To the mall!

After a year of avoidance, I finally made my first trip to the Roswell Mall. I didn't go for shopping though, so I still have that going for me. I went to lend a hand to the Media Arts department of our school to help with recruitment.

The mall isn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. It actually looks like a mall inside and has your typical mall stuff offered. The two things that got me were:

1. Giant roaches. I'm not talking your little brown, we have a problem type roach here. No. I'm talking your indigenous two inch long, dinosaur looking things. They were everywhere outside the exit of the mall. Luckily most were dead, or dying, but yuck!! I think Roswell is as close to Galapagos as I'll ever get!

2. The sign on the door. The Roswell Mall has their do's and don'ts posted on a sign like many malls do. No smoking. No skateboards...that kind of thing. But...they had two things posted I have never seen (and being from Philly, you'd think I would have). They have a no bandana and no gang related attire policy. Yes, they will boot you from the mall if you are wearing your bandana. No eighties heavy metal stars here: sorry Axel!! And...how do you get those gang related tattoos off before you go in there?!?!?

Back to work

I guess it was bound to happen. Work. Today was the first of two days of meetings to get us back in the groove for another semester. This semester should be cool, but majorly busy.

I will be teaching 4 sections of Rhetoric, 1 section of Intro to theater arts, 1 section of Rehearsal and performance and 1 section of Comic Book Design. Then there is the play.

Besides that, I got back to Roswell safely and reclaimed my spot on the couch in front of the idiot box. I won't have much TV time for a while, but I did get a chance to catch up on most of the stuff I Tivo'd this summer.

No giant spiders. No scorpions. So far, off to a good start!

Wild blue yonder

Today I have airplanes on my mind. Maybe it is because I have to drive to Philly International to drop off Ali this afternoon, or because I have to fly out on Monday. Either way, I have been thinking about the pain in the rear which is air-travel.

Philly International is probably the biggest pain in the butt airport I have ever been to. It takes forever to get through there and there are always tons of people there. I know JFK is a big pain too, but my limites experience their has been positive.

Dallas, on the other hand, is a joy in comparisson. The only problem there is that when you land you might have a ten minute ride to your terminal. The first time you land there it is confusing. Your plane actually drives over the highway. It is even stranger when you drive to the airport and see a plane drive over you. But it is such a big airport and arranged so well that it is a breeze to get things done. One of the best things in Dallas.

I really like small airports though like Lubbuck or Santa Barbara. No muss no fuss. You enter in the one door, go to the one counter and sit at one of the few gates to wait for your plane. I love when I get to do a trip like that. It really lowers that travel stress.

Internationally, it seems like all airports are a pain for Americans. The Amsterdam airport was nice though. It had smoking and nice areas to get coffee or a snack. It was mobbed though. We got a verbal lashing at the gate too. We stopped for coffee because we were so early. When we showed up at the gate, about one hour and a half before the flight took off, a snooty airport employee gave us a lecture about being on time. They wanted us there to check in (even though we had already done that once) with them at the gate two hours before takeoff. I could've killed that jerk.

Anyway, I was just having a conversation and mentioned that if I were going on vacation and had a few choices of destination, I would totally pick the one with the least stressful airport. Is that dumb?

Anybody have a favorite airport or great airport story? I know most of you have heard all of mine before, so I won't bore you with them again.

The Philadelphia Five

As I get ready to head back to New Mexico, I thought I'd give you my list of things I miss most obout the greatest city in the USA: Philadelphia. Of course you can put family and friends aside for this, of course they come first. But the following is a list of things that are very difficult for me to do without in Roswell.

1. Rita's Water Ice. If you have been to Philly and had Rita's, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't, man, it is hard to explain. On the surface it would appear that Rita's is just a tasty, cool and refreshing icee snack. But, once you have tasted a Rita's, you realize there really is nothing like it in the world. Nuff said.

2. Snow. How do people live in climates that really do not get any snow? I love the snow. I love the way it looks, they way it falls, the way it feels to jump in and even shoveling the stuff! Every Winter I watch the news or weather channel and watch other people's snow. Is that wrong?

3. Attitude. I like the people I live near, but there is just nothing like the brunt honesty of people from Philly. No B.S.. I love when people look at me funny at restaurants when I ask for something ridicolous. Or when people tell me that something I am going to buy is ugly or dumb. You can't beat that kind of caring!

4. Angelos Pizza. Oh man, you gotta be kidding me. How do I go months and months without Angelos? The best pizza. Great Strombolis and Calzones. Perfect Cheese Steaks. I could eat there every night and not get the same thing for a month and be thrilled. I have been getting food there for about 27 years, and I guess you can say in part that they have made me into the man I am today.

5. Sports. It's not really the biggest deal in the world. I have friends to watch football with in Roswell and have great fun, but there is just something about being at home with Philly fans watching a game. Yelling at the TV. Arguing about who sucks the worst or who should be traded of fired. A whole flock of people to root against anything that even remotley reminds of New York or Dallas, or pretty much anything not Philly.

And of course there's a ton more, but that's enough for now. Let me know your top five from your hometown!

Where in the world!?!?

Hello my brothers and sisters. I apologize for the long absence, but it has made my heart grow fonder. Before I get into the usual routine, I thought I would give you my excuse for being gone such a long time (and no, it is not wanting to have you see Big Ben R. as my super genius for a month).

Fact of the matter is I have not been home since May 17th. This summer has been filled with travel, both pleasant and laborious. I will let you decide which is which and what is what. Being on the road for so long, it has been difficult to get online to update. But...I'm back.

Here's my summer to date:

Fly from Albuquerque to Seattle. Jump on ship and cruise Alaska. Fly Seattle to Dallas. Stay in Dallas 10 days. Fly from Dallas to Las Vegas. Pick up parents in rental car. Drive to Hoover Dam, Vegas, Sequoia national Park, Yosemite, San Francisco, Ventura and finally Santa Barbara for my brother's graduation (yay Ben!). Fly from Santa Barbara to Philadelphia. Stay in Philly for a couple of weeks. Fly from Philly to Dallas. Next Day, drive from Dallas to San Diego for conference. Drive from San Diego back to Dallas. Take train from Dallas to Los Angeles (56 hours). Drive from West Lake Village, Ca to Philadelphia.

So far, with layovers, I am at 14 flights this summer with two more to go to get back to lovely Roswell. I estimate my total miles in travel this summer to be over 20,000! And...all in the USA (except for a bit on the Pacific through Canada). Also, I have changed my watch 23 times to account for time zone changes (with two to go). Next summer, I want to visit some places in Dreamland. Just give me coffee, friends, some sports, good books and a bed!

I hope all of your summers are going well and I hope to hear from you!

D.W.

This month's Super Genius Award

How can it not go to Big Ben Roethlisberger? Sorry Pittsburgh fans, but he is the winner. Not only is this moron riding around without covering his melon on his motorcycle with an expired permit, but, and this is the part that gets me, he did like a million interviews about how smart he is and how he wouldn't get into an accident. I'm sorry, but when you make Bill Cower look smart...ugghh

A close runner up for the award was the drunken captain on my cruise. The only reason he doesn't get the SGA is because the very next cruise that went out on the same ship had almost every passanger come back sick! Super Genius!?!? Maybe more then we know!

Viva Las Vegas

Well...made it to Vegas in one peice after a few days of hellish travel. I think I might be getting old. I like Vegas, but I'd rather be doing, well...nothing (or sitting on a cruise ship doing nothing anyway). I'm just not a big gambler/drinker/partier as I used to be. Maybe I should be married...then I'd have an excuse!

While staying in Dallas I started writing some new tunes. One of these songs has my new motto: when I think of all the things I could've done today, it makes me want to do nothing tomorrow. Is that lazyness-maximus or what!?!?

A must read

Most of the comics I read are not very good; rather, I should say, most comics I read I wouldn't recommend. People laugh at me when I tell them I put my books in the order that I want to read them: crappy to good. If I read good ones first, then I know I won't read the crap. Why do I buy the crap? Why do people scratch there asses in public, pick their noses, read Steven King, or eat pixie sticks? They just do. They are compelled.

Anyway, I wanted to take a second to tell you about a great comic book. The latest edition of "Fell" just hit the market last week, and I have to say it is one of the best single issues of any comic I have read in the last year or so. It is engaging, well written and well drawn. The fact that "Fell" is up for like 5 Eisner Awards means that I am not the only one reading it or praising it. I'm not trying to claim discovery or anything. I just thought I'd share.

Also, speaking of must reads and sharing, our own "Doc" Bender has started a blog of his own based on interesting Civil War stories and people. It's a great site to add to your reading lists and certainly of more value than this one! Check it out and leave him some commentary so the old chap knows people are out there!!! Jo Shelby's Mule.

It's time to get things started...

Okay, so this is two in a row. But, based on the fact that the last post got so much feedback, I felt compeled to give you another silly quiz. This one is "which muppet are you?". Take it and let me know who you are. This time I was Kermit the Frog (Yay! Yay!) and I couldn't be happier. I was Spider-man in the last one and if I had to say which muppet was Spidey, Kermit would have been my guess.

Muppet quiz

That's about it for now from hotter then hell Dallas, Texas!

Which super hero am I?

I took this little test and was pleased with the results:


Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 65% Iron Man 55% Superman 55% Wonder Woman 48% Green Lantern 45% The Flash 45% Robin 43% Supergirl 43% Catwoman 35% Batman 35% Hulk 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Alaska: Day 1, Part 2

After the Captain of the ship was tossed, the cruise finally begun. Being my first cruise, I was unaware of the procedures that are expected to be followed. One such requirement was an emergency drill. So, we are in the room waiting for the signal and then it happens. We run to the mustardation site assigned to us with our life jackets on. Life jackets, by the way, that were not made for someone of my magnitude. I wasn't even sure I would float with one of those things on me.

Nothing really exciting happened during the drill of interest, but I had an eerie feeling during it. For some reason, in my mind, I thought of the nazis lining up the Jews in Germany and just pushing them in massive graves. Not the best image to have when starting a trip, but I just couldn't help thinking how massive a grave the ocean is. That and I thought of the Pink Flyod movie "The Wall". You know the part where the kids are being dropped in the meat grinder? That one.

Then of course I thought of pirates. I thought of the pirate who goes into a bar with the steering wheel of his ship stuck in his pants. The bartender asks him if it hurts and the pirate responds, "Arrgghhh...its driving me nuts!!"

I thought alot about pirates. Not of pirates coming onto the cruise ship. I know the Alaskan cruises don't attract the pirates like the Islands might. No, I thought about me becoming a pirate and living out on the ocean, robbing cruise ships of their bountiful vitals and treasures. Man, I wish I was a pirate.

Alaska: day 1, Part 1.

Captain's Log: 14:00, 19/5/06.

The Firshed daze of da cruuushe. I love being the capshion of dish ship. Eyes can't wait to getch to the open shees. Better drinks more of thish shmirnoff bottled water though sho I shober upss quishly. I donsh wans ta shteer thish baby inta land whensh we shhhoove off.

Captain's Log: 16:00, 19/5/06.

Yo Ho and A BoTtLe oF rUM. Thatsh what I'm shingin. Give me a bott el and shwab up the deck, shlo-bo and a mottle of bum.

Whatsh thar shound I'm hearin now? Shomone ish snocking on missa door. Goes away. Imsha catman of thish veshel and your shnot. Hey, gets outta here. Who arshe yous guys. Why are you pussshhing me off the ssshhiip? I'm the catman! I'm the Capshion! I'm the cushion! Shhiitt.

A hard rain

For the last 9 months I have lived in the desert. Last night and this morning (continuing as I type this post), the skies have opened up and let loose for the first time. It has rained a few times for a few minutes since I have been here, and I have heard that it has rained a few times that I was out of town (it even snowed I heard), but this is the first I have seen.

I love the rain, especially when the day before it rains it is 95 degrees and the day after it is 65. Of course one draw back is power failures. Yesterday I lost power a total of 3 times. There is nothing more boring than not having electricity. I read by candlelight, but that became uncomfortable. I drained out the battery of my laptop watching a part of a movie. I listened to music on the i-pod. But even though it seems I had much to do, one thing was a constant reminder to me; every minute the power was off was another push in the temperature of my place. My usual fridge-like home slowly was turning into a sauna...and there was nothing I could do.

Realistically, it never got too bad, but in my mind it was horrible and I started getting warmer and warmer, silently pleading for the gods of electrical wires to do their thing. Alas, a few hours later all was well. The rain continued to reek havoc, but the comforting sound of air rushing through vents returned and I was free from the torment of waking hours.

I might have to change the name of the blog to something else due to the fact that starting Wednesday of next week, I don't think I will actually be in Roswell for a long time. I don't like posting this information publicly, but since I will have a house sitter at my place, I feel a bit safer sending this out.

It's the end of the semester. As I write this post, I have no more classes to teach until my online courses start in June. All that is left for me to do is attend graduation tonight and grade like a muthaf'er this weekend. The semester flew by, and I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment here to publicly thank all of the wonderful people in my department for making this a great first year of employment. Without them, I'd have gone batty by now. So, Bob, Bob, Jenni, Alan, Rick, Lloyd, Grace, Bill, Maureen, Annemarie, Kate, Sherry and Helen, thanks a million!

That being said, Wednesday I start my summer of teaching, researching the play and visiting. Alaska is first on the list. That's next week. Then, my friends in Dallas, I'm coming to you for two weeks. After that Mein Bruder, I will be heading out to So-Cal for your graduation and to visit. After a quick stop, I will be on my way to Philly for a large chunck of time starting June 23rd.

So...check in still cause I'll be updating as often as possible from wherever I am. See you soon!

Free Comic Book Day

Sorry it's been a few days since I have posted. It's the end of the semester and things are crazy busy here. Besides that, I was in Dallas for a few days (I guess that's how things end up crazy, huh?). Well...it'll all be over soon. I have three more classes to teach then a bunch of grading and then vacation time.

But enough about scheduling. I wanted to take a minute to thank Chris and Chris over at Madness Comics for having me in this past weekend. They put on the absolute best free comic book day event you could hope for. Their store looked more like a convention site on Saturday then a comic shop. From 10:00am and continuing throughout the day, people piled in to the shop.

Their were free comics, yes, but every store had free comics that day. The Chris's just know what they are doing, and that makes all the difference. One cool thing they did was to invite Stormtroopers and Darth Vader to stalk the vicinity of the store. They pulled people in off the street, took pictures with the kids and were just all around a major asset.

Inside the store, if you could see past the multitudes of customers, there was a panel of guests at tables talking to anyone interested. They had a couple local comic creators there who were young and talented and ready to take on the world (more on them in another post). They had Rick Hoberg and Steve Bennett, both whom I would have to say I learned alot from during the day. And somehow or another, there was me, sitting at the table as a guest, talking about comics and scholarship, or classical allusions in comics or whatever someone wanted to talk about.

Rick and Steve kick ass! They are both so unbelievably talented, but more then that they were such a wealth of information. And they were great with the fans. They talked to everyone who wanted to talk and for as long as the person stood there. They didn't rush anyone or shrug anyone off.

Overall, a great day for comic fans in Plano. Ciao.

Alaska revisited

So...I finalized the details for the trip to Alaska yesterday. I gotta tell you: I am an idiot. After spending most of the day on the phone with cruise "experts" only to find out that they only go online and do the same thing we can do, I decided to just book it myself.

You would think that when you type in the parameters for a computer search, the findings would be within those parameters. Nope. I accidently booked a cruise that left from Seward Alaska instead of Seattle. I didn't notice right away, but when I did, I panicked. For one thing, where the hell is Seward Alaska!?!? Sencondly, they don't give refunds on cruises this close to the cruise date. I thought I was screwsville (30 miles south, evidently, of Seward).

Luckily, the fine people of Ceebrity Cruises and Orbitz.com were nice enough to work with me so that I could break the rules and reschedule a cruise for the same week that leaves from Seattle. Thank goodness. And for that my friends...I give myself the first of a new segment here at All's Well that's Roswell:

The SUPER GENIUS Award!

From here on out, each month I will give this award to those befitting the title.

The 5th Wall

Saturday night I had the pleasure of EmCeeing ENMU-R's fund raiser for an art scholarship called "Unleashed." There were two really cool things about the evening. One is that the Comedy Improv troupe I have been working with for the last 3 months finally got a chance to be on stage.

There were moments since we began of triumph and failure. The imoprovers always work hard, but comedy, especially impromptu, is not an easy thing to pick up. I don't think if you are not funny then you never will be, but to train yourself to be funny? Most comedians will tell you they were little goofballs their whole life.

But The 5th Wall, Johnnie, Arnie, Chris, Monica, Bekha, Gigi and Loyce stole the show. They were funny and the audience loved them. So kudos to them for pulling off a tough task.

They had the stage for a half hour in which they did three skits. The first was a version of the dating game where one of the troupe left the building and the audience picked who the contestants would be: rock stars, morticians, sky divers, whatever they wanted. Then they brought the improver back in and his job was to figure out, by questioning, who each was.

The second was "the paper game." Before the night started, one of the troupe got audience members to write words and phrases on paper and fold them up. They were collected right before the improvers hit the stage. The audience then choose a profession and scenario and the improvers, each time a bell was rung, had to incorporate whatever was on the paper into their story. My favorites were: Tickle me elmo, poppycock, is that Frank Sinatra and googly-goo (you had to be there to know why). Anyway...that was hilarious.

The last skit was the toughest to pull of, but it worked well also. It was called "snapshot" and the troupe picked a couple from the audience and brought them on stage. They asked where their last vacation was and then the whole troupe and the two audience members struck poses while the lights went out. When the lights came back on, two of the troupe had to explain the vacation photos. There were about 6 snapshots explained and people loved it.

So all in all a success for The 5th Wall. Congrats to them. The rest of the night was so-so. There was a guy who played electric music which wasn't bad, but got tedious quick. Then there was a karate exposition that was more like a feel good lecture. That got old real quick. And last was a band called Fetish from Artesia whose fetish was obviously for bad, underpracticed and undertalented music.

I got to EmCee from the astral plane. I had a wireless mic and sat in the light booth of the theater and called the show. At first people had no idea what was going on when my voice boomed through the theater. It was funny.

Two more weeks then the semester is over. I'll be coming to a town near you.

National "TV Turnoff Week"

In an attempt to promote this glorious week where we are supposed to take a journey of self discovery and try something new, TV Turnoff Week, I thought I would make a quick note.

If you live in New Mexico and happen to think you see me invading your TV set during a UPS Store commercial, don't fret or get concerned. It is no doppleganger. Fortunately or otherwise, that is me playing the boss in the advertisement. I haven't seen it yet and more then likely will never see it as it plays (I will have a copy on DVD) because it will be playing only on Comcast and Cableone cable in New Mexico. If you live in New Mexico and have one of these cable providers, then you might catch it if you watch your basic cable channels (like CNN or ESPN).

Anyway...I thought I'd let you know so you are not surprised. That way you can laugh with me, not at me.

And the Oscar for best tobbaconist goes to...

Wait a second. Did he just say tobacconist!?!? What the hell does he mean. Well my smoking jacket wearing friends, let me tell you. This weekend I was lucky enough to get to work on a wonderful short film here in Roswell, New Mexico, USA. I was brought on as an acting coach and worked with the director and actors to help the acting stay as close to the directors intention as possible.

But a funny thing happened on the movie set. One of the characters in the movie was required to smoke a ciggarette and then flick it at the camera. Problem was...he never even held a cancer stick before, let alone tossed one. So, as the guy outside smoking, I was naturally asked to become the smoking coach. During the shoot, we went through more then a pack of ciggarettes trying to film a scene that will probably end up about 2 minutes max on the screen.

I don't know how many films hire a tobacconist, and I am sure I am not the first, but, I have to say, it is the pinnacle of my movie career to date. Give me my Oscar, you Hollywood curs!!!

A good thing?

Recently, I was talked into getting a myspace account. For those of you who may not know what myspace is, it is a place on the web for people to show that they have friends, make business connections, find dates, or just plain screw around. Well...I pretty much don't bother with stuff like that, but because it seemed so many people I knew were up and running there, I figured what the hay.

As a big surprise to me, I quickly realized a wonderful thing about it; you can be reconnected with people you haven't heard from in forever (this might not always be a good thing). I had a chance to talk to an old friend of mine who I haven't been able to contact in years. So now I am a believer. The rest of it still seems kind of goofy to me, with the only other benefit so far being reading the rants and oddities from a certain friend of this blog who shall remain nameless.

Have a good weekend