I lost my voice twice on NYE but it's only going to make me louder than ever
When my father decided to move our family from Louisiana to Nashville, I was just a baby. His goal was to bring our family to Music City so that he could expand his career footprint but, as family lore has it, Dad lost his voice on the drive into the city. It became this ominous omen looming over our journey, and the remainder of our time in Nash Vegas. My father's dream of making it big didn’t happen, which is a more common story in Nashville than the one of success. I used to blame my father losing his voice for what happened to our family, the poverty and homelessness that would follow. That specter of losing your voice became something that hovered over me; I feared it, and then… it happened.
The days leading up to my big tour with Stormy Daniels were laced with holiday festivities. I had gone to visit my family in Florida from Christmas to the New Year, knowing that I had a show on January 2nd that would kick off a month of being a road warrior. Two days before ringing in the new year, I stopped by a party at a friend's house. I arrived in the way that I least like to arrive at a party: early. Three of us just stood there proverbially holding our dicks. Currently in attendance was my friend, the one who lived in the house where the house party was taking place; adjacent to him was his high school bestie and then little ol’ me. To break the silence, the bestie proposed an idea.
“Gents,” he cleared his throat for dramatic effect, “How about we go to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve?”
What I did not know, because I did not go to high school with this man, and he was not my bestie, just a bestie to my bestie (a bestie-in-law if you will), is that he happened to own a condo on Bourbon Street. A few thoughts quickly filled my brain—first, being mild confusion because I didn’t know that there were any rich people amongst our hodgepodge of artsy-fartsy barstool intellectuals. The second thing, that possibly surprised me more, was that the person offering up the protestations of attending an evening of Southern decadence with a side of hedonism was, in fact, me. No sooner than the words “I can’t” escaped my lips did I attempt to gobble them back up furiously. Instead, I watched, almost disembodied, as I continued to be the voice of soundness and reason. Worst of all, my logic was so impeccable that not even I could disagree with it.
I had a show on the 2nd; New Orleans was in the opposite direction of Atlanta, and no matter how much these fools promised that they would “get me on stage before curtain,” I knew better.
Now, I relented that they would get me into the city of Atlanta and likely on stage before it was my turn to go on. However, and this is when I won the argument, I knew that they could not guarantee what state I would be in when my corpse was tossed onto the stage. They relented, and I won the debate over New Orleans, not just with them but with myself.
Instead, we gathered, as we most often do, at my favorite little dive bar that acts as the inspiration and backdrop for my book All Saints Hotel and Cocktail Lounge. Yet, as I prepared to say goodbye to 2024 and wince my way into 2025, a text message appeared on my phone from Stormy, letting me know that the tour had been canceled.
As waves of panic began to flush over my body, I made an unusually mature decision: I can’t fix shit-all about this today and so let this be a worry for another tomorrow. This was the second reasonable decision I had made in two days, and I was beginning to wonder where Nathan was and what I had done with him. Not only was I not going to New Orleans, but I was choosing not to panic, and enjoying the rest of the day. Which is precisely what I did. I went out, ate delicious food, drank good drinks, and made merry with my friends. As the old year came to a close, the countdown began, but no one said a word. I yelled at the top of my lungs EIGHT!, since the crowd had already missed ten and nine.
By the time we got to five, the rest of the bar was joining in. Their voices drowned out my own, which meant that no one but myself heard as my voice cracked at two and one and barely made out a lackluster "Happy New Year." Before the night was through, I had to go home because my voice was entirely gone.
I could not speak.
That evening, far too flushed with feelings and thoughts to sleep, I lay in bed pondering about my father losing his voice. Was this, like for him, the beginning of the end of my career? Would this be my demise? I had lost my voice, both metaphorically through the tour being canceled, along with quite literally due to a little condition known as strep throat that was apparently moving through the region, and I was exhibiting zero symptoms of until my voice cracked. Would these two moments act as an omen that my own children would one day look back at with doom? As I broke my own promise to myself not to worry yet, I could feel the anxiety welling back up inside me, boiling over into hot sweats under my cold blanket. Then, my phone buzzed.
“I’m sure glad you didn’t go to NOLA, boys,” it read, sent to the three of us who had debated ushering in the New Year in New Orleans.
Attached was an article with a headline about a terrorist attack on this city that had become a second home to me. My heart sank, and I spent the morning checking in on friends and family who live in the area. Our friends house, where we would have been staying, was directly on Bourbon Street and his girlfriend works at a club right down from there. Had we gone, as we discussed doing, then we three would have been roaming up and down the exact area where so many folks tragically lost their lives.
After a few days of antibiotics, and a couple of apology texts for possibly exposing my friends to strep throat, I got my voice back and called Stormy to discuss the canceled tour and future plans. While on the phone with her, she said, “I’m so glad you aren’t mad at me; I was afraid you were upset when you didn’t respond to my text that the tour got canceled,” she paused, “But then I realized the text didn’t send for some reason, that’s why I ended up sending it on New Year's Eve. Not the best time to get that text.”
Stormy had sent it originally the day before, the day when I was hanging out with my friends and discussing whether we should go to New Orleans or not. Had I gotten that text when she initially tried to send it, I would have undoubtedly said yes to the invitation. I would have jumped at the opportunity of escapism from losing a whole month's worth of income. There is nothing quite like losing your job to make you want to go irresponsibly spend your last few bucks on booze.
Yet, in that moment, I realized I hadn’t lost my voice.
I could have, like so many senselessly did that day, that’s losing your voice.
No, what I experienced was a hiccup.
An inconvenience.
My voice literal voice came back because of medicine.
My metaphorical voice is still here, as long as I’m screaming, regardless of how many are listening.
Today would have been the last day of the tour, and so there is a lot I didn’t get to say on stage, but I will be saying it all right here anyway. I’m going to keep writing, keep fighting, and keep resisting with every fiber of my being.
January kicked me in the pants, but it could have been so different. This has been tough. It wasn’t fun seeing our tour canceled. It wasn’t a joy to get sick. Watching Trump regain power has been disgusting. I have hated almost every single minute of the whole month of January, and yet, I can say that, undoubtedly and without question, I still have my voice.
It might crack, it can certainly waver, and it is not immune to disease, but it is mine, and I goddamn well plan to use it.
Moments like the one we are facing, it's going to take us raising our voices, even when it feels like no one is listening. Listen, I am not blowing some toxic positivity up your asses, okay? This is going to suck. People are going to die because of some of these policies. This is going to be very, very bad. There is real human suffering that will happen as a result of what lies before us, and I am not going to candy-coat that in any way, shape, or form. We can’t kumbaya our way out of this situation. No, we’ve got to be loud and proud. I’m going to continue to do what I do, which is douse tough realities with a spoonful of humor and keep on marching on. I am not so foolish as to think, as our Philander-in-Chief does of himself, that I was spared in New Orleans because I have some mandate from God. Nothing I do is so special that God is sitting up there going, “Oh, let's make sure that Nathan doesn’t go smoke a joint with the homies on Bourbon Street so he survives a terrorist attack that, for reason, I will not stop and will allow other folks to die instead.” No, I reject that idea entirely. However, it really did put into perspective what it means to lose your voice.
So, as long as I have breath within me, just know I’m going to be over here yelling that the Emperor has no clothes on.
I count myself among many who will be here to listen to your voice. I hope I have the courage to act when the time comes.