Don't Be a Grinch!

Even if the economy is bad. (original illustration by Robin Haislett)

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Video Alert
	Watch video of ENMU folks and friends Christmas caroling at the Heartland Continuing Care Center in Portales on Tuesday night. – [video]

AEOP Holiday Potluck Gets Rowdy

AEOP's Beautiful Ladies and Women and a Handsome Guy – Above are some of the AEOP beautiful ladies and women, as well as Dr. John George, who attended AEOP's Holiday Potluck on Tuesday evening in the SAS Atrium. Inspired by Diana Cordova's recent trip to see AC/DC in San Antonio, the rowdy bunch launched into an almost on-key rendition of "Shook Me All Night Long!" (photos by Wendel Sloan)

Video Alert – Watch video of The Wild Things, on a sugar high, sing "Wild Thing" at the AEOP Holiday Potluck. – [video]

President's Holiday Reception (photos by Robin Haislett)

Audio/Video Alert
	Listen to a Christmas song by Hippie Rick set to photos taken by Betsy Chavez of the AEOP's beautiful ladies' holiday shopping trip to Carolyn's in Muleshoe, and photos by Justin Liles at a Christmas ornament party in SAS. – [song and photos]

Slide Show Alert

Watch a slide show of Student Affairs' ornament exchange. – [slide show] (after opening, scroll down) (photos by Robin Haislett]

Video Alert
	Watch video of kingergartners from Brown Elementary in Portales singing Christmas carols on Wednesday in the Administration Building. – [video]

In Memory of Alva Carter

Mary Helen Carter, widow of the late Board of Regents president Alva Carter, received a medallion in his honor at the last Regents' meeting from President Gamble. (photo by Robin Haislett)

ENMU-Ruidoso Could Expand onto Spencer Theatre Property
	Stewart Ashman, secretary for Cultural Affairs for New Mexico, was one of the signees of a memorandum of understanding between ENMU and his department empowering ENMU-Ruidoso to eventually expand its campus onto 139 acres surrounding the 49,474 square-foot Spencer Theatre near Ruidoso. ENMU-Ruidoso president Michael Elrod looks on. (photos by Wendel Sloan)
Also present at the signing were (L-R):  Stewart Ashman, secretary of Cultural Affairs for New Mexico; Michael Elrod, president of ENMU-Ruidoso; Charles Centilli, executive director of the Spencer Theatre; Tom Battin, development officer for the Spencer Theatre; and Steven Gamble, ENMU president.

Beware of Facebook

Whoosh...Pow...Kaboom...Batman! – Employees should be very careful about what gets posted on their Facebook page. Even Batman (Adam West) can't protect them from the past. She does deserve credit for cramming that hat on. (By the way, she just celebrated a "special" birthday.)

ENMU Grad Tours with Ska/Punk/Pop/Hip-Hop/Reggae Band
by Erin Griffith
Communication Services

"The guys agree that every young boy, at some point in his life, wants to be a rock star."

Mix Latin, ska, punk, pop, hip-hop, reggae, Cumbia and just fun dance music together and the result is what The Big Spank has coined “eclecto-pop.”

The Big Spank is a one-of-a-kind band that started in Albuquerque, N.M. about 10 years ago and is made up of 30-year-old Michael J. Garcia (Mike), the vocalist; 25-year-old Javier Sandoval, the guitarist; 22-year-old Christopher Tickner (Chris), the bassist; 28-year-old Roberto Lujan (Bert); the drummer and 44-year-old R. Rhett Griffith (Retzen), the “tromboner” and a 1986 ENMU graduate with a computer science major and accounting minor.

Band members said that describing their music is the hardest question to answer, but people of all age groups enjoy it.   

The band of gypsies, as they call themselves,  resides on a school bus turned R.V. and has spent the past 18 months touring from California to New York and proving to the world that they can support themselves, however poorly, as musicians.
Mike said that it was mostly his idea to leave Albuquerque, but the guys agree that every young boy, at some point in his life, wants to be a rock star. So, in April 2007, each guy dropped what he was doing and hit the road with only two scheduled shows and about $300. The first was in Flagstaff, Ariz., and the other was in California two months later. 
 
  “I’ll never forget the day we left.  We were all in the bus leaving town and we were all just quiet and I think scared. When we first left, I don’t think I’d call it a tour; I’d call it five guys praying for the best,” Mike said.

 At first, it was rough times for the guys.  Chris remembers doing day labor for the first few months to help make ends meet between shows. 

“(Day labor) was horrible. We’d get up at six in the morning, Mike and Bert actually failed their day labor test and they couldn’t do it, so they would drop us off.  I was a trash man in Compton, we worked at a pie factory in L.A., and we worked at a nursery moving trees,” he said. 

Since then, the band has had more success and managed to eat out at a few restaurants during the end of the last leg of their tour on the east coast.  The band even bought alcohol with band money for the first time at McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York as a celebration of their success. The bar is one of the oldest in New York and was opened in 1854. 

In many places, especially in the Midwest, the band says that people are sometimes confused about what to do with the music, but they always like it.  Retzen said that sometimes he can see the door of the bar from the stage and people literally skip through the door with smiles on their faces when they hear the music.  The guys say they just try to play an entertaining show so people enjoy themselves.

That could be the reason that Mike has pulled his back several times, has fallen from being upside down, been electrocuted on stage, had a folding chair snap on him, fallen in-between the stage, and why Chris has given his underwear away before – all for the sake of a good time. 

One of the most fun shows was in Winston-Salem, N.C., where the band took part in the Heavy Rebel Weekender, a rockabilly festival.

“I guess we’re the first ska-type band to play it.  We killed them; we packed our little room and we killed them.  People were throwing and spitting beer on us.  Chris got hit on the face with a mostly full can of beer, but it’s a good thing because it just means they were so excited they couldn’t finish first,” Javier said. 

 Other favorite shows include playing a day on the Warped Tour in Denver, Colo., and a last-minute show in New York, which was, according to Javier, “perfect.”
           
The bus often smells like a locker room since a few of them have gone up to two weeks without showering, but for the most part, they get along.  The bus has cages for equipment, five bunks, a living area/guest room, a dining area/conference table, a filing cabinet/pantry, a kitchen, an office desk and is equipped with three computers with access to the Internet, even while flying down the highway.

The most difficult part of being on the road is the daily grind of managing the band.  The use of MySpace to find and book shows has been an invaluable tool for The Big Spank. 

“The hardest part is the general, overall band work – booking, keeping shows lined up; it’s hard to stay focused.  It is a life of leisure, you’re in a club every night, you’re up late, you sleep late; it’s hard staying focused on the fact that it is a job and it is work and it’s not all fun and games,” Retzen said.

The Big Spank now has fans in New Mexico, California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.  They have performed approximately 260 shows in 10 years (twice what it was before the band left home).  The band has three full-length CDs that that have sold several thousand copies and currently has 5,568 friends on MySpace.

Recently, The Big Spank had to take a break from its tour because Mike developed an ulcer on his vocal chords and needed time to recuperate.  However, the band plans to start spanking audiences again on Tuesday, Dec. 16 in Tucson, Ariz., at the Dry River Collective.

 On the whole, the guys say that the experience has been rewarding and they would encourage others to give it a try – just remember that communal life means communal band money: if the band does not get paid, it’s macaroni and tuna for dinner.

Video Alert
Watch second-half action from Zias' Wednesday night basketball game against New Mexico Highlands University in Greyhound Arena. – [video]

Slide Show Alert

Watch slide show of 2008 Fall Commencement – [slide show] (photos by Robin Haislett, Erin Griffith, Minh Tran)

ENMU-Portales Grads Walk at ENMU-Roswell (photos by Donna Oracion)

Family Affair

Grads from ENMU-Portales have the option of walking at ENMU-Roswell.

President Gamble congratulates a Youth ChalleNGe graduate (the NG stands for National Guard) at ENMU-Roswell's 2008 fall commencement.

Two Students Display Final BFA Exhibit

Helen Perry's BFA Exhibit – Two unidentified veteran happy-hour employees examine one of Helen Perry's works of art in her final Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibit in the Runnels Room of Golden Library. (photo by Wendel Sloan)

Parental Guidance Recommended – Charlayne Heselton, with parents Phil and Vickie who have allowed her to flourish, stands in front of one of her BFA creations that combine her art and music talents. (photo by Wendel Sloan)

International Raffle Winner
	Dr. Mary Ayala was the raffle winner for a gift bag from the International Club.
Members of the International Club presented gifts to Diana Cordova for surviving a recent AC/DC concert in San Antonio (as well as for her contributions to the club), and to Rabiah Memon, International Club Star Volunteer for the semester. (photos by Hannah Odame)

Scenes from Campus Kwanzaa Celebration (photos by Daniela Garcia)

Communication Services Door: Really Worthy of Runner-Up?

Perhaps Something Happened Since Judging? (photo by Wendel Sloan)