Welcome back to Sister Louisa's Daily (G)rantings. Every day leading up to Easter Sunday, Grant Henry, owner of Edgewood hotspot CHURCH (it's a bar!), will provide us with one daily rant/affirmation. Check out the previous installments here, here, here, and here.
All of this will lead up to Church's annual fellowship of the queers and weirdos - Easter Sunday Celebration - featuring DJ Vicki Powell with special guests, Mark Louque (NOLA/Ptown), Rich King (Snaxx/Easy NYC), and Bendito (Mary's ATL).
FUCK FEAR!
If I had a proper kitchen
in either CHURCH ATL or ATH
then I’d be proudly serving up
some heaping helpings
of delicious smoked chicken wings
and I’d most likely name them
MARTIN LUTHER WINGS, JR..
I love-love-love
Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the peaceful
executions of his dreams
that he had in life.
If I had space
on my back patio
for a little coffee shop,
I’d have to name it
ROSA PERKS.
Afterall,
what Rosa Parks did
was a pivotal wake-up call,
sort of like coffee,
a catalyst for change
in the Civil Rights Movement.
SISTER LOUISA’S CHURCH
OF THE LIVING ROOM
& PING PONG EMPORIUM
…COME ON IN, PRECIOUS!
was born out of
a play on words,
…friends and I one night
doubled-over laughing,
probably drunk,
and dreaming of ideas
on how we could be paid
to just be ourselves.
“WHO would name a bar “CHURCH”?”
jaja j a ja
(Well, I did go to Seminary
and I always dreamed
of opening an all inclusive Church.)
“You can’t call
ONE Ping Pong table
an Emporium?”
(Yes I can!
I grew up playing
after-school ping pong
in the gyms of the schools
that my Dad served as principal in
and I love the word “emporium”.)
“Who would include “Come on In, Precious!”
in the title of their business?”
(Me?
All my life I’ve been humorously growling
“Come on in, Precious!”!)
The freedom in life
that I enjoy today
is partly a backlash
of the restraint
that I was forced
to grow up with
when I was a child.
I was reared a pleaser,
to not offend anyone,
to not really say
what I was thinking,
and for God sake,
if I approached the line
between truth and absurdity,
I could laugh
to myself about it,
but NO WAY IN HELL
could I actually
say and/or do
what I was thinking!
Next time you wussies
are sitting around
drunk and giggling,
and find yourself thinking
that your ideas
and your passions
are funny and all
but you couldn’t
ACTUALLY
carry out your wildest
authentic dreams,
take it a step further,
don’t stop.
When we stop there,
we are stopping at fear.
Fear of rejection
from our family
and/or our workplaces,
fear of our own greatness,
and fear of societal
and/or political repercussions.
FUCK FEAR HARD.
Grant Henry is proprietor and resident artist of Sister Louisa's CHURCH & Ping Pong Emporium...Come On In, Precious! in Atlanta, Georgia and of Sister Louisa's CHURCH (It's a Glory Hole!) in Athens, Georgia.
His greatest pride in life is having helped rear his amazing daughter Mary Grace who has "blessed him" with his current source of joy, Little Emilio.