Mark B. Leaving Willamette Week and Portland

I'm generally not one for the third person business, but this post required me to be in the headline and I sure as hell wasn't going to use the first person. That's just the type of music editor I am. Or, well, that's just the type of music editor I used to be, I guess. Now that it is 5 pm and the pages for this Wednesday's Willamette Week have been sent off to the printers, the slave drivers here have let go of the whip and are allowing me to tell you that today is my last day as music editor of Portland's largest alternative weekly, as well as it's greatest web site (that's this one).

Close observers may have noticed that my contributions to LocalCut.com have been few and far between lately and that the music section in general has not been the fine-tuned machine you are all used to. On both accounts, I apologize. See, I have been under a dastardly spell of short-timers, a.k.a the senior slide, since I accepted an offer to become the editor in chief of a new monthly city magazine in Minneapolis called Metro. I will be leaving town on Wednesday and headed for the land of ice and snow, where, shortly thereafter, I will be taking the helm of Metro and turning it into the best damn city magazine in the Twin Cities.

I'm sad to leave Portland, to leave behind all the great music, people, food and temperate weather, but it's time for me to go. I will be returning to the cities where I cut my local music teeth for seven years before moving here in 2003. For a more in-depth look at the reasons for my moving, check out this Wednesday's Willamette Week for my farewell column.

If you want to wish me well, there will be a farewell party TONIGHT at Acme (Southeast 8th and Main). There will be music and drunk people. I will also be naming my successor. So, come on down and kiss her ass before everyone else.

In my absence, this person will lead the Local Cutters, continuing to cover more local music than any other publication in town. I will be watching from afar. And freezing my ass off.

Thanks for reading my words and playing such wonderful music for me for the past three years. My life is immeasurably better for knowing all of you. Except Geoff Byrd. Oh, okay. Geoff Byrd too.

Photo: Me, saying goodbye and enjoying my fingerless gloves, in my last moments at WW. Fingerless gloves are illegal in Minnesota.