Darrell sends the link:
November 19, 2006
Sean Mattson: Mozz sheds light on Monterrey's place in the sun - MySanAntonio
British singer Morrissey (former front man of The Smiths whose full name is Steven Patrick Morrissey but goes by the moniker Mozz, or, recentely "Il Mozzillini" — don't ask why, I don't know) told a packed Arena Monterrey Saturday night how he was doing, when asked by a fan to whom he passed the microphone.
"Hanging by a string" like I told them "in Guadalajara," was his response. (I didn't quite catch the middle of his answer.) Poor Mozz.
The mention of Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city by population whether Monterrey likes it or not, elicited boos from the 150 bucks-a-pop concert-goers at the front of the stage.
"That's not very nice," he admonished them.
I'm new in this town but a number of people here have told me that Monterrey, which, economically at least, is Mexico's second city, does not like the fact that it is referred to as Mexico's third city, even if population is the determining indicator. Mozz just got a lesson in national rivalry, it seems.
During another segue, he noted that Monterrey and Morrissey were very similar in sound and spelling, though they might have different meanings. I thought that, no, there really is quite the comparison there. ("I am the son and the heir," which phonetically is "I am the sun and the air", is one of his better-known lyrics.)
Morrissey, who is reputed to have forged a good relationship with the Hispanic community while living in Los Angeles as of the late 1990s, asked the crowd who the most famous person was from Monterrey.
(Wikipedia.org informs me he now lives in Rome. His anti-George W. Bush posture apparently led to questioning from the FBI. Funny how he moved after that.)
They didn't answer. I think they might have thought the question was "who is the most famous person to have visited this city?" Clearly, that wasn't the question.
"You," they answered.
"Silly, silly," he said. Silly indeed.