The Joe Randazzo Association

Many years ago, at a truck stop outside Tulsa, I had the pleasure of meeting Santa Claus. Since then, we’ve kept in regular contact and, through a number of business dealings, have even grown to be friends. And he wanted me to do whatever I can about something that greatly troubles him: Those grumpy grinches who refuse to celebrate Christmas, the Jewish people.

Here now is a plea from my friend, Santa Claus. Please read it and spread its important message—before it’s too late.

Dear Jewish people of the world,

Ho Ho Ho.

Oh, let me explain: This is what I say to children and adults come Christmastime to spread cheer during my favorite time of the year: Christmas. Ho ho ho. But I’m writing so that my friend, Mr. Joe Randazzo, can maybe help convince you all to celebrate Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year.

Just the other day, Mrs. Claus and I were eating cookies and talking about snow, when we heard a knock on the door. It was a small Jewish boy named Joshua and he was very cold. You see, we live on the North Pole, and the temperature there never gets above 11 degrees Fahrenheit—that’s a method used to measure temperature. In Europe they use Celsius. I know this because every year I fly all over the world bringing toys to boys and girls everywhere but two places: Israel and the Upperwest Side of Manhattan. Anyway, this young boy was so cold and so scared and he had walked all the way to the North Pole to come see me because he wanted to meet me and Mrs. Claus and all the elves in my workshop. Elves are kind of like miniature people—you would call them ‘midgets’—who help me make toys for everyone but the Jewish people. I told him he was a little early for Christmas and he started crying. You see, he didn’t celebrate Christmas because he is Jewish. When he was born, his parents cut of the tip of his penis and now he can’t put out cookies and milk for me, Santa Claus, like all the rest of his friends. His story broke my heart. And my heart breaks more and more every year when I look at the big old list and don’t see one Greenberg or Epstein, Silver, Gold, or Weinbaum.

Won’t you make me happy and celebrate Christmas, Jewish people? Won’t you let me observe your children from afar all year long, keeping track of every ethical transgression, no matter how small, and tabulating them in my extensive spreadsheet? Won’t you let me land my giant sleigh of eight massive Arctic mammals on your roof so I can come through your chimney and enter your home as you sleep? As your children—those innocent, supple young children—sleep and dream? Dream of me? Won’t you let me, O Jewish people, place wrapped gifts under the half-living plant you’ve placed in the corner of your living room? Let me walk around your home, in the dark, in my big black boots, sitting on your furniture, drinking from your glasswear, hovering over your children’s porcelain little faces? Their chests heaving so gently up and down with each breath? Won’t you let me into your home to give you presents and stand in the hallway of your home, staring at your family photos in silence? For hours on end? Thoughtless, expressionless, motionless, for hours, in your home in the middle of the night? Doesn’t that sound like a good way to spend the holiday season?

Think about it. I will be waiting.

Santa

admin Message From The CEO, Official TJRA Communications

To: all@therandazzo.com
From: Samantha in HR
RE: Message From the CEO!

Guys, some of you may be wondering why your health insurance was canceled or who the tall men in black suits walking around affixing large “X” stickers to some of your chests are. Well, our CEO Joe Randazzo has written a little inspirational and informational note to explain everything. (If you came in today to find that you don’t have a computer or a desk, feel free to stop by my office to read it.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have to tell you that times are tough. Just look around, day in and day out, in every walk of life, and you’ll see that the times are tough. And when times are tough, the tough know it’s time to hunker down, tighten their belts, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and get going.

Because these are tough times.

And tough times call for tough measures. Sales are down, unemployment is up, and innovation is stagnant. But we will persevere. But it won’t be easy. But no one said it would be easy and the reality is, at the end of the day, times are tough. Not easy. Tough.

Not any company can lose $313 million through terrible insect footwear investment strategies—not to mention an estimated 13,421 pending class-action lawsuits on every major continent and one Jovian moon—and bounce right back. Not every company can see its entire East Asian branch swallowed into the Earth during a cataclysmic event that may or may not have been caused by an experimental cobalt-ionization ray for future use in an underground black-arts proxy war for control of Cambodia’s buried mystic temples and make out all right. But not every company is TJRA. We are TJRA.

So here is our plan: We’re going to get tough. We’re going to rise to the occasion. We’re going to hit the ground running and come out on top. We’ll be as tough as the times we live in. Which are tough.

Most of you are fired.

So let’s buck up, suck it up, put up or shut up, do it on the up and up, and keep our chins up, because surf’s up and things are looking up, and we can’t give up because it’s time to man up and, remember, we don’t shut up we grow up, and when we look at our competition we throw up, and then their moms come around the corner and lick it up.

Thank you. Times are tough.

admin Message From The CEO, Official TJRA Communications

To: all@therandazzo.com
From: Samantha in HR
RE: Message From the CEO!!!!

Guys! Please read this very brief, very special announcement from TJRA CEO Joe Randazzo. We hope to make this a regular feature, as Mr. Randazzo provides news, wisdom, and wit for all of you! Please read it. Please.
-Samantha

All,

I’ve been thinking a lot about a certain question lately, a certain eternal question: What does it mean to be a man? It’s a question I must ask myself every six years or so, just to make sure I’m being true to the power within me. The inner-power that rumbles like a boxful of thunder, shaking with the intensity of 1 million Corvettes—the power that makes everything around me possible. The power of Me.

I’m no stranger to adversity. Not even close. Adversity and me are like twin brothers on a road trip who get kidnapped by Mexicans and thrown in prison just because one of them had a little bit of marijuana and the Mexicans thought that their parents were affluent. And, through the horrors of a Mexican prison, one of the twin brothers dies, and that twin brother is Adversity. It doesn’t end there, though: The other brother, me, goes on with his life but, because of the incredible bond between twins that only twins can understand, he wanders through each day feeling as though fate had torn a massive gash in his midsection—just a huge, gaping, bloody hole—and that some part of him would remain forever empty. Like a zombie, I carry on listlessly, calling out to a voice that does not answer. And just when it seems like all is lost, and I’m standing on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, I hear that voice; I hear the voice of my twin brother Adversity talking to me. And he is a ghost that only I can see. But he’s been to the future and knows many things that will help me get rich, and so we travel the country getting into adventures and looking for opportunities to use his incredible power to make me incredibly wealthy. But, lo, as a ghost, he relies on the unconditional love from his twin brother to maintain his existence on the Living Plane, and, because I cannot provide that, he dematerializes in a most-depressing fashion one day as we both stand in the rain outside Chicago.

And here we are today.

Of course, I’m only using this famous parable to make a broader point: Sometimes the man you become is not the man you meant to be. Sometimes, being a man means making tough decisions. Decisions that will have unforeseen repercussions for an estimated 850 years to come. Potentially dangerous repercussions. But do you know what? It takes a real man to make the tough decisions, and nothing is a greater test of whether or not one is a man than that man-to-be making those very same tough decisions, and then rating himself as a man or not based upon his ability to make decisions no matter the outcome. Understand?

After all, 850 years is a long time. And the children—all those deformed children and their pathetically skinny dogs, dear God, the way those dogs’ eyes just seem to stare right through you! But no one said it would be easy. And those who did are no longer employed at TJRA. They are no longer employed anywhere, if you catch my drift.

(They are having a very difficult time finding employment in this moribund job market.)

So, what does it mean to be a man? For me, it means believing in yourself, even if you consistently make decisions that result in mass kidnappings, two floods, the complete eradication of an indigenous language, and other horrible outcomes that would make a man of less fortitude succumb to self-doubt or a more thorough reading of the CIA World Factbook. To me, being a man means doing what’s right, even if everyone else is trying to tell you that it’s too “controversial” or “morally contemptible” or “against several local statutes” or “the equivalent of a small-scale holocaust on otherwise-helpless lab rats.” To me, being a man means helping old ladies across the street just for the sake of doing a kind deed, and not because you crave some sick sexual gratification. To me, being a man means having the strength to lay off the entire national sales team, effective Monday, in a subtle clause buried in a company-wide message of inspiration. To me, being a man means having big muscles just like my dad used to have. To me, being a man means propelling your company into the 22nd century with new technologies such as high-speed holograms and edible plastics. To me, being a man means eating lots of delicious meat and enjoying laughter, drinks, and discussions about sports around a picnic table and grill.

Therefore, you’re all invited to the 10th Annual TJRA Cookoutaganza this Saturday at 1 p.m. for some summer fun in the sun! Bring some kind of side and a great anecdote to share. See you there!

-Mr. Randazzo

admin Message From The CEO