Matt Beer, RIP

I think I was the only Reason-er who had any dealings with Matt Beer, but his death on Monday was a great loss. Matt, who died of an apparent heart attack in Cambodia, where he had just arrived to start editing an English-language paper, was one of a kind. Although I knew him as an all-around ass-kicker and dirty tricks man at Suck, a boulevardier and journalistic wisenheimer around San Francisco, and one of the most resourceful schmoozers I've ever met, these obituaries from the Detroit News and Free Press demonstrate that his most notorious exploits (of which I knew very little) took place back in the Motor City. He was a born tabloidist, without any political opinions I could ever discern beyond whether something would make a juicy story, the kind of reporter the "three-legged duck" rule was made for. And he had the most important skill of all—the unfailing ability to find somebody who will pay you for a story. I'll miss him.