Sometimes I think the GED dreamers are the lucky ones.

They’re happy serving others, cashing meek checks, and blindly flirting in TIVO Internet message forums.

I remember when I walked along the same path, when I was too broke to question my "la calidad de la vida" or as we of the master race like to say, quality of life.

But, it’s a new year, and I won’t be a yes-man to Merritt anymore.

I rolled with FISH FUND, ELVIS LIVES, and the freakin’ tribute to the Monkees 14 years ago. I got in the ring and put on a happy face while a drunken midget fondled my thighs under the guise of a ‘specialty match’, because it was best for team morale.

I played the hapless drunk because the storyline always sold.

Well, okay...that one was adlibbed. But, I had such creative freedom in print.

Point is, every day I punched the clock, Merritt and his merry misfits degraded me a bit more, and with every new low, the chances of me finding real work slipped by.

I was born in this country, I’m not on par with the “help” Chad hires to further turn this operation into a sham. The American Dream is my birthright. At my age, I understand the world’s reality. One day I’ll die. The only tragedy in that is I sold my ‘defining moments’ to the second coming of Barnum and Bailey.

I turned to the bottle because it was the only place I could turn. The bottle listened. Sam Adams, he understood. They all did. I was too good to grow old in Salem’s Lot.

But, much to the chagrin of most of the boys and girls backstage, I’m not quite dead yet.

Which is why, my New Year’s resolution is refusing to drink Merritt’s sins away.

For four months not a soul in this company worked. All of us who had the sad fate of being employed, waited as Merritt took a long vacation doing God only knows what.

If you’re Eli Flair, you bang your C-grade independent Goth-Rock Chic, while hitchhiking to the nearest FWO show.

But, if you’re Sammy Benson and have an exclusive rights contract, you sit on your a** and get plastered while pondering such trivialities as, “Is there a porn market I fit into?”

For four months I was left to wonder if my future was selling my name and likeness to help push the latest adult releases.

It’s not my style, but I’ve grown accustomed to certain level of living, and I’m not dropping down because Chad’s lost his smile.

The man didn’t pay me, or allow me to go elsewhere and the reason we’re being given now is:

IT WAS THE END OF A SEASON.

What the heck?

CSWA: THE NEW SEASON.

Gimme a break, Chad.

I won’t do it. Every day for the last 14 years I’ve been a trooper. I’ve played the fool, and took it in stride. But, I’m a big boy now and I’m just the one to call Merritt for his fifth foul.

The CSWA has hit rock bottom.

For years Chad has bemoaned about other companies stealing creative ideas, about the CSWA not getting the credit it deserves for setting the creative peak.

Some of the complaints are legit.

But I won’t be part of what’s to come. In life you have to know when to get off the train, whether it’s your stop or not.

The tape can be pulled off of the dead midget’s mouth now. Chad’s out of ideas.

CSWA: THE NEW SEASON?

Even at the lowest point in my 14 years, there was some solace to be taken in knowing we were first. I won’t go as far as to call it taking pride in my work, but it was on the “pro” side of reasons to get sober.

But, as the cameras start to roll, and Merritt begs the workers to come back, it’s apparent there are no “pros” to working here anymore.

Chad’s placating to the television industry. The truth is I stuck around 14 years because the CSWA was the only entertainment entity to have the rest of the world on its knees. Men in suits, with insane amounts of power crawled to the footsteps of our doors and offered their firstborns to get a piece of the action.

We didn’t set the standard. We were the standard.

But now, the CSWA has been sold to the formulaic wolves.

With CSWA: THE NEW SEASON Merritt has shown us the foundation of his rebuilt house.

I know what’s coming. A blueprint of it is on every other channel.

“Sammy, do you have any problems spending the months of March through June in a 2-room house with Joey from Full House?”

Yeah actually I do, Chad.

And for this reason, I’m turning in my resignation.