Fuck Planet Fitness and the Legend of My Cool-Ass Terraced Music Studio/Micro-Apartment · 3:35pm Nov 6th, 2022
Alright friends, story time with Super Trampoline. This one is called "Fuck Planet Fitness and the Legend of My Cool-Ass Terraced Music Studio/Micro-Apartment" and it started as a YouTube comment that metastasized
PART 1 OF 2: FUCK PLANET FITNESS
About 4 years ago when I was broke and semi homeless and switched from living in my 10ft x 10ft music studio (which tbf was pretty lit*) to crashing with a friend who actually had a shower, that month's $20 PF subscription automatic debit card renewal didn't go through because, ya know, I had no money. So when I tried to cancel my subscription the next month, they told me I had to pay that and a late fee first or maybe it had just been two months or something I don't remember but the point is they wanted me to pay them $40 before I could cancel. And I said fuck that.
So for the next 3 years, every month they would try to charge me about 20 more dollars, and twice a year or so I would try to go in and cancel and every time they (The underpaid PF employees to whom I always made clear my frustration was not aimed at and that I knew their shitty corporate overlords were to blame) said first I would have to pay the ~$100, 150, 200, Etc I owed them and I obviously said lol no, and as life progressed, once I wasn't quite as broke anymore, since the attempted charges were on a debit card I still used, I took to just keeping transactions always turned off except when I needed to buy something so Planet Fitness couldn't fuck me over. The last amount they tried to charge was like around $340 or something and that was three or four months ago, so I think after three and a half years or so they might have finally given up and conceded defeat in their ignoble quest, but maybe they are just trying to lure me into a false sense of complacency and one day I'll find an entire paycheck stolen a shitty gym franchise.
So in conclusion, fuck Planet Fitness.
PART 2 OF 2; ALLEGEDLY A FOOTNOTE TO PART ONE: MY COOL-ASS 100 SQ FT. MUSIC STUDIO ILLEGALLY LIVED IN CRASH PAD I EVENTUALLY GOT YEETED FROM OCTOBER 2019 WHEN I GOT TOO BROKE AND IT GOT TOO MESSY AND I OVEREXTENDED MYSELF TRYING TO HELP PEOPLE BY LETTING TWO HOMELESS FRIENDS ALSO CRASH THERE FOR TWO MONTHS IN A TRAGEDY OF CAPITALISM AND CODEPENDENCY
*the room was only about ten by ten feet but had a 13ft high ceiling with an exposed I beam running through the middle, so as a lover of building shit including amateur carpentry, I built two storage shelves and two bed-sized platforms and several ladders (and a CD collection bookcase with some scraps) on several tiers with one plywood platform four ft up above my baby grand piano (shout out to the freebie-alerts app) on 4 by 4s screwed to the floors and walls and the jutting out corner suspended by chain from metal pipes maguivered into a clamp on the I beam and a 8ft platform above my Hammond organ (RIP thank you for not starting a fire when you somehow overheated) and one of the storage shelves similarly suspended, all super janky but super safe, solid, and over engineered (the chains on these inner non wall corners were rated for 800lbs for example) with like 70 additional ft of storage and living/existing/jamming/tripping/fucking/sleeping/procrasturbating/dancing space total accented by marker art, two potted plants now in my mom's garden, power strips snaking over walls and carpentry, disco ball, trippy lights, blacklights, neon pool noodles on head bonking hazards, projector for games and movies, etc. so that tiny room with a baby grand piano, a Hammond Organ with full size base pedals, and a futon and a bunch of my disorganized crap was able to host Jam sessions and cool ass microparties and psychonaut Adventures not as often as I would like because I was a dysfunctional mess with little money, but I am proud of the My Little Pony convention after after party I threw and the Pink Floyd listening party where I tripped on mushrooms for the first time and played my organ along to Dark Side of the Moon which was coolest fuck. Oh and I lost my virginity there too. I was very stagnant in my life during the three years in my music studio but it was very awesome being able to play Elton John at 4:00 in the morning as loud as I wanted or listen to 6 hours of Eurobeat at full blast with no one complaining. Alas I had to move to a different room the last year at that music lockout building because the AC system leaked and despite my duct tape rain gutter and drip irrigation tube collection system running to a trash can I could empty, eventually mold grew and the moisture attracted cockroaches and the exasperated building manager who knew I am some other people were living in our Studios but looked the other way told me I needed to relocate elsewhere in the building and the magic was never replicated but I still have a few pictures of my cool ass hanging platform trippy lights dancing above a piano messy ass but ineffably cool music studio and more importantly then pictures and a few shitty piano performance videos, numerous lifetime friends and fond memories.
Shit that footnote got out of hand hope at least a few random youtubers enjoy. In conclusion, please have a blessed day, live phosphorescently and spread hope love peace Joy laughter kindness and light, drink plenty of water, and fuck planet fitness.
Amazing as always.
Every day I learn a new horror about Planet Fitness. Gym franchises most certainly see that you're forever shackled to them or paying the price of freedom, might have stories of my own in an equivalent here to tell.
The music studio sounds ballers, true DIY lit vibes and I'm sad that I'll never have that kind of haunt to lurk in. My closest attempt to something like that was a studio I squatted back then with all kinds of lights and makeshift utilities to get drunk in while listening to music. You were living the magic, then.