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How I Feel About…Tim Gurner aka The Man Who Hates Smashed Avocado

17 May

To the guy who told me to stop eating smashed avocado so I could buy a house. I.e. Tim Gurner,

 

Man, I love being told how to run my life by rich, privileged white guys. There’s really nothing as life-affirming as being told that one simple change in my indulgent Gen Y lifestyle and attitude is the key to financial success and stability.

You, being the multi-million dollar (or was it billion? I can’t remember) property entrepreneur, went on national television and explained that young people like me can’t afford to buy houses because we are spending too much money on smashed avocado and coffee.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this poorly-drawn generalisation was more about the fact that us Generation Y kids spend too much money on things we don’t really need. Which I’ll concur can be more than true for some. But not the case for most. I for one, fall into the latter category.

You said we weren’t ever going to be able to afford deposits on homes unless we made some drastic changes. You accused us of… “wanting to eat out every day…wanting to travel to Europe every year. This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that’s normal. Thinking that owning a Bentley is normal, that owning a BMW is normal.”

Lolz. You’re a funny guy, Tim Gurner.

Saving enough money for a deposit in 2017 is about as easy as stapling a raw egg to the wall.

Before you go ahead and write me off as a spoilt whinger I thought I would just put it all out there for you; warts and all.

I am not ashamed to talk about the money that I make – in fact, there’s really nothing exceptional about the money I earn and that’s entirely the point – there are probably thousands of others in my age bracket making a similar wage. And none of us drive BMW’s or travel to Europe. Heck, forget Europe, I can barely get myself to Brisbane on the Jetstar red-eye.

 

Smashed avocado’s enemy #1.

 

So I’mma break it down for you, Mr Gurner. Just to be clear, I am a single woman with no children:

I earn about $850 per week. That is, after tax and HECS and Super are taken out. A figure that would make most rich white guys like you want to poke themselves in the pee hole, but nonetheless, it’s okay with me.

Straight up, $200 of that goes to rent. Cos even though rent money is dead money and I’m meant to be saving for some elusive apartment, I still gotta live somewhere, amiright? Moving back home with my parents is not an option as they live interstate where my job is not. Also I’m 32.

About $75 per week goes to my car loan. Relax man, it’s a Toyota Yaris. I’m not tooling around in some petrol-guzzling Bentley or spaceship.

Speaking of petrol; that’s $40 per week. Melbourne’s a big city. That means lots of driving fair distances. Also, that number goes up exponentially for anyone who doesn’t drive a battery-operated toaster like I do. Cars don’t run on positive energy, unfortunately.*

And neither does my internet and phone bill which levels out at about $30 per week. Believe me, I don’t even know what I’m paying for most of the time either, considering I’m calling the Optus complaints number more often than I am my own mother. But the bottom line is, having a mobile phone and a working internet connection is crucial to my work. Full stop.

Another $60 per week goes towards various memberships/scheduled payments – e.g. Medibank, car insurance, car registration, home insurance and so on. Things that you self-important businessmen and government officials say I must have.

At the moment, I’m spending $50 a week to see my physio as I have a hip injury. Not an ongoing thing, no, but is it uncommon? Also no.

I like to put $25 a week away for water, gas and electricity bills, cos, you just never know when you’re going to get hit with a $300 + bill for those freezing Melbourne nights when you dared to run the heater that’s older than you are for more than an hour.

I did have a gym membership that was costing me $45 a week (damn you, F45!) but I figure you’ll be super proud of me when I tell you I cancelled it because, believe it or not, it was too expensive for my budget. Instead I spend $20 a week on yoga classes.

Oh yeah, and because I’m a lady and society dictates that I must look sexually attractive at all times, that means I also gotta buy various make up and grooming products, pay for waxing, haircuts and whatever else you’d like to add to that list to make me visually acceptable. But I’m NOT adding it to this list, because these expenses are not incurred by EVERYONE so I’m leaving them out. Because I’m nice like that.  #equality

Food is the biggest shit of them all. Mr Gurner, I f*cking WISH I was eating out every night. Because I already feel like I spend a crap-tonne of money on food. And I’m not even talking about the stuff you get in a restaurant or even at the drive-thru. I’m just talking about schlepping to Woolies and getting my groceries.

Okay, I admit, I do order $70 worth of fresh meals per week from a home delivery service, simply because my job often leaves me working into the evening past dinner time, and I would rather spend $10 on a well-balanced meal as opposed to $20 on a shitty burrito. So yeah, I get some help in that department. Now combine that $70 with another $90 per week on regular groceries. (YES THAT’S FOR ONE PERSON BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN CAPSICUMS ARE $7.99 A KILO!)

I don’t know if you noticed, but eating well is not cheap. I tried the Mee Goreng diet, and as much as I loved it, it left me as bloated as a dead lizard in a swimming pool.

A point to you there, Mr Gurner. But would you call that Kardashian-level indulgence?

Side note: I love avocados. Love them like a family member. But I buy them myself and spread them on toast myself like a big girl. Same with my coffee – I have a Nespresso machine (I know, so FANCY) and I just buy the pods which turn out to be about 50 cents per cup plus the 150ml of Aldi $2 milk I add to it. I’m not going to do the math because I don’t want to, but yeah, that’s not even close to $4 a coffee.

 

Devil food.

 

Call me selfish, but I would probably spend $30 a week on treating myself to either a movie ticket or a nice bottle of wine or ONE dinner out. I’m dating someone at the moment; it’s very hard to do things that don’t cost money. And I refuse to sit at home every weekend and watch re-runs of bad reality TV. People need to LIVE!

Then, finally, chuck on any miscellaneous amount you like that goes to the old credit card bill or other f*cking thing that inevitably comes up each month like flat tyres, doctors’ visits, medical prescriptions and the like and you’ve got yourself a weekly expense bill of around $700.

Leaving a grand total of $150 spare.

And this isn’t even scraping the surface of other random bills, incidentals and attempted savings for a wedding in QLD or a trip to the dentist. Plus I have no children to support; imagine if I did – as far as I know children are basically expensive poop machines. This is a generous estimate.

Now let’s say I don’t spend any of that on smashed avocado with seeded bread and put it straight in my piggy bank; I would be saving $7,800 a year. Which is a neat little amount but isn’t even a f*cking pin prick on a home deposit in 2017.

 

Tim is mad that we got mad at him for telling us not to eat smashed avocado.

 

Considering your wisdom about our demographic, I probably don’t need to tell you that the cost of living is far surpassing the rise in wages. Smart people like you already know that.

But what you may NOT know, is that lots of us weren’t gifted with $34,000 to start up our own business, nor are apartments in St Kilda still going for $180,000. Additionally, most of us didn’t have a boss who was willing to front up the money for aforementioned apartment so we could renovate it, nor did we study economics or property development or whatever else gets you the big bucks. We are teachers, nurses, artists, administrators, assistants, designers, managers, laborers and technicians. As in, regular people without a lucky window or leg-up into the property market.

I’m not saying that buying a house is impossible for us. Because it’s not. But it is bloody hard and as housing prices in Melbourne continue to inflate quicker than you can say “hipster café” us regular people are being forced out of the race.

So sue me if I choose to pursue a career that makes me happy but doesn’t pay me a fortune. I get that that’s my choice. (Actually, don’t sue me, because I don’t have any money for a lawyer).

I live a pretty modest life. And I’m not complaining about it. But, without the help and assistance of parents, bosses, grandparents and other third parties many people DON’T have the luxury of relying on, it can be frustrating to watch the window of opportunity close in front of you.

What makes it more frustrating, though, is being scolded by the likes of you for attitudes and expectations we don’t even have.

So maybe, rather than waxing lyrical about a lifestyle you know very little about, perhaps you could channel all your billions of dollars and property wisdom into something that might help us regular Joe’s get a toe in the door.

 

If you would like to discuss this further, I would be happy to do so over a plate of smashed avocado and a soy latte. You’ll be paying, of course.

 

I’ll have some poached eggs on the side, kthanx.

 

 

*Can someone research this? Maybe Bill Gates is still throwing money around for things?

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How I Feel About… “Mary: The Making of a Princess”

16 Nov

Last night I watched Mary: The Making of a Princess, the “dramatization” of Mary Donaldson’s meteoric rise from Tasmanian girl-next-door to future Queen of Denmark.

Now, I don’t know if Our Mary herself had any actual input into the script; but all sources seem to be pointing to the negative. I mean, she’s probably v v busy ruling over a foreign country and buying wool-blend coats.

But we all know that this did actually happen; an unassuming girl from Tasmania literally went out on the turps with her mates and landed herself a flipping prince. I mean, it’s the stuff dreams are made of. Mary is the poster child for every Disney-obsessed single gal who has been told time and time again that meeting their Prince Charming is a f*cking fantasy.

I just don’t know how I feel about what I watched last night.

Opening sequence began. Hello sweeping, panoramic views of Sydney. Mary running along a mountainous pathway, looking forlornly at the couples making PDA’s. Poor Mary. The subtle tones of Ain’t That a Kick in The Head suggested that this probably wasn’t going to be the gritty, expose I was hoping it might be, but rather a Mills & Boon-esque brainchild burst from the compound of Woman’s Day.

What was wrong with it?

First of all, the producers really wanted to get across to us that Our Mary is a good girl. Wholesome, sweet, health-conscious. The list goes on. I mean, she came home from her run, sat on the couch and ate CELERY! Bitch, please. (Mary was all about the running. When she thought she’d been dumped, she wailed about not being able to go for another run. Come on, Mary! Get in bed and eat your feelings like a REGULAR WOMAN!)

Later, when Fred basically just got his junk out, no big deal, and ran into the ocean, Mary hesitantly followed, still in her dress. Again, I’m calling bullsh*t. Hot, charming legitimate prince wants to sexy skinny dip with you and you keep your clothes ON?! Either the producers were really pushing the whole “Virgin Mary” thing or that did not happen. Any woman with half a brain and a thread of libido would be stripping off quicker than you can say, “Haagen Dazs.”

Second of all, I know this is a real story, but it played out too much like a literal fairy tale. Apart from the long-distance issue and the brief mention of some naked model called Bettina, the awkward and often heart-breaking logistics of dating were not explored as much as I would have liked.

After coming back to Sydney to take Mary out for the day on a super yacht, Freddy gets a call that his beloved Grandmama has had a stroke. He swiftly wraps up his seduction on the high seas and hot-foots it out of there back to his kingdom, leaving Mary on the pier in her cut-off cargo pants, looking forlorn and rejected. Now, if this was my life, you could pretty much cut there and have it in the can. Girl meets hot rich guy. Hot rich guy seduces girl. They drink on super yacht. Hot rich guy makes excuse to get the funk out of there. He never calls her again. The end. But we all know that was not the case.

And speaking of calling her, that’s the other thing. Did Freddy have some sort of psychic ability? Because ERRY single time Our Mary was sittin around mooning over him, he would magically call her. If life has taught me anything it’s that dudes never call when you’re thinking about them. You just end up drinking yourself into a stupor and yelling at the TV.

Look, it got on my nerves, okay?

Lastly, these previous two issues combined to create an overall narrative that was pretty lacking in real tension. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the producers’ efforts to inject the drama, but it didn’t get them far.

The job was pretty much left up to Mary’s gruff, Scottish father. And while he did a fairly stoic job of it, I couldn’t help but wonder how realistic it all was. Sorry to make the comparison again, but seriously, if I turned up at my parents with the Crown Prince of Denmark in tow, they would probably throw a parade big enough to rival Kylie Minogue at bloody Mardi Gras.

Add to that the fact that he wrote a letter asking for Mary’s hand in marriage, I just don’t think there would be a camera lens advanced enough to capture the speed with which my Dad would sign that sucker away. Like, a goddamn PRINCE wants to marry your single daughter; is there a problem here?

So what was good about it?

The soundtrack. Madison Avenue, Killing Heidi and New Radicals. GAWD 2000 was a good year for music! When the opening strains of Don’t Call Me Baby rang out over the Slip Inn dance floor, I was transported to a better day of hair mascara and working part-time at Baskin & Robbins. In fact, the entire Year 2000-vibe of the film was a pleasant and, for the most part, accurate trip down memory lane. A time of dial-up internet and Nikki Webster before the boob job. #memories.

Also the guy who played Prince Frederik was a total dreamboat. He was shirtless a lot. It made me feel things in my own special Danish place.

 

The moral of the story?

As much as we all love Princess Mary, did we girls really need a fluffy telemovie about her real life fairy tale while we sit around fielding d*ck pics on Tinder?

Jury’s out.

 

fred and mary

Maybe you should take your shirt off again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How I Feel About… Delta Goodrem

12 Jul

Legit question: when did we all start hating Delta Goodrem?

 

A Level 10 Awkward Moment occurred tonight on ‘The Voice’ when Delta got fed up with arguing a point and walked off the set. And boy did she cop it. The worst of it is, tonight was the latest in a long string of outbursts from The He Man Delta Hating Club.

Now, as you would know, I am not one for unnecessary bitching* but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good dose of reality TV der-rama. I mean, why would we even bother watching television if it wasn’t for the chance to innocently rag on fame-hungry Geordie Shore residents or Kylie Jenner’s latest lip enhancement?

But honestly, when did we all turn on Delta? Because from where I’m sitting, she hasn’t committed any serious crimes apart from having one of the most enviable bloody weaves on television and looking crazy good in a white onesie.

It was recently announced that Delts had been cast as Grizabella in the new Australian tour of CATS. (If you are not one for musical theatre, Grizabella is the one who sings ‘Memory’ and has the epic smoky eye/false eyelash look.) And gosh, ERRYBODY had an opinion on the matter! And for the most part, a lot of it was not positive. Yes, I understand there is a genuine debate over the act of ‘star-casting’ musicals with known celebrities to boost mainstream appeal and ticket sales, but that is not what this is, and not something I have the brain space or word limit to open up right now. No, the public’s reaction to Deltabella was more personal, more targeted. From what I could see, a lot of people were “shocked and appalled” that, out of all the Aussie female celebrities out there, they chose HER. A woman who is an actual singer. What controversy.

And so I did a bit more research. (I searched the hashtag #TheVoiceAu on twitter. Because journalism.) My findings? The Delta bashing is not new. At all.

Ever since Delts first appeared on her big, red chair on ‘The Voice’ in 2012, the Australian public chose her as their new punching bag. And 2015 is proving to be no different.

She’s daggy. She’s insecure. She’s jealous of Jessie J. She’s fake. She’s too nice. She’s a bitch. She had an affair with Seal/Joel Madden/Anyone who has appeared on the show.

And I would just like to say… WHY AUSTRALIA?!

Delta Goodrem is a goddamn national treasure!

I mean, do you REMEMBER when ‘Born to Try’ came out? Every white girl under the age of 35 was all about that jam!

And speaking of white girls, that’s the other thing; a recent moniker Delta is often labelled with is “lame white girl”. Because apparently her dance moves are just so Drunk-Mum-at-the-local-Bowls-Club that we can’t stand it. Yes, that Instagram that Marlon Wayans captured of her was an unfortunate coincidence but one that Delts still managed to laugh off.

So what if dancing isn’t her best bloody skill? Who gives a feck? Maybe she IS a bit of a lame white girl. But go have a look in the mirror. Are you white? Do you own a few too many Sportsgirl striped t-shirts? Go to Club Retro on a Saturday night and dance to Chumbawamba?** Then you are probably a bit of a lame white girl too. I know I am. WE ARE ALL LAME WHITE GIRLS! WE ARE IN NO POSITION TO JUDGE!

Allow me also to refresh your pre-2012-Delta memory:

Remember when she had CANCER? Like, for real. In 2003 she was diagnosed with Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. She was 18 years old. She had chemotherapy, her glorious locks fell out and she rocked a mini fro’ for a solid year and a half. What were you doing when you were 18? I was straightening my hair with a clothing iron and working at Target. Girlfriend had real problems.

She also dated tennis player Mark Philioppoussis. As in, The Scud or The Poo as I prefer. Who dumped her for Paris Hilton, how very f*%&ing dare he. And she lived to tell the tale. Well, that’s a lie. She rarely talks about it at all. Because lady got class.

I guess my point here is that the woman has had her fair share of crosses to bear. Ones that we so often forget for the convenience of dumping on her every time she opens her mouth.

And now this rivalry with Jessie J is serving as a new avenue for Delta-bashing. For the record, I love Jessie J as much as the next person; girlfriend could sing me an A-Z of infectious diseases. But I really hate the fact that we are using her to highlight Delta’s flaws. Jessie is searingly honest and brutal at times, which is absolutely commendable, but not Delta’s style. Is that Delta’s fault? No. It’s no one’s fault. It is just two women with differing tactics and opinions on singing who often come to loggerheads.

And tonight it got a bit too much for Delts.

Was it over-dramatic? Maybe. Was it edited badly? Possibly. But was it completely unjustified? No. I think a lot of the viewing public forget that all of these blind auditions are filmed within the space of 24 hours. One day. One very, very long day. I mean, isn’t the fact that none of the judges have changed their outfit in three weeks a dead giveaway?

Can we just put this down to a long, frustrating day at work then? Havent’ you ever wanted to throw your hot coffee or Cup-a-Soup at that insufferable co-worker who WILL NOT stop interrupting while you’re trying to watch cat videos on YouTube? As a teacher I cannot tell you the amount of times I have done a very similar thing to a room full of obnoxious teenagers. (The walking off, not the throwing hot beverages at them. I would definitely get fired for that. And I gotta pay rent.)

So can we please just pull back on the Delta hating?

The next time you find yourself growing a little impatient with her or, like me, your jealousy levels are rapidly rising every time she flicks that glorious blonde weave around, try to remember the first time you played your ‘Innocent Eyes’ CD (do not even TRY and tell me you didn’t rush out to HMV to buy that shit). Delta is a nice person. A strong woman. A talented singer.

I look forward to Deltabella in CATS. I think she’ll do a bang-up job. Yes, maybe she is a little bit younger than what you’d come to expect of such an iconic character, but keep in mind Nicole Scherzinger just played her on the West End and she is a bloody Pussycat Doll! Just think about that.

 

delta

 

I’m out.

xx

 

*Not fact.

**My Saturday night. Fact.

 

 

 

 

 

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