Few people are truly "legends" to me. Ken Griffey Jr was one back when I was 12. Ricky Gervais, he comes pretty close. Gail Larkin. That's one legend I've been wondering about for awhile. For the uninitiated, she’s the head of Hobbit Travel, that juggernaut of a company that has kept fat pockets thanks to handling C-K’s travel for many years. People have often speculated, however, why this is the case. The overall incompetence and mishandling of unsuspecting creatives’ travel itineraries have resulted in shenanigans both humorous (receiving plane tickets on your chair the day AFTER you return from your trip) to the extremely unfortunate (John Reid sitting next to a 320 lb. Samoan comes to mind, though John did report that he was a very nice guy). It’s a strange corporate travel world where middle seat is the norm, a world where a strange woman, seemingly behind a curtain (or possibly, though it’s never been proven, in one of those weird Chicago suburbs that all sound the same to me), decides the fate of unsuspecting creatives agencywide. But that’s not all that strange. We’ve come to accept it. But let’s face it: the woman herself is just plain weird. She has a voice of the woman who table danced 50 years ago, then smoked 54, 322 cigarettes all in one sitting afterwards. Daily. She sounds almost like a vocoder, though not in a cool, Roger and Zapp kind of way. But I digress.
I met this woman. She is as weird in person as she is on the phone. I found her as a little, sweet old lady wandering aimlessly throughout the office. She came upon my cube, examined the nameplate, and did a most bizarre thing. She held up a sign, as if she were a mute, that said “do you know who I am?” I did not. She then began to speak. I understood. That was the day that I met the legend Gail Larkin. She does exist.
PS: I don’t know what table dancing is.
(pictured above, Gail Larkin and Peter K in happier times)
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