In Greensboro, NC, the two tall buildings housing the corporate headquarters of CS Enterprises are dark and quiet. Not only is it a Sunday afternoon, but most of the staff is down in the Auditorium and out of the Towers. A lone janitor is cleaning up. It seems useless, since almost no one will be in tomorrow. Jimmy the Janitor has been a CSWA employee for over a decade; he knows the ropes. Jimmy uses one key on his set of almost a hundred to open the large doors to Chad Merritt's corner office. He does just a cursory cleaning, dumping the trash, dusting around piles on the desk. He accidentally hits a key on the keyboard, and the screen lights up, showing Merritt's computer desktop. Jimmy quickly finishes up, killing the lights and locking the door. Just a typical lazy North Carolina Sunday.

At least it was. A black window emerges in the middle of the desktop, appearing like a rogue black hole in the midst of a field of matter. Green letters flash across the dark space, only to be answered:

ACCESS DENIED

Virtual silence returns, but only for a moment. Asterisks appear like deformed stars on the black background.

ACCESS DENIED

The odd characters appear again and again on the screen, only to disappear and be answered by the same two words, over and over again.

ACCESS DENIED

The same green characters repeat again and again, filling the black space with short lines of green. The pages scroll until the field of green finally changes, just slightly.

ACCESS GRANTED

The black hole disappears, replaced by matter again. Important matters...

(As the CSWA15 logo fades, the camera catches CSWA owner Chad Merritt at a contemporary desk in his penthouse office in the CS Enterprises HQ building.)

So here we are. Finally.

CSWA15.

I can hear the detractors already. “You’re a little late, aren’t you? It’s the CSWA’s sixteenth birthday this year.” “The CSWA’s in a slump… even worse than those other places.” “When’s the next ‘hiatus?’”

I could attempt to be politically correct. I could laugh off the detractors as I usually do. I could agree and lay down and die. Typically this is the place where I gush about our history and those that have played a part. Instead, I have just two words.

Screw you.

I’ve taken a lot of flack for my “New Blood” column recently. I’ve been told that putting this event on free television shows weakness and is a desperate measure. I’ve been told that I’m too old, too tired, and too out of touch.

Once again, thanks for the advice. And, once again, screw you.

This is the fifteenth time we’ve gotten together to celebrate another year of the CSWA. Some have been happier than others, bigger than others. Some have been huge events, others have simply been parties downstairs in the Hall. When ANNIVERSARY started, it was a month-long tour to keep the company viable, to get into new markets and circuits. In 1998, ANNIVERSARY was a new beginning, a relaunch that propelled the company to amazing heights.

And now, here we are. Another key moment. Maybe not a "Sink or Swim" moment, maybe not a "Last Call" or a "Revelations" moment, but a moment, nonetheless.

One little moment in time. When you're more than you thought you could be. When all of your dreams...

I promise I won't sing.

But I don't promise anything else. Nothing. At all.

Except that the next three hours here on NCN are going to be like nothing you've ever seen before.

Whether that's good or bad... you be the judge. Well, actually, I will be. But I'll let you pretend that you are.

See you soon. In just a moment.

The Odyssey of Thomas began fifteen years ago, in the cool Greensboro spring of ’88, when best friend and co-Silver Spoons fanatic Chad Merritt pitched what would be become the ultimate after-school special project over non-alcoholic drinks at a Irish Pub. Neither Merritt or Thomas were Irish, but when mapping out a doomed to fail business idea, Chad thought it wise to have, “This could be our lives, otherwise...” examples on hand. And drunken, swollen heads with ridiculously funny accents spilling broken verbiage was as close as you get, when Glam Rock was still cool, and to make fun of your Southern heritage meant certain death by firing squad if convicted.

The CSWA was born hours later, or the balls to rob a downtown gas station to front the first show money.

CS Enterprises never robbed a soul, in reality. The rent on an old warehouse on Pace Street, and other expenses were paid by credit cards and over twenty years of saved birthday money. Merritt, a known cheapskate, hid the money behind a painting of Ronald Reagan, telling friends and enemies alike one day that when he made it big and hired a ghost writer to begin work on his memoirs, the introduction would be about the money friends and family gave him on October 25th of every year, when he never really needed it then, and certainly didn’t know, but they did. They did, but he wasn’t returning the funds. No, they’d hang, framed, on his office wall as a reminder you invest, or do nothing at all.

Chad invested in an upstart wrestling league when the doubters (parents) warned him never to. Merritt and fellow Spoons fan club co-president Thomas beat the odds and shaped the landscape of professional wrestling for the next ten years.

“Better Than You And Your Family Dog: The Memoirs Of A Supposed Genius” has yet to see the shelves of large book chain stores, but halfway through will be a passing mention of how Chad ran his best friend out of town, never giving him the credit he deserved, even (gasp) rebuilding the Titanic to scale just to shove Thomas off the end as it sank once again.

So the Titanic bit was a dream, but Thomas was run slap out, tail between his legs. The man is as sensitive as a woman, and beyond a shadow of a doubt it was the pity vibes emitting from every pore on Thomas’ body that crashed that round-the-world two-man flight. Just the real genius behind the CSWA, and the sexual predatory midget he brought in. Stephen and Red would make history, appear on Conan O’Brien, and prove to Merritt they were assets worth keeping around; Framed on the wall, or otherwise.

The plane went down over the Pacific. Conspiracy theorists believed Thomas was alive, and that he was marooned on a government owned island, where he was strapped to machines, evil scientists using the strength behind his erections for renewable energy.

Bad, yes. The actual truth is much worse.

For a year Thomas and Red were stranded on a deserted island, forced to co-exist and develop a taste for fruit. It was either that or death. Thomas thought for a moment, then sent Red monkeying up a tree to snatch and peel his first banana. For twelve months they waited for a fishing boat, or very well hidden island girls to appear and offer their virginity. Storm fronts came and went. So did time, but no island girls, nor a casually dressed professor with a pocketknife, transistor radio and a penchant for performing small miracles. Just the midget and his master and a willingness to share their darkest secrets with each other.

Every man has a breaking point, the moment where the decided height advantage over his peer stops offering self-confidence. Thomas knew he had to escape, or die trying. He and Red crafted a life raft out of thin air, and with the handmade rope the midget had tried to hang himself with weeks before, tied the loose ends together and shoved off, “Big Blue wave off in the southern distance, private...engage!”

Well, Thomas left anyway.

As the raft hit water, Stephen cracked a rock over Red’s head, essentially dumbing him down more, and leaving his skittle-sized tail behind.

To freedom Thomas sailed, braving high winds, commercial fisherman, who oddly just let him pass (with no offers of help), and ocean life hunting for a meal. The water and fruit Red spent all night loading the raft with, like a homemaker sending her kids off to school with a healthy lunch, lasted six weeks. The sun weighed down on Thomas, as he was cast helplessly from wave to wave, waiting certain death. With his fingernails he carved obscene messages into the raft, just to throw off the search team when they found his body.

Somebody was looking, right?

Had Thomas died alone in the Pacific, there might have been a hint of romanticism with that. His thirst and hunger didn’t take.

Natives of a second uncharted island, who immediately sold him into slavery, found Thomas’s raft and overtanned body on the seventh week of his escape. For three years he worked without pay, hating Merritt for ousting him, and dreaming of returning to ruin everything to Chad’s corrupted name.

The island itself was (blasted theorists) a secret U.N. government owned island, which mass produced closed captioning for the hearing impaired for the Time Warner networks. Thomas was tied to chair eight hours a day for three years, typing, becoming overly familiar with the ten different “Law and Order” shows, and “NYPD Blue”.

TNT: We Know Drama.

They know nothing.

Drama was being so far removed from society, yet deafly attached to it.

Thomas worked, until one night a week ago he hid himself in the trash and was trucked out by a van, dumped into the ocean, as if his life wasn’t worth any more than a empty tissue box, and scraps of loose leaf paper.

Hugging a homemade inflatable device, Thomas floated out with the trash, ala Han in "Empire Strikes Back." For seven days he floated, no food, or drink, waiting three late, to die.

Then.

Dry Land.

He saw it from a distance, and with what strength he could muster, Thomas swam for its shores.

Within an hour he was there. Tired, broken, and missing the second part of a new “Blue” episode. Stephen pulled himself to his feet after time, and began combing the sandy, barren beach.

Two miles east Thomas froze in his tracks, dropped to his knees and began crying, his eyes feasting upon a twenty-foot high sand replica of the Red Midget.

“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”

The same rock used to bloody Lyle Tallman three years ago, came crashing across the back of Thomas’ neck.

“Welcome home.”