AFTER ARREST IN DRUG BUY, 'DELL DUDE' GETS A CELL

When he is selling Dell computers on television, he calls everyone "dude."
But yesterday he was calling a Manhattan judge "ma'am."

After a night in jail, Benjamin Curtis, 22, who plays Steven, the Dell
dude, faced a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession.

Mr. Curtis was arrested at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, after he bought a small
bag of marijuana on the Lower East Side, the police said. He was wearing a
navy blue plaid kilt, a tuxedo jacket, beige knee-length socks and black
shoes, the police said. At his arraignment, the judge told Mr. Curtis that
if he did not get arrested again in the next year, the case could be
dismissed, and he could avoid a record.

The police said he bought the drug from Omar Mendez, 19, of Queens. Mr.
Mendez faces charges of selling and possessing marijuana, the police said.
Mr. Curtis became widely known for delivering one of the more recognizable
commercial catch phrases in recent years. He frantically implored his
parents, friends and co-workers to buy a Dell computer, telling them,
"Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!"

The advertisements were popular with some viewers (and annoying to others),
doing for slacker college students what Clara Peller did for the geriatric
set when she bellowed "Where's the beef?" in Wendy's commercials.

The Dell campaign, which started in late 2000, was remarkably successful,
company officials said, but in recent months Dell has begun to phase it
out. That was fine with Mr. Curtis, who told The Wall Street Journal last
year, "I have been training in theater for years not to be typecast as a
surfer dude."

Mr. Curtis, a theater major in his last semester at New York University,
had no comment. His agent, Bonnie Shumofsky, said, "He is a good kid, and
he's just concentrating on his schoolwork."