There once was a band called Herb that played nothing but classic Herb Alpert tunes. During my two years in Herb I subbed on some random gigs - a couple weddings, extravagant dot-com parties, and once even sharing a bill with Nancy Sinatra. On this fateful day we headed out to San Francisco on a sunny Tuesday afternoon to entertain a pack of lawyers at some luncheon downtown.

I arranged a car pool with Steve the guitarist to help reduce the pain of finding parking in the city during business hours. I drove to his house, plopped my ten-ton keyboard and amp in his pickup and we headed over the bridge. Steve bubbled with excitement - he recently acquired a vintage Fender guitar amplifier and today he was finally taking it out for its first live show.

After finding the right office building we discovered the event was on the second floor. We gingerly carried Steve's amp and my heavy gear upstairs and down a long hall to the main room bustling with prepatory activity. We casually set up our equipment and dug into the freshly assembled lunch buffet with the rest of the guys in the band.

I actually didn't eat anything. I felt a bit hungover even though all I had was a couple beers last night. And I wasn't very hungry even though all I ate this morning was a banana I picked up at a convenience store on the way to Steve's house. But I always get nervous before a show, so I settled my stomach with some seltzer water.

I never did find out what the big event was for. Nevertheless, the hall soon flooded with happy lawyers and their friends and lovers. It was a celebratory gathering of some kind, and in any case we were going to earn our money with two long sets of basically every tune we know from "Tijuana Taxi" to "Taste of Honey."

And just like that we began with "Lonely Bullfighter". We played a thunderous A major chord as Jab (the lead trumpeteer) appeared, leading the brass players entering dramatically from the opposite end of the hall, blasting their horns as they slid through the crowd and swankily approached the stage. I was parked standing behind my keyboard all the way off on the left, about ten feet away from the line of hungry people waiting their turn for the buffet. We lept from song to song, each one finding me a little more tired and hazy. I thought I was just coming down with a cold or something - nothing to really worry about.

By the middle of the set I felt a little queasy, but there were still 6 or 7 short tunes left before I could take a break and get some air and maybe some pepto bismol or something. As time wore on I became more and more sick, though I wasn't upset about how I felt shitty as much as how suddenly I felt shitty. With three songs left I was leaning against my amp, unable to support my own weight. With two songs left I took a deep breath and braced for the home stretch.

Then, finally, we closed the set with "Zorba the Greek," an epic piece that unfortunately required my undivided attention from beginning to end. I stumbled through the first minute or so without major incident, and then settled into the long middle section which broke down to me alone playing a sloooooow, repetitive oom-pah pattern in F major while the trumpeteers jumped into the audience, dancing betwixt the lawyers while deftly applying the melody on top of my wavering accompanyment.

The nausea was unbearable. I just had to get past this song but my hands were becoming more and more limp and unresponsive. It couldn't have been simpler: F in the left hand, F major triad in the right, C in the left hand, F major triad again in the right.. I kept telling myself to fight through it, but soon the triads became major sevenths, then minor seventh sharp ninths, then thirteenth sharp elevenths..

"I can't throw up on stage," I mumbled to myself, "I just can't!" Was this a command or just wishful thinking? The only strong argument I had against vomiting right here, right now was that I haven't thrown up in over eight years. Eight years! How could I even consider breaking this long-standing "vow of silence" at this rather inconvenient time? Besides, I come from a long line of iron-stomached non-pukers! I'll surely bring long-lasting shame to my family if I blew chunks under the spotlight! But, man oh man, I felt like giving up and letting go.

As the clanging, wrong notes disappeared into my ears I recalled the last time I found myself unbearably nauseous in a public setting. It was my first year in college, back when I wouldn't dare miss a single class lest I had to desperately catch up on the material later. So despite having a raging flu I attended my regular Monday morning Data Structures lecture. About 30 minutes in I had the pressing need to throw up but was too much of a sissy freshman to interrupt the proceedings with an obvious exit for the bathroom. So I squirmed in my chair, praying for the awful feelings to pass.

Since my will to avoid the cause at hand was obviously strong, my brain made the executive decision to throw my body into a state of shock. My vision sizzled and faded to white. The professor's words eroded into a stream of faint static. I slumped in my chair, eyelids shut, arms fallen to my sides, unable to do anything but wait for the crazy ride to finish. Everything smelled like electricity. Time lost all meaning.

SssssssssssNAP! Suddenly I could see and hear again. Twenty minutes have passed in an instant. The lecture was already over and most of my classmates have left the room. I found my notebook literally soaked with perspiration. I felt okay. Not great, but okay. Apparently I was able to break on through to the other side without giving in to the grotesque demands of my stomach. Victorious, I headed back to my dorm room to recover in private.

But that was then.

Back to now: I was on a stage and I was so ready to barf barf barf. I could barely keep my eyes open - all I remember seeing were the horn players glaring back at me in horror. Then came the grand accelerando leading to the big finish of the piece. Duh.. da.. da.. da.. Duh. da. da. da. Duh da da da Duhdadada duhdadada.. Everybody joined in and the music swirled around me, getting faster.. and louder.. and faster.. and louder.. and faster.. and..

BLURP!

My mouth filled with undigested banana and seltzer water which I then spat on the floor as surreptitiously as possible.

Two amazing things happened. First: I managed to avoid getting this used food all over myself and the keyboard. Second: very few people witnessed this disgusting display of uncontrolled bodily function. Though the song was far from over, I collapsed behind the drumkit. The band had no idea why I was suddenly lying there in a pathetic, sweaty heap and took it upon themselves to sing the remaining keyboard parts into their microphones as the tune wrapped up and Jab announced, "We'll be back for another set in 15 minutes."

I still lied there as my stunned bandmates wondered what the hell just happened. Jab, who saw everything, informed them and their jaws dropped in disbelief. The tiny puddle of puke where once I stood had already soaked nicely into the yellow stage carpeting, concealing the hard evidence. Without the immediate threat of more songs to perform I collected myself and ran into an unoccupied office. As I fled the scene of the crime a food server handed me a bottle of water - apparently he saw the whole thing and felt pity.

Away from all the chaos of the event I lied on the floor and got myself together. Having released the contents of my stomach I felt a lot better, but the adrenaline coursing through my arteries made me dizzy. Oddly enough, I didn't feel a single shred of embarrassment. Everything went by too fast to even consider it.

Ten minutes of calm relaxation did a world of good. Jab finally found me and didn't have to say anything. We both saw each other and busted out laughing. Working hard to stifle the giggling, he asked if I was going to be able to make it through the second set. I figured I could. I got up and went to the bathroom to splash my green face. Then I dragged my sorry ass back on the stage for another onslaught of doofy songs.

I reconfigured my amp so that I could sit down on it and play, which helped immensely as I still felt a bit woozy. Feverish and high on hormones, it was almost as I was living in a dream. Nothing really bothered me about my public purge, and I just floated onward in a trance. A simple four-beat countoff and the music was rolling out from my fingers with no perceivable effort.

Well, one might consider such a digestive mishap to be a real "show stopper." Luckily my stomach was relatively empty at the time. If I started the day with a healthy stack of pancakes with a side order of bacon things might have turned out quite differently. The question was: could this gig any worse? The answer: yes. How? Well, imagine this: What would happen if a stream of icy, cold Coca Cola splashed against a row of hot amplifier tubes?

KKSSH! KKSSSSSHH! BZZZZZZT!

With the sudden silence of Steve's guitar it became immediately clear another bandmate had accidentally knocked a full glass of soda into the back of his precious Fender amplifier. All the tubes immediately shattered, as did the drinking glass itself after it fell into the inner cavity of the speaker cabinet, spraying all the interior walls with dark, sticky liquid.

Panic ensued as we assessed the damage. There was no other choice but to quickly dismiss the desecrated amplifier and plug Steve into a spare channel on my rig. We hacked away at a few more songs before calling it quits, trying in vain to complete our obligation of being today's "professional entertainment." Defeated, we wasted no time loading out.

As much sympathy I had for Steve and his befouled equipment I was secretly relieved that somebody, somehow took the focus away from me in such a miraculously quick and efficient fashion. But it was a sour mood in the car ride home - Steve was grumbling as I was clutching my stomach and sinking deep into illness. The slow crawl over the Bay Bridge was utter hell.

With the show behind me, my body crashed. I almost drove off the highway as I sped home from Steve's place, and then I could barely lug my gear out of my car and into the house. With my last remaining shred of strength I threw myself into bed and turned on the television.

The screen filled with images of busloads of children, all screaming and crying. It was April 20, 1999 - the day of the Columbine shootings. I laid there for 24 hours straight, assaulted with painfully repetitive news coverage about the terrible incident, too weak to roll over and turn the damn television off.

I was bedridden for days. Apparently I got food poisoning, which is known to strike as suddenly and violently as it did in my case. But how did I get it? Cheap Chinese food over the weekend? A bad beer the night before? Whatever. It took weeks before I could consider eating a full meal again. Not fun.

By the way, yes - I still got paid for the gig.