Lani Ramos

Fools Rush In

Living and gigging on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana can afford a multitude of kinetic energies constantly zapping at your 👠 with every step. Not only was I gigging on Bourbon Street but I was also gigging on Frenchmen Street in the summer of 2005. I began picking up my guitar for the first time in months inspired by a newly added guitar player to the band. To me he was so gorgeous and so talented his voice could make you melt into a sound sleep even with all the clanking and clamoring going on outside of Bourbon street. His name was Brad. With his long sandy brown hair barely touching at his shoulders, wearing hazel eyes and tan skin and nearly standing 6ft tall with a slender physique, I knew I could look past the heaving drinking and into the talent of a man that turned me on terribly. Somehow I found myself in love almost instantaneously. After the gig we would get so turned on that all we wanted to do was go back to my place and have sex. Playing with Brad weekly truly inspired me and made me feel so happy and dreamy on stage naturally giving me a euphoric feeling. I just couldn’t believe all the dreaminess of my reality, I could touch it. I could touch my dream coming true, and then, I began to levitate. Kissing 💋 him passionately after a gig became a regular thing. And I did. I never wanted this feeling to end even if he has a girlfriend I later found out. I was so pissed off at him for not telling me. Jimmy and Michelle, bartenders husband and wife team, broke the bad news to me. I nearly fired him from the band but...just the way he looked at me made me reconsider. He claimed that they are ending the relationship soon and she is 10 years his senior so he feels that he could never love her rightfully. Hook, line and sinker is what happened to me. He stopped by my little pink house on Bourbon one afternoon to play me his five song EP that he just picked up from a local recording studio dude named Chris who lived uptown. And to my amazement, his songs were so beautiful written and orchestrated all the way down to the quality of the mix, it sounded mastered and ready for distribution. All produced from Chris’ home studio. It blew my mind away so much so that I picked up my guitar for the first time since moving to Bourbon Street in June. I had just moved back to Bourbon Street for the second time leaving the Treme behind reluctantly. I found a house a beautiful 2-storied pink Creole cottage on Bourbon Street paying $1500 a month where I could live the old French Quarter life downstairs with it hardwood floors, 15ft ceilings, crystal Chandeliers and mock fireplaces opening up to a bricked built courtyard from the kitchen. From the patio I climbed the black metal spiral to the lounge landing opening the door and walking into what I dubbed the rat pack room. An attic apt with a 60s floor plan built out of wood paneling, a mock fireplace and dim lighting where the living room had a kitchenette and set apart from the bedroom with balcony overlooking Bourbon street and bathroom furnishings with pink tile and pink toilet to match blew away everybody’s mind away that I would bring upstairs. I would secretly freak out not believing this was all really mind too. We’d call it the Dean Martin rat pack room because Dean was always the coolest and we’d jam for hours on songs from covers to originals.