Breaking News: Randall Resigns!

April 1, 2009

To All-

It is with great sadness and regret that I announce today that I am stepping down as Managing Partner of Patrick Properties. As you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one. In my time here in Charleston, I have been blessed to keep company with some of the finest hospitality minds around, and I have made many friends whom I will cherish for the rest of my days.

I am proudest, of course, of our efforts to continue increasing revenue while saving positions given the current economic conditions. Our staffing hires over the past few months and years have assured that we shall rank among the city’s, State and nation’s elite event destinations for years to come.

But despite these accomplishments, the hospitality can be a harsh mistress, and I have ambitions and dreams that remain unfulfilled. It is with that in mind that Jennifer and I have decided to retire to the Texas Hill country, where I will pursue my first love: raising Emus. Not as a source of food, mind you, but as a means of human locomotion.

Some of my finest hours have been spent cantering across the Texas plains on the back of an Emu. They are stately, resplendent, Brobdingnagian birds, capable of carrying a man at full gallop the length of 30 hectares on a single hogshead of millet seed.

For those who know me best, this announcement comes as no surprise. I have always been passionate about large flightless waterfowl. It is well-known, of course, that I ate the last Dodo, and less well-known that I once crossed the Straits of Magellan on the back of an Emperor Penguin.

But my passion for the humble Emu was sparked by a chance conversation with Alan Rau. Jennifer and I were vacationing with Professor Rau at his single room cabin in the Montana wilderness. Professor Rau, as was his custom, was wearing his hooded sweatshirt and aviator-style sunglasses while he worked on one of his lengthy manifestos. I chanced a remark that I was thinking of purchasing a Segway scooter (I had recently been bested in a drag race between my trusty Saab and a group of tourists on Segway scooters). Professor Rau immediately unleashed a stream of invective, something along the lines of “the Industrial Revolution and it consequences have been a disaster for the human race!”

I immediately backpedaled from my suggestion, but I was captured by a singular notion: what if I could mesh the idea of sensible personal transportation with Alan Rau’s Druidic ecological purity?

The answer, I realized, was right in front of me, as that evening we happened to be dining on ostrich burgers. But the ostrich, as I discovered after a few test rides, is a surly and noisome beast, and I quickly gravitated towards riding the more elegant, redolent, and pulchritudinous Emu.

One can only imagine the Xanadu that awaits us all, as cars are rendered irrelevant and our reliance upon fossil fuels evaporates. Cities will be redesigned, carbon emissions reduced, and in place of the automobile, Emus will become ubiquitous. We shall all bear witness to the boom of the Emu Economy, with Australia poised to lead the way, fueled by its abundance of Emus and affordable criminal labor.

And so it is with great sadness that I must bid you farewell. My time here as Managing Partner has been the finest of my life, but as I ride off into the sunset, please think of me as I’d wish to be remembered: galloping across Texas on the back of a large flightless bird.

Warmest regards,

Randall Goldman


(Ed note: Not really.)