It is midnight Tuesday night, the summer of 1990. My best buddy and bandmate Jim Cassidy and I are ensconced at our usual center-of-the-room table at the Temple Bar, the unmarked Soho gathering place of the downtown upper crust cognoscenti of this particular period of time. With us is Eddie the Weasel, functional alcoholic, East Village art scene knockaround guy, and the drummer on our most recent tour. Also at the table are two girls whose names I do not recall.

"I really feel like wailing tonight. This would be an excellent night to just really get out there and—I mean, fuck! There's three great reasons we should really have a good time tonight. Number one, we are fucking gods. Secondly, we own this place," says Eddie the Weasel. He gestures around him at the gorgeous hardwood bars, the narrow-focus spotlights illuminating every table, the thick velvet drapes covering the windows, the unbelievably dense crowd of models, Wall Street players, and beautiful people surrounding us. "And secondly, er…I mean, we should really get out and do some wailing tonight." By this he means he really wants to continue drinking and socializing.

It's not as if we hadn't done some wailing already. We had originally assembled in the dark, luxurious confines of the Temple Bar in the early evening to celebrate the release of our second album, secure in the knowledge that we had at least one surefire single to work in the coming months. Our first record had gone gold almost overnight a year and a half before, and our position in the pop firmament seemed assured.

Our manager had just departed with his entire entourage (brothers and sister, girlfriend/assistant and assorted hangers-on), after leading us in a two or three hour-long martini and champagne drinking binge that culminated in the purchase of a three-hundred dollar magnum of Veuve Clicquot, which had been spilled across the table before anyone had a chance to pour from it.

At a certain point earlier in the evening, one of our managers' friends had looked around the table and said: "I just realized that we live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and no one I know has a real job."

"What happened to the Beak, anyway?" asks the weasel. By this he means that he is already too drunk to notice that Cassidy has left the table to go to the restroom.

"He's in the bathroom," I say. "Let's just stay here for awhile. I just ordered a MacAllen Eighteen Year Old, and I think I'm starting to hear the bagpipes." By this I mean that I am entering what Jim Cassidy calls "the lovely mood," i.e. the early, contented, all-is-right-with-the-world stage of drunkenness.

"Let's get some cognac," sassy Unremembered Girl Number One, as Cassidy returns to the table.

Soon we are all sipping from huge snifters of Hennessey, and Cassidy and I are working on a new trick I had recently seen in a movie. I would take a puff of my Macanudo (you could still smoke in bars in those days, even cigars, if you were obnoxious enough), blow the smoke into the snifter, and cover the top with my hand, trapping the smoke inside, allowing it to become infused with the scent of the cognac. Then I would stick my nose into the snifter, inhale the smoke, and exhale it once again through my mouth. We're talking high class all the way, here. And did I mention that all three of the men are wearing sunglasses?

Soon the cognac has given way to Drambuie, then Chartreuse, then more martinis. The din is deafening; everyone in the tiny, cramped room is shouting to be heard above the general racket of fabulousness.

"Those people at the next table," says Unremembered Girl Number Two slurringly, "are bitching about your cigars, you guys."

"Fuck them," I say. "Fuck everybody! We own them!" By this I mean that we were young, successful, relatively rich, and we didn't have to pay much attention to anybody.

"You are a God!" say Eddie the Weasel, looking at me with admiration.

Unremembered Girl Number One suddenly gets up from the table. "I think I'm gonna be sick," she announces. She hurries to the women's restroom. Finding it locked, she detours into the men's to throw up.

"Shot, shot, shot!" shouts Cassidy, slapping his hand on the table three times for emphasis. By this he means, "I'm really fucking drunk, and even though I don't want any more, I'm going to force everyone else to drink more, because I know I can, and I know they will."

Before the shots can be ordered, Cassidy too has run to the bathroom, and finding the men's already occupied by the puking Unremembered Girl Number One, repairs to the women's to do the same thing.

At this point the waitress arrives at our table to take our order. I turn to face her as she perkily asks, "What can I get you?" I then see her face cloud over as her gaze drifts from my face to the table. I follow the direction of her eyes, and see that our table is covered in vomit.

"What the Hell?" I ask myself dully. "Who threw up on our table?" I look around. Cassidy is gone. Unremembered Girls Numbers One and Two are both gone, and Eddie the Weasel, a much more experienced drunk than I, is sitting back in his chair in his bright blue sport coat over his white turtleneck and trademark Czechoslovakia medallion looking amusedly back at me.

Only after several more seconds of slo-mo cogitation do I realize it was actually I who had barfed all over the table, unnoticed by myself, and by the dozens of beautiful people who crowded around us on all sides! The toxic melange of a multiplicity of fine liqueurs and strong cigars had finally gotten the best of my system.

"The young lady had a little problem," says the Weasel, motioning vaguely in the direction of the restrooms where the rest of our party seemed to be encamped.

"I see," says the waitress understandingly, as she begins to wipe up the vomit with her bar towel. I am still sitting dumbly, trying to come to grips with my own degeneracy.

"You are a God!" repeats the Weasel after she leaves. "Buddy, you just puked all over our table. You really have taken glamour to a whole new level."

Outside, a few minutes later, Cassidy and the Weasel decide with Unremembered Girls Numbers One and Two to take a cab to Ludlow Street to continue wailing, while I opt for home and bed.

How does one get to such an exalted level of fabulousness, you may ask? Well, I wasn't always one of the beautiful people. It took years of hard work, brains, talent, and a little luck. Not everyone is lucky enough to puke up a couple hundred dollars worth of fine liquor at one of New York's most exclusive nightspots. I struggled for years to reach that pinnacle, and it goes a little something like this…