When Channel 4’s George Estevez interviewed me at South Beach Crunch Fitness on Washington Avenue at the end of 2009, I told him I did not have any goals at all, let alone goals for the upcoming New Year. He knew better than that; after all, man is a goal-seeking animal whether or not he knows what his goals are.

I fancied that I was a rebellious, perpetually-youthful individualist. Therefore my response was in good form for a Cruncher. I did not want to be adjudged a conformist. Why make yourself miserable swimming upstream when you can effortlessly go with the flow towards your fate downstream? Every human being is supposed to have goals, but goal-seeking makes my inner animal miserable, so to hell with that. At least that rationale conformed to my nature.

“I just want to make it to Medicare,” I said offhandedly, after facetiously explaining that one can build more muscle by grunting and staring intensely into the mirror when doing curls.

“So you do have a goal!” George triumphantly declared. He is a good journalist, I thought; he sticks to his story line like a dog on a bone.

Yes, I wanted to make it to Medicare because I was feeling vulnerable without health insurance; a co-worker if mine had recently gone to the hospital with a terrible pain in her side; she came out without a definite diagnosis and soon received a bill for $26,000; the last I heard, her wages were being attached.  My diet is terrible, so my daily visits to the gym were my only preventive medicine. Little did I know at the time that Medicare insurance would spell the end of my days at Crunch, that I would be bidding Crunch farewell if I lived until then.

“Does Crunch accept insurance?” I asked a member of the sales staff after my insurance kicked in. “My new insurance covers gym memberships.”

“No we don’t do that. That’s something low-class gyms do.”

“Gold’s accepts insurance. Gold’s Gym is low-class?”

“Ah, I mean the outlying gyms, they accept insurance.”

“Outlying?” I was incredulous. “Gold’s is on Alton Road, five blocks from here, and Crunch has an Alton gym just down the road from Gold’s. Heck, this gym used to be Gold’s!”

He shrugged indifferently, preoccupied himself with his computer monitor, indicating the conversation was over as far as he was concerned.

“I love Crunch, but I have to make a decision here,” I continued. “I mean Crunch is running me $865 a year. I’ve been here for years and hate to leave….” I hinted, hoping for some consolation or an offer I could not refuse, but there was nothing forthcoming. He shook his head and busied himself with some paperwork.

I am a creature of habit. I did not want to leave Crunch after hanging out at the gym for nearly an hour or so nearly every day for five years. Crunch was more of a club than a gym to me; I still had several friends around despite the flight of most of the old-timers members to other venues. Besides, I had fought to have my membership reinstated after Crunch CEO Jeff Feinberg terminated it because I had complained about the overcharges when Crunch was taken over from Bally Fitness, and had made it my business to warn as many members as possible Crunch ignored my suggestion to advise everyone to carefully check their credit and debit card accounts.

In fact, I loved Crunch so much that I continued to pay my Crunch dues for three months after I received my Gold’s membership – on some days I worked out at both gyms. But I soon had sufficient cause to tighten my belt. As any dumbbell who can add twelve numbers in a row can discover, $72 a month adds up to $864 annually. I decided to discuss the matter with Frank Garcia, Washington Avenue Crunch’s new general manager.

I had already noticed that Mr. Garcia did not appear to be happy camper unless his staff was gathered around him to shoot the breeze. There was too much clowning around going on among them – maybe he was trying to get them pepped up – but members were greeting with scowls. When he finally did put a lid on the barrel of monkeys because it had become a scandal among the membership, the discipline was deeply resented and the scowls deepened. However, if a member did voice a complaint, Mr. Garcia was right on it even when he was away from the gym – all one had to do was email or e-text him.

I had introduced myself to Mr. Garcia on a previous occasion. He was courteous but impatient to get back to chatting with his associates, one of whom is insecure and has a habit of interrupting or butting into any conversation with an existing member. I referred Mr. Garcia to my positive reviews of the local Crunch and Equinox gyms, and bragged about the heavy traffic the articles were still getting. I started to recount my Crunch experience with the takeover from Bally, and what had happened to the gym up until the operation went into bankruptcy again and the guy who built 24-Hour Fitness was brought in to run the chain, but he was not really interested in my Crunch lore.

I approached him to discuss my dilemma: “Frank, I’ve got this insurance that covers gym membership at Gold’s, and I ….”

“We don’t take insurance,” he interjected, frowning – something was evidently bothering him.

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

“We have a program, if you buy 18 months, you get 6 months free.”

“Too bad for me that the program is not retroactive, for then I would have nearly two years’ free membership coming.”

Mr. Garcia, obviously unimpressed, had nothing to say to that.

“I guess I had better terminate.”

No comment. He filled out the termination form without a word of regret and had me sign it. There was nothing he could do for me – everyone knows that the New York office dictates policy. Sales are emphasized over service, despite the talk about loyalty and goodwill. That has generally been the nature of the business as long as there was a plenteous supply of prospects as the industry grew. I was just another number lost to the usual expectation of twice that gained.

“They are doing everything to sell new memberships but nothing to keep people,” I said to myself as the formality was completed. “Oh well, August 31, 2011 will be my last day. Hopefully there would be no further charges to my credit card given my bad experience with their back office system.”

That was that. I had my copy if the termination request form. I would have to pay another month’s dues in a couple of weeks because one-month’s advance notice was required by the adhesion contract. That would give me time to say farewell to Crunch.

I went upstairs to the gym and mulled things over on the treadmill. The Washington Avenue Crunch had a lot of dead space that could not be blamed on the recession. Indeed, I had never seen Crunch so slow. John Homerick, the former general manager, had done all right during the recession – I heard his numbers were so good that the gym had actually made a relatively unheard of profit. But managers at Crunch are lucky if they last a year, no matter what they do.

“By gum,” I said to myself, “I hope they don’t think I’m old! I don’t think so, maybe because I am around young people all the time.”

Crunch officially targets ages 18 to 40. A local manager might be frowned upon by Crunch headquarters in New York for even suggesting that seniors be recruited into the club. In fact, Crunch went so far as to terminate a profitable insurance-funded senior program at one of the New York clubs it took over for awhile – Gem Star Fitness Center on West End.

Gold’s is glad to have the seniors in its South Beach gym. I noticed that some of them are so senior they can barely walk – if it were not for the gym, they might not be mobile at all. Crunch really ought to participate in a senior insurance program, I figured as I treaded along easily at 3.5 mph at 0 incline – I often use the treadmills to concentrate on certain subjects besides the ticker tape. Seniors would usually use the Crunch gym during the day, when it is pretty quiet, anyway. And people tend not to overuse something that is free – the insurance companies are getting wiser and requiring attendance records lately. Why not fill up a little of the dead space with seniors? Only a few would show up every day, but the gym would have a steady revenue stream for them all.

And where are the corporate memberships? I recalled that I suggested years ago that Crunch get a good salesperson to visit Miami Beach businesses including the big hotels and restaurants – I was so gung-ho on the concept at the time that I was tempted to hustle memberships myself just for the fun of it. I also recommended that Crunch press Congress to include gym memberships in cafeteria plans as a deductible health benefit. And I advocated that Crunch, instead of dictating everything top-down from New York headquarters, provide ample autonomy to the general managers so they can swing with the local markets. Having been a New York corporation officer myself, I became aware of the costly consequences of the conceit that whatever the New York Office thinks is best, as if its staff were gods on Olympus. Sure, headquarters must retain certain core responsibilities, but the network centers should have plenty of leeway. Is not the Crunch brand about individualism and autonomy to begin with? And does it not make good sense to cotton to the local demographic features of a market?

I let the treadmill take my pulse, and recalled a few other suggestions I had made, like a fully interactive Web site for gym members only with all sorts of entertaining and useful features – including an amusing clip on gym etiquette! A couple of my suggestions were tried out, I thought, but nobody said thanks, and they were not stuck with for long enough to have an effect, like the cartoon Crunchers, and the military fitness training programs.

Crunch is known for picking up on the latest fitness gimmickry, and even spearheading a few fads of its own – but fashions change quickly. The local suggestion box disappeared, I recalled.  Suggestions from members at the local level are usually perceived as criticism and greeted with grimaces by those who believe they have already heard it all and have seen everything. The trainers get an earful on the gym floor but do not want to say anything downstairs.

Our leaders tell us that we should welcome change, yet some of us do not want to become welcome mats for their changes. For example, we would like to keep some of the old machines and people. Now this may sound silly, but to me the most disturbing of all the changes was the loss of the pole dance teacher who literally made me drool. She did well in real estate, took up pole dancing as a hobby and got very good at it. She had quite the following among amateur dancers as well as pros. Her body just would not quit – I was astonished to hear that she is in her 50s. She is one of those rare gals who do not have to try to look sexy; she just is sexy and has no shame about the fact. I was a dancer myself, so one day she asked me to spot her when she was dangling upside down; I nearly had a heart attack then and there, and offered to be her slave forever. Oh, my, I had thought I was too old for that sort of thing again!

Crunch is famous for its pole dancing classes – as well as for its eye candy, something that is rapidly vanishing at the Washington Avenue Crunch. My only concern as a dancer was the dangers posed to beginning students in high heels, or to inexperienced women who might fall and break their necks without someone spotting them – I advised one general manager to warn students of the dangers of pole-dancing, and to get an express waiver indemnifying the club even against its own negligence.

“Really, I should mind my own business,” I admonished myself after 40 minutes on the treadmill mulling over Crunch. “I should recite positive affirmations instead, or just watch the ticker tape.”

But I cannot help myself from butting into other people’s business, thinking I can improve it and maybe be appreciated accordingly – what is wrong with that? Yes, some of my recommendations are rather silly. For example, I asked myself, why are the treadmills driven by electric motors? Why not re-invent the old kind of treadmill, modernize it, so that members can use them not only to get in shape but to generate electricity to power the lights and so on?

I glanced over at the old boxing area as I paced along. The old boxing ring that used to be there and the boxing classes were quite popular, I reminisced, especially with the women, and we had a few real pros coming around to practice and to teach. It irks me that people want to beat each other up, but I must admit that I like to watch a championship match – my dad was a champion Army boxer. I had some promotional suggestions in that area for Crunch, like having exhibitions from time to time. Heck, why not have some weightlifting exhibitions too? Why cannot Crunch be everything it can be, including, in part, a really cool, real gym, with real bruisers and muscle-bound weightlifters around? John Homerick was a boxer; I thought Crunch might bring boxing back so I recommended it to him, forgetting that local managers have no say.

Without any input from the members, corporate took the boxing out. Staff allowed the open space to be used for stretching for awhile. Many members liked the ample stretching space because the big black mat in the back was always dirty and the space felt cramped; yet, much to the stretchers’ dismay, the staff filled up the new space with Krankcycles pursuant to some corporate deal.

A Krankcycle is an upper body version of a spin-cycle – a bicycle that spins in place, goes nowhere. Instead of dedicating a room to the activity, a tall plastic barrier was built around the Krankcycles, the entrance to which was blocked by a red tape and, for a time, a “do not enter” sign – the idea being that one should take a class to use them. The classes are not popular, especially for individualistic Crunchers who do not take the class and are disturbed by the deafening noise – the rule is: stay away from Crunch when the Krankcycle classes are in session.

I sneaked around the red tape one day and tried one out. Let me tell you, it’s a great workout! I could only stand cranking the handles a couple hundred times at a time when I dialed up the weight factor. Crunch ought to spread a half dozen of them around the floor for everyone to use – whether or not they were used very often would prove their true value.

I should suggest that they be used to generate energy too, which could be stored in batteries for use by the gym when needed. After all, hand cranks have been used to grind grain and pump water. In fact, the Krankcycle invention is based on the hand cranks used in prisons long ago to rehabilitate criminals and the insane. For example, hand cranks were installed in the Birmingham prison cells in the 1850s. They were weighted at 30 lbs. The prisoner had to turn his crank 10,000 every 10 hours. If he refused to crank or failed to turn it the required number of times, he was soaked with cold water, put in a straightjacket, and fed only bread and water.

I got off the treadmill with the thought that the idea of treading on an electrically powered treadmill and getting nowhere is kind of stupid; but not so stupid for a dumbbell like me, someone who supposedly has no goals but to go along with the Tao, whatever that is. I was surprised to see a couple of serious weightlifters nearby, as most of them had disappeared from Crunch two years past. One had a Gold’s Gym shirt on, so I asked him what he thought of Gold’s.

“Fool’s Gold,” one weightlifter gruffly pronounced between grunts; that is all he would say. His partner was equally gruff, so I went my way.  I recalled how a muscleman at the Police Athletic League complained to me that Crunch is for women that wear makeup. “So what?” I retorted. “Many of the men there wear makeup.”

Ideally, I would be an honorary member of a half-dozen gyms, become a sort of gym bum. Mind you that I was an obsessive-compulsive dancer in New York when Crunch was created there in 1989. If I missed a single day at the dance studios, I panicked, fearing I was going to go mad or die at any moment. I took so many classes at Joy of Movement, formerly Denis Wayne’s Dance Studio, at 400 Lafayette, that I was given a lifetime membership – JOM sales staff would point me out to prospects as the guy who took three classes a day. Sadly, three days after a big sales contest, the couple who owned JOM divorced and split the proceeds – is there a law against fraud in contemplation of divorce?

The winners of the membership contest returned from the Bahamas to find the place closed. Disappointed members, trying to salvage what they could of their memberships, were dragging the lighter equipment and fixtures out the second-floor windows down the fire-escapes while teachers were handing out flyers to arriving members on the sidewalk, advising them of the studios where they might be found. I still had my annual membership at Pineapple on Houston, where I studied ballet, but then it went belly up!

All that was disaster for me because all I had to live on after rent at that time were deposit returns from an alcoholic roommate’s beer cans. Cheap Connecticut turnpike tokens fit into the New York subway turnstiles back then, so my transportation cost from Brooklyn to Manhattan was minimal, leaving me with funds to buy grapefruit, a falafel sandwich, and so on. A quart of beer in the park after class was a luxury – my dancer friend Delilah was on a beer diet for a month so I split a quart with her on her birthday.

Oh, I used to laugh at gym buffs when I was a dumb dancer, but they were cool; they appreciated the body, and that was important to me at the time because my mind was running away from me. A funny rumor was going around Manhattan that someone was suing the new Crunch operation, claiming she was injured by its crunches, so we had better stay away; it was not for dancers, anyway. JOM and Pineapple had little gyms within complexes of large studios for dancing and aerobics, so I would fiddle around with the machines a little bit.

After going with the flow, dancing just to dance for years and years, I retired from dancing, took up mental calisthenics and writing. After returning home to Hawaii for a spell, I wound up in Miami Beach where I joined South Beach Crunch. The club reminded me of New York, certain fun aspects of the 80s and 90s I may never outgrow. There was a way back then to have a lot of fun without doing drugs. Fun had something to do with looking good, being sexy, hip, groovy, colorful, and postmodern, being somewhat offbeat, moving to cool music, the sort of counter-cultural thing that became cultural for a spell. You really did not have to be stoned to enjoy yourself. Crunch was part of that natural-high, alternative lifestyle.

But something had changed at South Beach Crunch – the mood, the attitude – the thrill was gone. The latest bankruptcy news had gone largely unnoticed by most of the members at our Washington Avenue Crunch. Someone might have read that Crunch was bought out of bankruptcy for a $40 million credit bid, that creditors were screwed out of millions, that top management was changed and some clubs were gotten rid of.  There was a certain turning point at the gym itself, when the mood changed. New trainers suddenly showed up, and they were definitely standoffish. The word got around: “24-Hour Fitness has taken over.”

“Oh, no!” was the consensus, for 24-Hour Fitness happened to have a World Wide Web reputation among Internet complainers for corporate arrogance, for pushing training too hard and for looking down long noses at customers. I buttonholed a couple of the new trainers, figuring they were shy because they were strangers in a strange land. They seemed relieved that someone was interested in them. I was assured that 24-Hour Fitness per se was not taking over Crunch, that the Crunch brand was in fact being saved. I spread the word that Crunch was safe.

But the mood had changed; the help has been rather sullen ever since, never quit warming up to the temperament signified by the weird colors. No doubt the rapid turnover of staff from top to bottom had something to do with the change in attitude. The instability at the gyms merely reflects the unstable top of the structure, an instability that might eventually topple it.

What the change in mood means in terms of dollars remains to be seen. The plant and equipment is there to use as usual; what is so-called ass-kissing and other expressions of goodwill really worth when memberships are churning month-to-month? The local benchmark for customer service in terms of being friendly is the Equinox gym a few blocks away, where memberships and initiation fees are far higher than at Crunch. In my opinion, Crunch has a better gym layout, except for the small locker rooms and narrow entryway, and better machines.

A long-time Crunch member and independent fitness trainer told me that she loves Crunch but it has “no customer service” anymore and that she will go back to Equinox when her budget allows because  “everyone is so friendly and helpful there.” Perhaps kissing ass, the sizzle on the steak, is worth $30-50 a month more to some customers. What does a smile cost? Not much. Why not throw in a free shoe shine along with shaving crème and disposal razors in the men’s locker room?

Members of the Washington Avenue Crunch in Miami Beach have to walk along a narrow corridor by the staff’s desks on their way to the gym. Since the latest takeover it has been a gauntlet of depression and mean looks, when the staff is not cutting up to break the boredom, with smiles reserved for new prospects only. One fellow did clown around all the time, but he went way over the edge and was eventually caged in.

Again, the staff has fun chatting each other up, but seem to care less about the members passing by. The new attitude at Crunch reminded me of what my dad said to me as a kid, that familiarity breeds contempt. Once they have you, they could care less. Maybe the staff is turned over deliberately at least once a year, I considered, or maybe it is the top management and training that is at fault – an attitudinal adjustment is definitely needed. Perusal of Internet reviews indicates that what we have noticed at the one Crunch is taking place nationwide. Video cameras and professional shoppers should be used to assure friendly, helpful activity.

We noticed right away that the new trainers on the floor no longer interacted with the members – a couple of them who were really into themselves interacted so loudly with each other when they were training together that they were asked to pipe down. The attempt to appear “professional” makes the new trainers seem arrogant. They do know what they are doing, however, when working with their customers.  I buttonholed two more of them one week, and I found them to be quite affable, really, once the ice was broken.

 “Hey, so you’re the latest victim,” I said to one fellow.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean trainers don’t last long around here, except for that guy over there with the really mean look – he means business, does not want to get involved in the BS, does a great job training, but I would not use him because I don’t want to work to get in shape. I really feel sorry for you guys. Trainers are lucky to last a year. One guy used to help the members for nothing, which was great, but he got fired for being a slut.”

The poor fellow later said that he was so shocked by my introduction that he went home and told his wife about it.

“I guess the new people can’t make a difference around here….” he offered.

“Not true . Personal trainers can make a big difference because they are on the floor with the members. They literally represent the fitness aspect of the gym, and, to the members who do not train with them, they still represent the club aspect. All but two of them give the impression they are stuck up. And downstairs is terribly depressing.”

“That’s why I like to stay away from downstairs. How are things at Gold’s?”

“The people up front are friendly when you walk in,” I said. “The trainers say hello on the floor. The fellow at the sales desk looks depressed – sales must be down everywhere. It’s slow when I’m there in the afternoons, like I have a private gym. By the way, how much are training sessions at Crunch? How long do they last?”

“The average is $85 for an hour.”

“I thought it was $65. No wonder business is down.”

“Crunch has the best price. Nobody has money to spend. But Crunch is still the ‘in’ gym.”

“I love Crunch, but something is wrong. Some people do have plenty of money. An interior designer friend of mine says she cannot keep up with the people coming in with $40,000 cash to buy a couple of couches made to fit their condos just right. One of my Cruncher friends just paid $4,000 for a box at the tennis tournament. He said he is going to leave Crunch because the quality of the membership has become too low-class since the club went to month-to-month dues.”

“What does he mean by low class?”

 “I didn’t ask; maybe the towels thrown in urinals and the rude people shouting on cell phones or to each other. They are here today and gone tomorrow. He said the management should be fired right away.”

“For what?”

“Good question. He did not want to get into it. If I had the answers to what is right and wrong with management, maybe I would become a fitness club manager or hustle club investments and make a good living while keeping fit.”

On August 31, 2011, as I looked around Crunch for what I supposed would be the last time on, I felt some regret over my termination; I was tempted to make a sorrowful event over my last day as a Cruncher! I could have made a grand scene of my exit: after all, I had studied the Stanislavsky method under Moscow Art Theatre’s Madame Sergava at HB Studios in Manhattan, where I repeated ‘Action Inner State’ exercises such as ‘Leaving the House Forever’, all rooted in real feelings pursuant to ‘Truth in Acting.’ I might have even recited a poem entitled ‘Farewell to Crunch.”

I desisted from inducing fond regrets in myself, however, and recalled how, when I was about to leave Hawaii, a dear place one should regret leaving, I told myself that to be sad about leaving Hawaii would be silly because I could return whenever I wanted to, as I had proven to myself when I went to the Mainland to marry a girl many years prior but did not like the looks of San Francisco; I begged her pardon and returned to Honolulu the next day. Likewise, I could return to Crunch whenever I wanted to, if and only if it still existed. Why, I might even take part in buying it someday, if and only if I still exist, with the help of Medicare and Gold’s Gym.

Miami Beach, August 31, 2011