I have a confession to make. I’m in love with CommSec’s Tom Piotrowski’s beard. There, I said it. I like him. I like his hair. But I’m in love with his beard.
It started off quite innocently. I was watching a film on Network Ten and inconveniently on comes a news break along with a CommSec market update. Standing there is an unremarkably good-looking man called Tom Piotrowski (see below).
He was blathering on about some ‘bear market’ in the US. He could have been talking about the price of peanut shells for all I cared; this was a serious interruption to my televisual escapism. This was ‘me time, not ‘Tom’ time. Who was this Poindexter anyway?
But day after day Tom kept popping up on my screen. He was likeable enough, kept his spiel to a minimum, which helped. I, like most people, wondered if he was wearing any pants on set. I glued myself to the box waiting for the camera operator to slip below his belt line. I bet he was wearing short-shorts and uggboots, or at least I hoped so.
A couple of days later, Tom (of unpronounceable surname) was sporting a beard. A fucking beard! A big bloody Ned Kelly beard.
Where did that come from? Is this not the most virile man on the planet that can suddenly grow a full hipster beard? I couldn’t pump Play-Doh through my old Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop man’s head as fast as he grew his beard.
I was obsessed. After all, I am quite challenged in the facial hair department, and no good with money.
I started watching Channel Ten religiously to catch a glimpse of Tom’s de-evolution into Grizzly Adams. Hell, I even shunned other stations and programming greats like The Voice and My Kitchen Rules.
I started dreaming that Tom’s beard was the star in its own reality show (let’s call it My Beard Rules). It wasn’t important what Tom was saying in his market recap, after all, who cared?
The most important thing was, how far could he go before the Commonwealth Bank saw him as a liability and not an asset? Was this the image the bank wanted to portray? I hoped so.
Week after week Tom’s beard changed, the long hipster to the flat-pan-iron to a flared masterpiece. There was grey creeping through that foliage; god knows what else he had in there.
Rumour had it Tom saved a nest of birds from a burning tree and now they were living in his beard.
Another rumour purported he was growing his beard so he could donate it as pillow stuffing for minor neck injury patients.
And not just content on growing just his beard, he was growing his locks too. Once, I glimpsed a bun/ pony-tail at the back as he looked forlornly at a market index graph on the demise of the pork bellies and its affect on the Nasdaq.
Always immaculately slicked back, I felt like I was watching the transformation of money nerd to fully-fledged mountain man. But when is he going to ditch that suit for a suede-fringed jacket?
But now I’m a little bored with it as I am with writing this article.
I think Tom Piotrowski’s beard has been playing with my emotions too long.
I hope for one Tom comes out and says it’s all an act, that he’s really not from the bank, but that he’s a struggling actor in a three-year-long audition. I could cope with that. But cope with him shaving off that beard? I’d rather go back into advertising.
Grant Rutherford is a creative at large.