Road Trip

Talk is sparse at first, but on the way up we somehow remember we've known each other for years and it would take more than a few broken blood vessels to pull us apart. Besides, we're headed west, and for us, just as the rhyme implies, it's the best. Both of our labels are based on this side of the map, we've traveled here more frequently, and SoundScan numbers show that we sell more records in these parts.

Chili-diems

Eating on the road is dicey. Usually our band will pay itself per diems so we don't have to go out of pocket for grub. They are often a whopping $5; $10 if we can see in our contract that a club has no intention of feeding us.

You come to learn, for instance, that Burger King 99-cent burgers are better than McDonald's; Carl's Jr. has the biggest fry for 99 cents; Wendy's has the most versatile dollar menu (side Caesar, nuggets); and never, ever, under any circumstances, eat at CiCi's.

Considering the outrageous price of gas and the fact that our mobile home got eight miles to the gallon, turns out per diems made no financial sense.

But paying your own way sucks. We needed a solution. We found one. It came to us, as if in a dream: chili-diems.

We, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, could get a $5-a-day stipend, but could use it to buy only chili. Wherever you could find chili you could spend your per diem on it, but only it.

This was cause for heated debate. Do chili dogs count? How about chili burgers? Can I spend my chili-diem on the new Frito chili burger from Dairy Queen? No, no and no. Chili. In a bowl. Take it or leave it.

More debate ensued. The chili-diem wasn't fair to Mike. He's vegetarian. Tough titty! Eighty percent of the country didn't cater to him; neither would the chili-diem! End of discussion.

The chili-diem had its drawbacks. After a week-plus of our eating nothing but chili, the RV started to reek like a sweat-drenched sulfur mine. We had a strict "No shitting on the RV" policy and, because of this, the chili-diem was forcing us off the road with alarming frequency, adding hours to each drive.

After day 11 of chili-diems, our eyes would water every time we had to step into the gaseous RV. After close to two weeks of chili-diems, most of us were ill. We put the idea to bed.

Funny thing, though. Many of us, even after the chili-diem was put on ice, found ourselves craving the stuff. Ordering it even when we had to pay for it ourselves. Some bands are addicted to heroin. We might be too if you could shoot it with cheese and onions.

Beginning of the End: Leaving Portland October 10 on Our Way to San Francisco

It was a gorgeous day, filled with the most majestic views through the wooded mountains of Oregon. As the sun went down, I headed to the beds in the back of the RV with a book. We were crossing the California state line.

Not soon after, we started smelling smoke. "These California fires aren't a joke," we thought to ourselves, ignoring that it smelled more of tire than of tree. It got worse. And worse.

Roy turned on an overhead light. We could barely see one another. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed. "That's us!"

Roadie Jason pulled to the side of the mountain. Flames rumbled from under the hood. Quickly, he grabbed an extinguisher, dived beneath the undercarriage of the RV and suffocated the flame.

Our transmission had blown. We were, in a word, fucking fucked.

Soon the California Highway Patrol arrived. Then a fire truck. They applauded our fast thinking. They called a heavy-duty tow truck and warned us not to wander onto the pitch-dark, undulating interstate. "If one of you got hit by a big rig, that'd be a lot of paperwork for us," they said, only half joking.

We were towed to an RV and transmission repair shop in Yreka (pronounced "why? reek-uh") where we would stay overnight and wait for the shop to open. We bought chili and beer from a grocery store and were forced to watch the terminally unfunny Jay Leno with the lousy reception we were getting in the mountains.

The next morning the shop took a long look at the transmission while we ate chili and played air hockey at a bowling alley across the street. Jason got the call. They were ready to give us the estimate.

Bob, head of repair, resembled Mark Twain and had a bushy push-broom mustache that would make Phil Garner envious. "Well, it turns out there's a highly technical term for what's wrong with your transmission," he said.

Up to this point we were hoping we'd only blown a hose and sprayed fluid on an overworked engine hot enough to ignite it.

"Your transmission is a POS. You know what that is?" We didn't. "It's a piece of shit."

Price tag: $1,600 for a new transmission, $1,200 labor. We nearly puked up our chili.