October 15 2005: The Mountain Goats, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, Bellafea – Kraftbrau Brewery, Kalamazoo MI

October fifteen, you are a fine fine day. For about a million reasons, all beginning with getting a craigslist ride straight from Chicago to Kalamazoo. And this ride was with a really nice couple who refused to take my gas money and then let me hang out at their house and take a shower and read their newspaper and eat their food. And this food was cauliflower and chickpeas and curry and rice and fried bread, all cooked up Indian style by the male half of this couple who just happened to have moved to Michigan from India in 2001. One always must question the authenticity of an ethnic foods restaurant – who knows if that Chinese-looking dude cooking the Chinese food really knows his shit or not? But when the Indian cooking your Indian food has spent 4/5 of his life in fucking India, you know you’re getting the real deal. It was fabulous. Bar none the best food of the trip, and a frontrunner for Best Food Of All Goddamn Time.

And then to follow that right up the Kraftbrau served me the best beer of the trip! And lots of it! I can wholeheartedly recommend their Doppelboch, and it’s 8% to boot. And even further to boot, it was fucking cheap. I think I drank five or six of the things over the course of the night and my tab was only $14. And yet even MORE to boot: the promoter found out I was hitchhiking around and she let me stay at the bar during soundcheck and gave me a leftover poster advertising the show and didn’t make me pay the cover. To her!

The show was Bellafea’s last on the tour, so I picked up their 7” for a scant three dollars. The Mountain Goats again played with Franklin, and threw in the Silver Jews’ “Pet Politics” for the first time all tour. “Slow West Vultures” was also played. A great show, probably in the top 5 all tour.

But the fun did not end with the show! As I exited the Kraftbrau I said goodnight to Alex, who was talking to a couple of attractive young women. I thought nothing of this at the time, as Alex is a notoriously good-looking man and can often be found talking with attractive young women (they just won’t leave him alone!). And then maybe ten minutes later, as I stood outside the place asking everyone who came out if they were headed to Western Michigan U., and if so could I get a ride with them, Alex’s two girls come out and say of course I can get a ride with them. And I am seriously in debt to Alex because it seems that after I said hi to him, he told the girls that I was hitchhiking around and whatnot, and so these girls let me sleep on their sofa, gave me some leftover pizza, and in generally made a guy feel welcome. To Kalamazoo!