman's Facebook blog into a theory that everyone else in Cincinnati has the same streetcar agenda.  He was obviously feeling self-conscious and shit about having a different opinion from someone else.

I do agree with Wessels that all of the differing opinions in Cincinnati on everything from streetcars to Ikea do somehow constitute "groupthink".  (And although I love groupthink, it is just killing us)   And Cincinnati really needs someone like Joe Wessels to "think outside the box" for us.   Actually, I lied. 

I would say that readers might think my rant in that last paragraph wasn't an example of Joe Wessels being "self-conscious", but I don't want to get all self-conscious and shit too.

Last year, the year the Cincinnati Dealer reporters went on strike, I realized how our influence was missed (Actually they are still on strike - Burt and I are just scabs).

Just think - Had we released endorsements last November,  Justin Jeffre and Sam Malone might have won seats on city council.   I don't want to let a missed opportunity like that to happen again, do you?    In order to have a little influence over this November's election, we offer the Dealer (Scab) Primary Endorsements, for the Republicans and the Democrats...  

Republicans  

Court of Common Pleas

Pat DeWine
Kathy King

If you look at his website, it appears that Pat DeWine is running for County Commissioner.  I honestly can't tell why he's running for Judge if he's already a County Commissioner, but whatever.  It seems like Pat just likes running for stuff.  I really have no idea what he's up to nowadays, and I like that in a candidate.  

In our (my) opinion, King seems to be WAY too qualified for this position, over-qualified, even.  When my time comes to face a judge, I hope that judge has absolutely no idea what's going on.  King has judicial experience and her website actually relates to the current campaign. She also wastes her time filling out online forms.  King is like one of those teacher's pet types - she disgusts me.

Meanwhile, Pat cheated on his wife, has no judicial experience, and can't be bothered to update his website.  If and when the law ever catches up with me, I would definitely prefer to face DeWine in the courtroom.

Dealer endorses: Pat Dewine

This weekend is former council candidate Nick Spencer's "Desdemona Festival". As I have stated earlier, "Desdemona" is an extremely problematic name for a festival in Cincinnati. For those who don’t remember 9th grade English, Shakespeare's Desdemona (who was white) was killed by Othello (who was black). I have not yet had any reports of local interracial uxoricide or mariticide by my crack team of reporters, but we shall wait until the weekend is over.

I have written an open letter to Cincinnati Police warning them to keep watch for race riots sparked by this unfortunate festival name. How many "Desdemona's" in Cincinnati will be left dead by their black husbands at the end of the weekend?

I suggested many alternate names for this festival, but received no response from Nick. Why did he keep the name "Desdemona Festival", instead of using my racially harmonious alternative suggestion, "The Harriet Tubman Indie Rock Festival"?

Let us now look beyond the name of the Desdemona Festival, to deconstruct the name of Friday night's headlining act. Nick Spencer (who is white) scheduled a non-indie rock artist, Ghostface "Killah" (who is black), while neglecting to fly in any black indie rock musicians from overseas (who are black), despite  the abundance of available black indie rock talent (39 hits on Google).

Did Nick Spencer ever consider how "Ghosface Killah's" chosen moniker will affect racial tensions in this city? Consider these points:

1. As everyone knows, Ghosts are white.
2. Killah is another way to say "Killer".

So a "Ghostface Killah" could be seen as a killer of white-faced people. I had high hopes for a racially harmonious city - that we would be able to put the string of interracial spousal killings behind us.  Will we soon witness the Helter Skelter that Charles Manson warned of?

My name is Blaine Chowder and I am addict.

I am addicted to oil. The President told me so.

I first realized I had a problem during the Presidents State of the Union Speech last week. Since then I have been reeling over my struggles with this horrible addiction. I have been frantically seeking a methadone-like treatment that would wean me off this sludge that I have been unconsciously thirsting for since the day the DMV took my picture for my drivers license.

To get to the bottom of my problem I researched 12-step-programs in the hope of finding one that best suited my needs. I found 12-steps for marijuana, nicotine, rape, incest, borderliners, compulsive disorders, spenders and scores of others. But nothing for oil addiction.

12-step-programs originated in Akron, Ohio in the mid 1930's by AA (Alcoholic Anonymous)founders Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson who were also co-founders of the Oxford Group. I figured the next course of action should be to call them.

Power Over Pork Important

I applaud John Boehner for seeking power over pork ("Boehner seeks power over pork", Jan 15).  I have been seeking power over pork for many years now, but every time I see a big plate of bacon and ham over at the Denny's on 42, I just can't help but succumb to the pork. I'm helpless.

But if Boehner can tame his lust, then more power to him.  It's an asset he'll find quite valuable in our nation's fair capital.

Benny Jones, Liberty Twp.

If we could Google the headlines of the future, we'd probably find out all kinds of things we'd rather not know. Such as:

2007: "ACLU Sues The Pope"
2008: "Dan Rather Confesses To Fraud In Suicide Memo"
2009: "Michael Moore Removes Rubber Mask To Reveal Osama Bin Laden"
2011: "Sheryl Crow Cloned With Jane Fonda DNA"
2012: "President Sharpton Signs Pro-Terrorism Bill"
2013: "Enquirer Hires Democrat Columnist To Hype Up Democrats"
2014: "Democrat Party Celebrates The End Of Social Security"
2015: "PETA Member Goes On Atkins Diet, Eats Humans"
2016: "Cincinnati Ransacked By Jerry Springer And His Band Of Pirates - Everyone Dies"

But all of the news wouldn't be totally bad. If we could Google the future,  we might find this gem:

2006: "Columnist Pete Brawnson's Friends Throw Him A Big Surprise Birthday Party, Complete With Cake And Ice Cream And Presents And A Magician And A Clown And Fireworks (Hint, Hint)"

The first time I ever accessed the internet was over a decade ago. I was working for a little company on the Potomac river called the Department of Defense. The first site I accessed was the Washington Post. The second site I accessed was Playboy.com. My boss was the one who showed me how to get there.

The internet was different back then. It wasn't as mucked up with average Jane's spilling their neurosis filled cerebral cortex out for anyone who happens to be clicking by. There was no Myspace.com. There was no blogging. There was no iTunes. No JibJab. And no Dealer. The cyber landscape was still brand-spanking new for the computer illiterate and the possibilities for this exciting terrain seemed endless.

Carrying a concealed weapon.

Fast forward to the now. I am Googling John Matarese for a future fake story and a few clicks later I am staring at Cincinnatiblackblog.com. Like anything new, I give it a chance before I give it my dead Siskel thumbs up or down, although I am put off by the title "Black Cincinnati", which begs the question: If I were to start a blog called "White Cincinnati", would I be crucified?