(Nice title, eh?)
It was a springlike day in Toronto: bright and sunny with temperatures around 14 degrees (that’s almost 60 degrees in that antiquated scale for my American friends). I decided to take a break from work at around 4 p.m. to finally do what I’d been meaning to do since getting fired: join a gym.
I was going to join the Premier Fitness Club down at Skydome. My friends Anne and Adina work out there, it’s nice and big, and it’s pretty good for peopel watching. My friend Rob once asked me: “Why would you want to work out there? It’s just full of models!”
Duh. (Nice kid, but sometimes he’s as sharp as a sack of wet kittens.)
Rob suggested that I get a membership at the Jewish Community Centre. I said it was too far away, and besides, being Filipino, they’d think I was the houseboy.
The real problem with Premier is the price. The best deal they could offer me was a $90/month membership, with some fairly hefty start-up fee. It would be cheaper if I were working for “The Corpse” — Frank Magazine’s nickname for the CBC — or any other firm with whom Premier had cut some kind of employee rate deal. I couldn’t afford Premier’s on my current salary, which in financier’s term is referred to as bubkus, so no models for the Accordion Guy.
Luckily, I had a backup plan: GoodLife Fitness on McCaul. It’s smaller and definitely less glamourous than the SkyDome club, but it’s also closer to home, being only a few blocks away (more incentive to go).
I walked into GoodLife and was immediately greeted with “Accordion Guy!” It was Will, a guy I know from Kick Ass Karaoke. It turns out that he did membership sales there. He gave me the grand tour — a little cramped, but the equipment was nice, and all the classes were free — and then we got down to talking money. I told him that I was currently unemployed and working on Peekabooty for the learning experience and the exposure. It turns out that he runs a couple of Web services on the side, and in an act of solidarity with a fellow geek and karaoke performer, he cut me some very nice deals that blew Premier’s best offers right out of the water. Another lucky break, thanks to the accordion.
While going over the contract, he called over a woman who turned out to be the bassist for the local band The Rockertits. “Look! It’s the Accordion Guy!” Shortly after, my friend Danielle walked over.
“Hey, Joey! Are you signing up here?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know this was your gym.”
“Not only that, but this is where we had that shower conversation about you,” she said, walking into an aerobics-with-weights class.
“Shower…conversation…?” Will asked.
“It took place last year,” I explained. “Danielle told me that she was in the shower after one gym session, and she asked her friend if she knew me. She was in the middle of describing me — Filipino, plays the accordion, takes it everywhere — when another girl pipes in and goes ‘I know that guy! I see him all the time on Queen Street!’ So the three of them, in the shower get into this conversation about me. Danielle e-mailed me because she wanted me to know that three naked women, all lathered up in the shower, were enthusiastically talking about me. She thought it might brighten my day.”
Will just arched an eyebrow in response.
“Accordion, Will. It’s the future.”