I really like my gym, LA Fitness. It’s inexpensive, it has lots of great amenities, and there are enough of them scattered around Los Angeles that I never have to travel very far to find one. I have a laundry list of complaints about the place, of course: one of the ergs is almost always broken, the hinges on the doors of the lockers are constantly malfunctioning, the sauna seems to be out of order every few days, stuff like that. But in general I like the place.
One of the things that keeps me motivated while I’m there is the music. It’s some sort of cable system, like “LA Fitness Radio”. There weren’t any commercials until a few months ago, and even now it’s just a short promo for the gym about once an hour. (This makes little sense to me. I’m already a member! Why are you trying to convince me of how great the place is?) They play seriously great music. The last time I was there I heard “Panama” by Van Halen, for example. Sure, they play a ton of Top 40 bubble-gum garbage, but it’s nothing obnoxiously bad. And they somehow manage to squeeze lots and lots of deep cuts into the mix.
A few days ago I heard “Get Off This” by Cracker. The album Kerosene Hat had one hit — “Low” — and, as far as I know, I am the only person on Earth that actually bought the CD. It’s one of my all-time favorites. (The entire CD is great, by the way. If you don’t have it, go buy it.) Hearing a track like that while lifting weights was quite a surprise and, like I said, one of the reasons I dig LA Fitness.
One other thing that drives me crazy about LA Fitness is this: On the inside of every locker there is a little sticker that says, “Due to recent theft, we must insist you leave no valuables in lockers”. These signs have been there for at least four years. Is there a theft every few days? How can they possibly refer to anything “recent”? Why did they have to make the sign into some sort of scare tactic? I know, I know. I’m a pedantic twit. I can’t help it.
Self-plug every hour? Those were the good old days. Now it’s every few minutes, over and over. In some locations, they even pipe it into the dressing room, and you can hear their promos in the sauna. So much for the notion of sanctuary–might as well be at Walgreens or CVS, where they have perfected the art of captive audience marketing. Is there no counterweight to the marketing types any more to factor in annoyance, inanity, class, and other values?