Fog and 48 May

Fog. The cool thing about living in Hamilton is the sense of mystery that winter brings. Your never quite sure on the birth of each day whether it will be overcast, crappy, or shine like a summers day. ORRRRR…….. stay foggy past smoko, through lunch and your not quite sure where your kid is, or the school gate is, at 3.0clock. You’re never quite sure what’s beyond the veil. Fog is cool. More metro than a flat white

Aucklanders sadly, never awake to a sense of mystery. Pretty much they know what kind of day it is when they pull back the curtains of their 18 sq mtre apartments. Dull , dull , dull. They never get to use those yellow fog lights on their silver jeep cherokee’s. they do not know that extra dimension to their lives where they hang washing in a white mist, on the knife edge of futility never knowing if the sun will come out to play.

They also do not experience the heightened tension and strange enticement of driving with a sense of potential apocalypse… unlike us Hamiltonians who drive cars knowing their may well be a stationary cow smack right in the middle of the road 20 feet in front of the bonnet even with headlights blazing. An aucklander never senses that they may hit a cow on a fog covered harbour bridge and they are obviously lesser people for it. If Justin marshall was an aucklander he would, and fair enough too, complain bitterly about this. An aucklander awakes and what they see is what they get. Lame.

Hamilton, fog should be celebrated. Each year we miss huge tourism dollars by not enticing local and overseas visitors to experience the benefits of fog. Our city could have a new slogan: Hamilton – where fog is your friend – exclamation mark Or Hamilton – seein’ aint everything exclamation mark Or Hamilton – no smog – just fog exclamation mark Or Hamilton - is it? Are you sure? Exclamation mark And my personal fav Hamilton – don’t mist it exclamation mark

It’s a growth market and we’d get more bang for our tourism buck, I mean look how well rotorua has done with a couple of mud pools. Honestly.. if they can swing it with dirty old boiling mud, then surely we should be able to pull of the marketing coup with good clean fog and realize its market potential. We too could see bus loads of Asians walking around at 7 in the morning, cameras clicking, all scarfed up, smiling and doing that peace sign with two fingers. We could sell light sabers which beep ‘may the fog be with you’ Moteliers in ulster st.. don’t shut up shop yet – the gold rush is coming..

..and as new Zealanders lets start living our climate under the treaty of waitangi. Lets start claiming fog as the very blanket of love formed between papatuanuku and rangi the sky father. Fog. As white and pure as the feathers of te whiti’s people, lets imbue the spirit of fog as a shroud of peace that ever since the pay out to tainui we should play in together, biculturally, maori and pakeha, hand in hand.

Lets also become more existential with fog. Lets weave it into our lives, our very kaupapa, as Hamiltonians. Ohh ah..does it say declined’, must be the fog .

Kids wake up its foggy outside, lets play hide and seek.

And if you are a musicians, like 48 may, you could record a song like this…

(play 48may song)

Sell it to coca cola, rule the airwaves, and when you hear a song like this from American band ‘bowling for soup’ with their song ‘punk rock 101’ released in 2003. listen close people

(play punk rock 101 uncannily like 48 May)

And when 48 may is asked…why one of these things is very much like the other…..

They could say….no comment or Its quite coincidental isn’t it, or i'm a little foggy about that.

You’ve been listening to 48 may, 48 bowling for soup may, and honest dave's morning rant on the generator…