Bon voyage, Matt! To say you will be missed is the understatement of the year. Thanks for all the great work you've done in building the Mercury news team, and keeping Portland's politicos honest (or mostly honest anyway). I wish you nothing but happiness and success!
yer always pal,
Steve

Best of luck! You are going to have a great time living there.

:(

In keeping with Blogtown tradition, I should say something mean and snarky here. Instead, I'll just say the truth: Sorry to see you go. Best of luck. Or, as you people say, "Cherrio, old chap!"

Godspeed, you gentle giant of news.

Well, shit.

Godspeed to you, sir.

Say it ain't so! What a shame to see you go, Matt. You've been pretty damn close to the top journalist in Portland over the past couple years. Now I've really got to visit New Orleans sometime.

Congrats to you! NOLA is where I'd live if I weren't here.

I am forgainst this.

Glad to hear you're excited about new opportunities, but we'll certainly be sorry to see you go.

What now? Scott Moore comes back?

Sounds like McGarrett is applying for the open position, right?

Good luck, Matt. I've disagreed with some of your stances in the past, and I've lobbed some bombs from the comfy bunker of my anonymity, but there's never been any doubt about your dedication, hard work, and tenacity.

Also, you have to go to Adolfo's on Frenchman Street once a week, for all of us who cannot.

I am conflicted.

sorry, here's the comment I should have left:

"BREAKING!!!

(my heart)."

Good luck!

The Merc news staff is the best it's ever been. You've been a huge part of that. Best to you, sir.

I still think Brits are repressed and creepy, though.

Matt, this is hugely exciting for you and too bad for Portland, which needs a lot more people willing to piss everyone off. We don't really get along, but I'm sure you'll continue to do great work and great deeds.

Well done, man.

Good riddance. I hope someone [COMMENT EDITED: NOT NICE. REEEEALLY NOT NICE.]

Matt,

I have it on good authority that some rich cats will be making a run at bringing in a MLS team to New Orleans, and the NO City Council will be tasked with deciding wether or not to divert funds from potholes and underfunded schools so they can build a new soccer stadium! Fight the good fight Matt! Better you there than here!

Well at least your journalism is more legitimate than your people's "cuisine". You should be a good fit in the land of chain pubs and breasts.

Bon Voyage, you smarmy little bummer.

But you have so much unfinished business with the cops/politicians!
And what about your James Chasse book?
You can't leave now! :(

Wow! Can't believe you're taking off so soon. :(

Best of luck to you, Matt. Quite sorry to see you go, but greener pastures and all that.

And of course, see you tomorrow morning for coffee.

Enjoy the Big Easy!

[COMMENT DELETED FOR UNNECESSARY MUSHINESS]

Good luck, Matt.

The bad news: now I have one fewer reason (two, if Sue's leaving with you) to brave Portland. The good: I was already planning a trip to Nola after Christmas, so that should be a blast. If you're coming through Dallas on the way, stop by, and we'll take you out to dinner.

Too bad all of the shrimp will be covered in crude.

But who will post topless pictures of Putin?

Matt, good luck and super cool choice!
You shant regret it, but we will miss you in Portland. Best of luck bloke!

I just heard Rosie breath a sigh of relief.

Sad news! I'll miss sitting one desk away, hearing how many times and ways you can say "fuck" in one sentence. It's both magical and poetic, Matt Davis.

Best of luck, naturally. New Orleans needs some deft voices right now, so they'll be fortunate to have you. Oh, and don't get knifed, re: Sock Person.

i'm foragainst it too.

Que te vaya bien, amigo. Hope I get to see you before you leave!

You will be missed. Portland needs more reporters like you. Our loss is the South's gain. All the best!

Bonne chance!

Cheers mate!

I've loved the Merc ever since the first issue was delivered in Portland, but the news team has never been as good as the last few years. You'll be missed. I think you'll keep growing and doing cooler and cooler things in a bigger city. Best of luck!

hopefully you can find a nice condo like the one you had here, nothing like living posh and trying to relate to the working class. Thank god for cable TV so your wife won't miss any of the Duck games in that new $200 million publicly funded arena.

Have fun, kick ass and laissez les bon temps roulez!

I'll miss your fake-KGW newscasts that you'd do whenever it snowed half an inch (fake-KATU? can't remember).

Godspeed.

Sorry to see you go, Matt. I wish we'd had more meetings together. I always appreciated your efforts to drag the truth out of people and shine the light on injustice. I'm sure the people of New Orleans will benefit from your skills.

Who will I use all my half assed English slang on now???
Ya fookin tosser!
Best of luck sir.
You took every slam with aplomb and handed it back with no regrets.
I hope Grampy doesn't hire some thin skinned softy in your place.
Smirk time to (wo)MAN UP!

Good luck.

Can't wait for Treme season five, where some annoying character actor portrays a muckraking English alt-weekly reporter who's just moved there from the Northwest and promptly begins biting corpses on the ass.

Who's going to bring us breaking Beau Breedlove news????

Happy trails and good luck, Matt!

Don't think you are getting out of that pepper spraying. There will be REAL tears at your going away party...

Sorry to see you go, Matt. But looking forward to your blogs about NOLA.

way to spoil the weekend, dude.

i blame the Tories for this.

Laissez les bons temps rouler

You leave big shoes to fill. Which is unwise because you will probably need those big shoes for Louisiana's muddy season.
Good luck, Matt!

Ugh! Very sorry to see you go. Thanks for all your hard work, and best wishes in your future endeavors.

Best of success to you ... sent you a personal note as well.

You're very good at your job, Matt, and I've enjoyed following your reporting.

Best of luck to you.

Matt - very good luck - and I am very sorry to see you go. You made a big fat positive difference here.

Matt - I am VERY sorry to see you go - you made a big fat positive difference here.

Try to get a cameo in Treme while you're down there. The best journalist in time, besides John Canzano, of course. PDX's loss, NOLA's gain.

Man, that sucks. Understandably though - I would move to NOLA as well, if I could find work. Amazing city...with no lack of lumpy rugs to look under.

Best of luck! Looking forward to following your work in The Big Easy!

Matty,
you will be missed. I have enjoyed working with you and around you for the last couple of years. I hope that the merc can find someone that can stick it to the man even half as well as you have the last few years my friend.
you will be sorely missed.
Patrick

A CAT is gonna miss Matt. Keep improving, mate.

Now you got to get a white suite and a Panama hat. See you at Cafe Du Monde. You have been good for our city and you will do the same wherever you go.

It must be my fucking birthday

oh no... !!

then again ...looks liked you escaped!!

stay in touch ~joe

NOLA, unlike Portland, has measurable violent crime statistics and an ocean of gleefully violent, happily bigoted folks who make no bones about their hatred of other peeps who happen to be descended from European stock. In fact, the crime stats there go way beyond "measurable" to "dangerous on a level with cities in places like Russia and Africa."

Many years ago, I had a friend who was living in the lower 9th Ward. Sometimes she would talk about the incident that drove her out of the Big Easy for good...one night a whole crew of adolescent gangbangers...the for-real kind, who are more or less professionally trained to be total, remorseless sociopaths and serial killers from a very young age...decided to pull a train on an 11 or 12 year old girl.

This gang rape occurred on the hood of my friend's Honda. She was stupid enough to call the wonderful, infamously corrupt New Orleans Police. When they finally arrived a few hours after the gangbang was over, they took a few notes, and left, bored. Another night, another horrifying display of what goes on in places like the Lower 9th as often as the sun rising in the East...they couldn't have cared less. Problem was, the baby gangsters also noticed the arrival of the copcars after the night's fun had wound down.

They promptly shot up my friend's house with the unmitigated ferocity for which their people are legendary round the globe, that very night. She wisely moved right the hell out of that place the very next day.

I could fill your comments section with similar anecdotes from a couple dozen of my friends who also foolishly attempted to live in the slums of New Orleans. Now, not everyone scares so easily. Some people near and dear to me clung to that place for ages...it is after all very romantic, beautiful and extremely important in the annals of American History...and there was even a hint of glee in their voices as they related one horrific tale after the next of daily life in that sewer.

One guy, a big strapping lad stupidly and needlessly in the ground several years now from a junk OD, would talk about how he eventually learned to ride straight up to his front door on his bike, with a loaded revolver in one hand and his keys in the other. Get the door open, yank the bike inside, and slam the door before he had to defend himself with that piece against a dozen vicious young men filled to the brim with racial hatred for non-Blacks. Every evening, for months and years.

Not everyone I've known who has lived there has been so lucky. And, post-Katrina, those old networks of murderous sociopaths have gradually returned to town and set up shop once again. I heard one story about how some folks were walking along Rampart or something not too long ago, and suddenly this dude popped out of the shadows with a knife, and grabbed one of the girls, holding it to her throat. Apparently, someone hauled out a .45 and promptly blew the head right off of that hunk of human garbage, then and there, and they just left that corner, the girl's throat intact. No cops, and no need for cops either. What, like the New Orleans po-po are gonna care about some inconsequential thing like that ? That place averages about a murder a day during a quiet year. One less subhuman thug robbing the citizenry. Where 'yat, right ?

Anyone want to wager on how many thorough New Orleans beat-downs it takes before Little Lord Davis starts to re-evaluate his opinions on both the right of law-abiding American citizens to armed self-defense, and the state of race relations in this country ?

Three ? Five ? Ten ?

Not happy! Not happy! I read you before I ready ANYBODY when it comes to the Romper Room on SW 4th.

I'd wish you luck in NOLA but you seem to be making your own so PFUI! Leaving just when we need you the most! The nerve! I'm just gonna be depressed about this!

You better train your replacement up right. We expect better!

The further east and south you go the worse it gets. My GF is from Baltimore, and she said for her 1st yr here whenever she heard firecrackers or a car backfire she ducked.

Oh and the humidity......

Your work was a bit hysterical at times, but on the whole, good work Davis.

As you move to my homeland, allow me to offer a small piece of Southern advice:

You gotta give the rabbit somewhere to run ...

All the best in NOLA!

"why it'd be mad to move to Louisiana right now"

Because the politicians are more honest.

ANy chance you can take Amy Ruiz with you?

awesome!!! good riddance!!!

Well....looks like dirty old ex said it all. I was going to advise Matt that he try to live in the best possible digs he can find, located as close as physically possible, to the Tulane trauma ward.

Just the pictures he could take of the stream of ambulances dripping blood pulling into the trauma bay would keep Portlanders rivetted to his blog.

Portland for Louisiana and the most corrupt city in the US of A?
They shoot people down there ya know?
Ya must have lost yer mind man!

It will certainly be less interesting here without you. All the best, Matt.

Sad news. Good luck, Matt.

Good luck!

I'm sad to see Matt go but I'm interested in how he takes on Nola. The Mercury keeps on taking bigger and bigger hits, what with their pop culture section all but trash now (Ezra, and Erik excluded), one (semi-)legitimate news writer (Smirk), and a foodie who should, by all means, be making far much more money and glory at a larger publication where he would belong. I could care less for the rest of the staff, and losing one of the few journalists at this place that I enjoyed reading because among other things his ability to start shit and keep it going well, frankly, sucks.

Best of luck to you, Mr. Davis.

Does this mean Mercury stories might actually be about their subjects, and not their author?

Matt! I'm going to miss you so much, but i promise to come visit you guys in N.O. Portland will NOT be the same without you.

Shedding a tear mate. Your voice has been music to me ears.
Sad day in P-town. Good Luck Chap. Be watchin' from a far.

Fuck the haters, Matt. i guarantee none of em has the fucking balls to do what yr doing. NOLA is a fascinating place with fascinating people--warts and all. Evolve. Life isn't what's on your fucking t-shirt, yr crappy art piece or what yr singing about in your crappy folk band. It isn't about fairies and woods and magic. It's about making a fucking living, a life and a difference. Rotsa Ruck, MD. I'm not far behind you.