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The Saga of Sushi Jimmi THE CELEBRATED CHEF SHARES HIS STORY, FROM HIS EARLY YEARS TO HIS SOON-TO-OPEN POKE PARADISE FOOD TRUCK.

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CONTENTS

JESSE DAVIS Editor SHARA CLARK Managing Editor JACKSON BAKER, BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN Senior Editors TOBY SELLS Associate Editor CHRIS MCCOY Film and TV Editor ALEX GREENE Music Editor SAMUEL X. CICCI, MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS Staff Writers ABIGAIL MORICI Copy Editor, Calendar Editor LORNA FIELD, RANDY HASPEL, RICHARD MURFF, FRANK MURTAUGH, MEGHAN STUTHARD Contributing Columnists AIMEE STIEGEMEYER, SHARON BROWN Grizzlies Reporters ANDREA FENISE Fashion Editor KENNETH NEILL Founding Publisher

OUR 1735TH ISSUE 05.26.22 Do you remember April? It seems like an age ago, but it was just three or so weeks ago. Time flies when you’re watching society descend into authoritarian madness.

Anyway, it seems that April 2022 was when the QAnon “groomer” panic really took center stage in the national media landscape, largely propelled by Republicanled criticisms against then-nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused three Republican senators of being “pro-pedophile” for the crime of announcing they would vote to confirm Jackson. I hate to give that human garbage fire any oxygen, but unfortunately it’s necessary to illuminate my point.

This is how the radical right-wing branch has taken over the Republican party — anyone who doesn’t follow marching orders is not only ostracized but becomes the target of a smear campaign that needs no grounding in fact. (Now we’re getting to that “point” I mentioned earlier.) The current groomer panic has little to nothing to do with protecting children. I admit that most Republican voters do want to protect the innocent; that’s what makes this alarm bell such a powerful motivator.

But the people weaponizing the word are operating from a place of political calculation, not a desire to keep kids safe.

Last week, a report by third-party investigator group Guidepost Solutions outlining the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations made nary a ripple in the media landscape.

The report says that survivors of abuse shared allegations but were met with “resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility.” There are local examples, including Bellevue Baptist Church’s current pastor failing to immediately fire an offender, according to a Houston Chronicle report in 2019.

It’s heinous. It’s wrong that trust should be taken advantage of, that children are hurt, and that the protection of the organization is prioritized over the safety and support of victims. I’m sickened and saddened, and I cannot even imagine the hurt that the victims suffered. I also cannot help but notice that, when faced with real documented examples of the thing they claim to hate the most, there is relative silence from the right. The Guidepost Solutions report recommends the creation of an “Offender Information System” database. Here we have an actionable plan to help prevent further abuse. Why isn’t MTG tweeting about it? More recommendations are expected to be announced at a national meeting scheduled for June 14th15th in Anaheim, California, so maybe people are waiting to see what happens.

Then again, waiting for more information doesn’t seem to be in the wheelhouse for these folks.

If the allegations against the SBC are a little too charged, consider this. The same week, a Kroger store in nearby Southaven, Mississippi, was hit with more than $13,000 in fines over unsafe conditions and child labor violations. “Investigators have found the store allowed three minor-aged workers, all 16- and 17-years old, to load a trash compactor with the keys in the machine to allow operation,” writes reporter Bob Bakken for the DeSoto County News. “The Labor Department investigators also found the employer allowed a 15-year-old employee to work more than three hours on a school day and more than 18 hours during a school week, all violations of the federal child labor standards.”

It seems to me that church and business are often held up as being above reproach, so these real-world instances of child abuse and endangerment don’t fit an established narrative. Neither do they provide fodder for future mud-slinging against Democrats.

The week before, 192 out of 208 House Republicans voted against H.R. 7790, the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022, which would provide “$28 million in emergency supplemental appropriations to address the shortage of infant formula in the United States.” The bill passed, at least in the House, but with little help from the party of forced birth.

The groomer panic isn’t about protecting children. If it were, we would take abuse allegations and child labor violations seriously. If it were, the vote for the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act would have been NEWS & OPINION THE FLY-BY - 4 unanimous, and the expanded child NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 6 tax credit, which expired in December, POLITICS - 8 would have already been renewed.

AT LARGE - 9 People will be hurt. Children and COVER STORY teens will continue to be put in danger, “THE SAGA OF SUSHI JIMMI” while misdirected malice will express

BY MICHAEL DONAHUE - 10 WE RECOMMEND - 14 itself as violence against the LGBTQ+ MUSIC - 15 community. Words have weight, and CALENDAR - 16 no one should be treated as a pawn in a FOOD - 19 political game.

FILM - 20 So please, think before you hop on CL ASSIFIEDS - 22 the panic bandwagon.

LAST WORD - 23 Jesse Davis jesse@memphisflyer.com

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THE

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MEMernet

CITY REPORTER B y To b y S e l l s

Heaux House Lawsuit

WORST OF THE WORST

Landlords say Cooper-Young yoga studio was making porn.

Memphis topped the list of CityNerd’s top 10 worst transit cities, “where taking the bus or rail may just crush your soul.” (Hat tip to u/Carpet-Early on the Memphis subreddit.)

Channel host Ray Delahanty, a transportation planning and engineering consultant, said the Memphis Area Transportation Authority had to have “the single least legible major-city bus system in the U.S. When I drop into [Google Maps’] street-view I can barely tell where the bus stop is.”

May 26-June 1, 2022

Edited by Toby Sells

Memphis on the internet.

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Questions, Answers + Attitude

LUCINDA AND BONNIE Some “dumb f*ck” heckled Lucinda Williams and Bonnie Raitt during their performances at the Orpheum Saturday, according to Memphis Redditor u/12frets.

The heckler allegedly made fun of Lucinda’s speech (she had a stroke last year, says 12frets) and yelled to Bonnie “what’s in that cup” she was drinking from before a song about her struggles with sobriety.

“I know it was very important to you to be as much a part of the show as the people on stage, but you’re neither funny or insightful,” said 12frets.

“These artists deserve better.”

POSTED TO TWITTER BY LUCINDA WILLIAMS

COOL SHOT “As the sun sets on Memphis like the Serengeti,” said Frasier Seinfeld on Twitter.

POSTED TO TWITTER BY FRASIER SEINFELD

Cooper-Young landlords want to evict the owners of FancyStudios (formerly Heaux House) because they were “not operating a yoga studio,” as spelled out in the lease, but a “photography studio specializing in pornographic images.”

Sharon and Dante Andreini own the property at 2163 Young Avenue, according to county data. Randii Reaves rented the space from them and opened Heaux House there in mid-January. In March, Reaves received a letter from Derek Whitlock, an attorney for the PHOTO: TOBY SELLS Andreinis, telling Reaves With allegations of producing pornographic images tarnishing the yoga studio’s reputation, she violated the terms of owner Randii Reaves has since changed the name of Heaux House to FancyStudios. her lease.

“It has been brought to my client’s attention by numerous neighbors, local officials, and concerned from the landlords was that letter claiming she was running citizens that you are not operating a yoga studio as a porn studio, not a yoga studio. It was not a cease and desist required in the lease,” Whitlock wrote. “Judging by the letter, Brown said; it said, “Basically, you need to get out. advertisements you have placed in social media and in We’re terminating the lease.” the public space you are operating a photography studio “I’ve reviewed the lease and I don’t think there’s any way specializing in pornographic images. in which Randii’s breached the lease,” Brown said. “She’s not operating a pornography studio.”

The FancyStudios Facebook page shows images from several photo shoots. In many of them, women in lingerie and other revealing clothes lounge on a bed or a chaise lounge or otherwise pose on sets with props like roses, wine glasses, vases, and pillows. A January TikTok video shows a couple’s session in which a pair pose in various sex positions. The woman wears lingerie and the man wears boxer briefs for the entirety of the video.

“The titling of your business as the ‘Heaux House’ further The Facebook feed is also filled with yoga videos, aerial calls into question precisely what services are being offered yoga videos, and the studio’s daily yoga schedule. The in the premises.” company also advertised twerking classes, “Swerk” and Whitlock said Reaves was operating an “adult-oriented “Twerking After Working.” establishment,” which violated the lease and violated the Reaves said she tried to speak with the Andreinis to Shelby County Uniform Code by operating such a business resolve the issue “but they have proceeded with their within 1,500 feet of a church, children’s schools, and family prosecution.” They sued Reaves to vacate the building. The residences. issue was due back in court on Monday, May 23rd.

A mural on the side of the building once read “Welcome “At the worst, it’s malicious,” said Brown, Reaves’ to the Haus. Heaux House,” to which the landlords attorney. “Maybe they’re trying to get her out so they can protested. Reaves painted over the letters with black paint. get someone else in if they can charge a higher rent, too.

The mural was in this state last week.

At the very least, it’s completely misunderstanding what’s Reaves attorney Jacob Brown said the very next contact going on there.”

“At the worst, it’s malicious. … At the very least, it’s completely misunderstanding what’s going on there.”

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The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Crossword ACROSS 1 ___ rug 5 Audibly horrified 10 Quarrel 14 Stephen King title about a dog 15 Cabaret show 16 A transcontinental traveler might go by this 17 Saint who lent his name to a Minnesota college 18 Justice Kagan 19 It’s not a good look 20 Listings in the Internal Revenue Code 22 C.I.A. infiltrator during the Cold War 24 Part of I.P.A. 25 Sound at a séance 26 Savings for a rainy day 30 Not self-parked

34 Afore 35 A. A. Milne character 36 Drips in the O.R. 37 Biblical judge 38 Nabokov title 39 ___ turkey 40 Goddess: Lat. 41 Toward the most common part of a boat to fish from 42 Prize on “The Bachelor” 44 Wooden rod 46 Story of a lifetime, for short?

47 Public ruckus 49 P, for Plato 50 Like the ocean 51 Groups that typically meet weekly for lunch 54 Drug also called angel dust 56 Language spoken

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2 Dance with percussion accompaniment 3 Battler of Hector in the “Iliad” 4 Lose carbonation 5 “Do you still like me?”

6 Comes together 7 N.Y.C.’s Park or Fifth 8 Destroyed, as an armada 9 Walkway option in lieu of paving 10 ___ l’oeil (illusion) 11 Rival of Cassio, in Shakespeare 12 Truckload at a garbage dump 13 Get out of Dodge 21 Tip off 23 Material for Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki 26 Becomes imminent

UFO Hearing a ‘Joke’

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27 Worker in a trauma ward, for short 28 Image on an ancient mariner’s map 29 Symbol of depravity 30 Security device, informally 31 Serving at a 4:00 social 32 Pixielike 33 Jingle, e.g.

43 “Music for Airports” musician 45 “What did I do to deserve this?”

46 Image on the king of clubs 48 When one is expected, for short 50 Tampa Bay pro, informally 52 It is “either plagiarism or revolution,” per Paul Gauguin

53 Be horizontal 54 ___ John 55 “You’re pulling my leg!”

58 Hit 2012 movie whose plot involves a plan to make a movie 59 House leader after Boehner 61 ___ Affair 63 Playtex product

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ast week’s congressional hearing on UFOs was a “total joke,” according to U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (RKnoxville), who was frustrated by the quality of witnesses, not the topic itself.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in military parlance, was the first on the topic in 50 years. The hearing came after Congress ordered an intelligence report on UFOs last year. That report included 144 official sightings of UAP and explained only one, which the report said was a deflating balloon.

Two main witnesses before the Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee were Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and Scott Bray, deputy director of Naval Intelligence. The two head up the government’s new UAP task force. But Burchett wanted better.

“We should have heard from people who could talk about things they’d personally seen, but instead the witnesses were government officials with limited knowledge who couldn’t give real answers to serious questions,” Burchett tweeted Tuesday, May 17th.

Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said of the 144 official UAP reports, 18 of them “appeared to demonstrate advanced technology.”

He asked if any U.S. adversaries had technology like this. Bray said no.

“There are a number of events in which we do not have an explanation,” Bray said. “A small handful that had flight characteristics or signature management [camouflage] that we can’t explain with the data we have.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) asked if the two were aware of an

PHOTO: TO THE STARS ACADEMY/TIM BURCHETT

Sightings of UAPs totaled 144. incident that occurred over Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to strategic nuclear forces, he said. In that incident, Gallagher said 10 nuclear missiles were shut down and a “glowing red orb” was seen over the base.

Bray told him the task force had no data on the incident but had heard stories about it. Moultrie promised the congressman that “we’ll go back and take a look at it,” though he said the task force does not have the resources to follow every story or lead.

Tuesday’s public session closed and the committee met for another session on UAP behind closed doors. The next steps for the task force will be to strengthen relations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other government agencies to create a better system for reporting UAP activity and collect better data.

Before and after last week’s hearing, Burchett spoke candidly about UAP to several news outlets. He told Knoxville’s WATE news station that UAP are either “a diversion to get our attention away from something else, an anomaly on our radar, or it’s something from outer space.” He told TMZ that he did not believe Russia had UAP tech, saying, if they did, “they would own us right now.” He said he thought former President Donald Trump might release files related to UAP. In December, he told TMZ that he does not trust the Pentagon on the UAP topic. He said they’d likely ask Congress for more money and continue to keep the truth quiet. After last week’s hearing, Burchett said, “The cover-up continues.”

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POLITICS By Jackson Baker

Still Party Time?

Weirich, Morgan head a ticket which is soft-pedaling the GOP label.

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+ image courtesy of Pride Archives c.2016

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Not too long also minimized partisanship: “You have ago, Republicans to be able to bring all those different diheld a one-vote visions of county government together, majority on the including the state, including the MemShelby County phis Police Department, which has a Commission. major role to play, and sit down at the Then, for a spell table and work through those issues.” beginning in the In short, the Republican Party needmid-aughts, it was on the slim end of ed a “reach-out” strategy to become a 7-6 ratio — still a force. As of 2018, again what, in theory, it had been for the ratio became eight Democrats to much of the previous two decades — five Republicans, and the “gentlemen’s the governing party of Shelby County. agreement,” whereby the parties would In an interview after his remarks at swap chairmanships year by year, was the rally, Morgan pledged to pursue a allowed to lapse. If the Democrats win policy of “transparency” and to hold all of the contested races remaining to regular press conferences — something be settled in August, as they are favored he said the Democratic incumbent, Lee to do, the ratio will be 9 to 4.

Harris, had been “negligent” about.

Though pendulum shifts of a sort And he promised to process “without will possibly continue, the general resistance or delay” any press or public trend is clear. Assuming the continurequests under the Freedom of Inforation of partisan elections for county mation Act. offices — begun under GOP auspices To regain something resembling its in 2002 — Election former footing, the Year 2022 is almost Republicans need a last-stand occasion strong showings in for the Shelby County other remaining GOP as an electoral contested positions force, countywide. on the August ballot By general consent, besides the highthe big race on the profile ones. Besides ballot is that for DisPayne in Cordova, trict Attorney Genwho opposes Demoeral, where Republicrat Shante Avant, can incumbent Amy another determined Weirich, running as GOP candidate for “Our D.A.,” hopes to the commission is continue for another businessman Ed eight years.

Apple, who opposes The thrust of incumbent Democrat Weirich’s strategy is Michael Whaley in PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER made plain by that District 13.

Worth Morgan self-description. In At the opening last what is a throwback week of the Midof sorts to the days town headquarters of Democratic dominance in the state, he shares with trustee candidate Steve she chose, in a signal event last week, Basar, Apple mused, “One thing that to downplay her party identification. struck me early on when I was goThis was at a Republican Party unity ing through the hoops to kickstart rally at the Grove in Cordova, in which this race, was that it was binary: ‘You Todd Payne, the party’s nominee for Republican or Democrat?’ Yeah. the commission’s District 5, played Can’t run as an Independent. It really something of a host’s role. bothered me that people I spoke with Following remarks by Worth didn’t understand what stirred my soul Morgan, the Republican nominee for and what made me decide yes. And county mayor, who himself struck the main reason was: This is about a basically bipartisan note, Weirich Memphis. This has nothing to do with began, “I’m going to say something Democrat or Republican.” that may offend you. I don’t want your That’s the rhetoric, anyhow, but the vote just because I have ‘Republican’ by reality is that county elections, for the my name.” Voters, like elected officials, time being, are still partisan ones, and, should think in bipartisan terms. like it or not, the two parties are on the Stressing the issues of public safety line, not just the candidates. And the and economic development, Morgan GOP is up against it.

Image courtesy of Pride Archives c.2016

A T L A R G E B y B r u c e Va n W y n g a r d e n

Time to Say ‘No’ Taking on white supremacy where it lives.

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’ve been thinking about a sign That’s primarily because the state has in the yard of a house in my a law that allows the legislature to pick neighborhood. It’s more of a winners of statewide races if the winner sculpture, really — a white gets less than 50 percent of the vote. But dog taking a poop — very realistic, it’s also because the Democratic party complete with poop coming out of the has done a crappy job of getting more appropriate place. The word “NO!” is African Americans registered to vote painted on the dog, and the message to and involved in elections in that state. passersby is clear: Do not let your dog The Buffalo shooter lived in a town do his business on this lawn! with a 3 percent Black population. He I keep thinking about how the had to drive 200 miles to find enough (probably very nice) person who put African Americans to kill en masse. up this sign was so concerned that It’s fair to assume this guy had only a dog would poop in their yard that been exposed to the ideology of his they erected a permanent image of a rural community and the silo of his dog pooping in their yard. It’s like an internet habits. It’s possible he’d never homage to a pooping dog. People walk had a real conversation with a Black by, see that sign, and think about a person, which made it easier for him to pooping dog. There’s probably some sort perceive them as “other,” rather than as of life-lesson here, but it eludes me. fellow human beings.

President Biden went to Buffalo, Maybe the Democratic Party New York, last week, should take some in the wake of the of the millions recent mass murder of dollars it there, and gave a spends on TV ads heartfelt speech and billboards about the dangers supporting its of white supremacy, candidates and put saying that it was it into a massive not who we are as campaign to register a country and that voters in red states we should reject it.

— a reprise of the He’s right, but we “freedom rider” might as well put movement of the up a billboard on early 1960s. Send the White House busloads of young lawn picturing a folks into rural areas Klansman with and small towns.

“NO!” painted on his Have them knock PHOTO: BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN sheet, for all the good on doors, set up Just say no. that speech is going voter-registration to do. sites, speak to civic Signs and groups — introduce speeches aren’t going to fix what’s wrong themselves and the party’s priorities with this country. In too many states, a to people who have only known rabid right-wing minority has control progressives in theory, as evil “libruls,” of the reins of government. Poll after rather than actual humans. poll shows that the majority of people Maybe it’s idealistic, but the only real in those states (including Tennessee) way to send white supremacists back to favor some kind of gun control and their caves is to elect people who will some level of abortion rights. And yet, stand up and fight against them — and their legislatures keep passing noto get rid of elected officials who call permit-needed, open-carry gun laws, them “patriots” and give credence to the and forcing through measures that will Great Replacement Theory. outlaw abortion entirely, even in cases We really do need to “replace” of incest, rape, or potential death of the white supremacists and their political mother. The real “radicals” are in charge enablers, and not just in theory. These in too many states, the will of the people evil creeps are spreading hatred, be damned. How do we change that? intolerance, violence, and death. They Consider Mississippi: Thirty-eight are bent on destroying the most diverse percent of the population is Africancountry on the planet and establishing a American, and yet there has not been an racist autocracy. It’s time to stand up and African American elected to statewide say no. These white dogs are crapping office in Mississippi for 130 years. on all we hold dear.

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COVER STORY AND PHOTOS By Michael Donahue

The Saga of Sushi Jimmi THE CELEBRATED CHEF SHARES HIS STORY, FROM HIS EARLY YEARS TO HIS SOON-TO-OPEN POKE PARADISE FOOD TRUCK.

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immy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh has been on a roll since he closed his old Sushi Jimmi Asian fusion restaurant on Poplar and his first food truck. That was three years ago. Now, he plans to open a new food truck, Poke Paradise, in mid-June. In the meantime he’s doing popups and catering.

Sinh, 34, is an icon — some might say even a “legend” — in the Memphis food community. Articles about him blow up with hits, views, likes, and shares on social media. He’s created his own brand. And people love him.

Here at the Flyer, we’ve followed Sinh’s many moves — his brick-andmortar restaurant, his food truck, his cooking show, his plan to leave Memphis, and his subsequent decision to stay here — and we sometimes get a little flak for it. But what can we say? Our readers eat it up. Now, almost exactly a year after we reported Sinh’s decision to stay in Memphis, and just weeks before the debut of his Poke Paradise food truck, we’re finally telling the whole saga of Sushi Jimmi, the local legend and many foodies’ favorite.

“He is my favorite sushi chef in town,” says Jordan Beatty, executive chef at the Flip Side restaurant. “The layering of the ingredients, just the quality of the ingredients, is always extremely fresh. I’ve gone to some other sushi restaurants.

The rice might have been made a couple of days ago. Or some other ingredients are not too quality. He prides himself on ordering the best fish that comes into town.”

Sugar Grits executive corporate chef Lee Anna Beatty says, “Chef Jimmy Sinh is our very own Sushi Master of Memphis.”

But just who is Sushi Jimmi? Where did he come from?

May 26-June 1, 2022

On Beginnings “I was born in South Vietnam,” says Sinh, one of seven children.

When he was 2-and-a-half years old, Sinh and his family moved to Los Angeles, where the majority of his family lived. When he was 6, his parents moved the family to Memphis where they pursued better job opportunities. His mother worked in a food warehouse, and his father in an automotive business.

In Sinh’s household, his mom did the cooking. “My favorite dish my mom cooked was her pho. She cooked it pretty often. Growing up, we rarely went out. She cooked all the time. And I learned how to prep and get things ready for the next day because of her,” Sinh remembers.

“My mom was always on schedule. She worked a lot.

And when she came home everything was ready. She’d make four or five dishes in 30 minutes because she had so many kids to feed. And to be able to do that, you have to 10 prepare that the day before. You come home, you cook.”

Sinh’s mother had plenty of practice preparing many meals,

Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh has become somewhat of an icon, not just in our publication, but in Memphis as a whole.

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

both for her family and for hungry more advanced sushi. That’s where I customers. “In Vietnam, she was a street spent a lot of time doing more of the food vendor, selling pretty much anything raw stuff like the nigiri and the sashimi.” she could get her hands on,” Sinh says.

He got the name Sushi Jimmi while “She’d make some noodle soups, fried rice, working at the sushi bar. “There was a banh mi. That’s how we survived. I’ve got party going on. Somebody was asking three brothers and three sisters.” for me and one of my buddies said, Though the culinary craft was on ‘Who are you looking for? Are you display at home, cars — not cooking — looking for Jimmy? Jimmy who? Sushi were Sinh’s first passion. “My brother loved Jimmy?’ That’s how I got the name going to car lots. When I was younger he’d ‘Sushi Jimmi.’” always take me,” Sinh says.

In 2014, Sinh, who helped open Red “I didn’t really get interested in cooking Fish restaurant locations, decided to until I was 16 in high school. Freshman open his own food truck. He had plenty year. I got my first job. I never thought of experience, and the market for food in life I would ever end up in a Japanese trucks was growing. “The food truck restaurant. I thought I would end up like scene got bigger and bigger here in the everyone else — in a Chinese restaurant Mid-South,” he says. “I was having my for my first job.” third kid and it motivated me to start up He worked as a host at Benihana, and my own business. Me and my wife just he was mesmerized by one station in had a long conversation about what are particular. “I always looked over at the we going to do.” sushi bar every chance I got and I’d just He wondered if he should work watch. As kids, you just see some things “paycheck to paycheck” or do what he you just like to watch. loves “and make a living at it.” Turning a “I asked the head chef, ‘Can I work passion into a profession would be hard at the sushi bar?’ And they gave me an work and would come with no shortage opportunity. I worked at the sushi bar for of challenges, but it was the most two weeks.” alluring option.

But, he says, “I was more the helper Sinh had a food truck built in Dallas. and I didn’t like that.” Sinh is creative, an It made its debut in 2015 at the Midattribute that expresses itself often in his South Food Truck Festival, where he did menu items, and it made him want to do “really well,” Sinh remembers.

He didn’t just sell sushi. “We had more than be a “helper.” spring rolls. We had egg rolls. We had His friend Tony Do got him a job at kimchi fries. We had crawfish nachos.

Do’s family’s restaurant, Nagasaki Inn, People love the crawfish nachos. They which is where Sinh really sank his teeth were one of those big-hit things.” into preparing sushi.

Flush from the success of his food truck, in 2017, Sinh Do made sure Sinh learned the foundations of rolling sushi. “I opened his Sushi Jimmi restaurant at 2895 Poplar. “I was started practicing and I just got better at it,” he says. trying to provide people with job opportunities.” And, he A creative cook, Sinh also did his own thing with sushi. “I’m adds, “I wanted to expand my business a little more.” very good at improvising. When I see pictures I come up with But opening the restaurant wasn’t a good idea, Sinh says. something of my own. I get an idea and put it with my idea.”

“That was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Nagasaki Inn co-owner Harold Do, Tony’s father, was a mentor With the food truck, Sinh had more time to enjoy his to young Sinh. “He’s like an uncle to me. I see Mr. Harold all the family, but a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and the staff it time. We always hug. That man has taught me so much. That’s takes to run one, means a bigger commitment and more time why I work so hard. I’ve never seen anybody work so hard as spent at work. “When I had the restaurant, I never had a day I him,” Sinh says. could enjoy,” he says.

Sinh admired Do’s strong work ethic, and his rapport with his He closed Sushi Jimmi on May 23, 2019, and he closed his customers. “Being in front of him watching him cook is an honor. food truck the next day. “Having to run the food truck and He works hard and he has the opportunity to still come out and the restaurant by myself was burning me out,” Sinh admits. show his face. That’s why customers come to see him. How else “If you don’t feel happy, stop. I stopped before I hated it. You are you going to see the man cook for you and tell you jokes?” don’t want to lose what you fell in love with.”

And, he says, “I was a teenager. And Mr. Harold was the one Sinh eventually went to work at other restaurants, who was really there for me to keep me off the streets. From being Sinh has always approached sushi including Saltwater Crab and at Saito 2. around the wrong crowd. He’s not just a great chef, but a great with a fiery passion, sometimes at In April 2021, Sinh announced he was moving to Orlando, person. I loved working there. It’s one of those memories you the self-admitted risk of burnout.

Florida, in May. He said it would be a better opportunity for never forget.” him and his family.

Working at Nagasaki Inn was Sinh’s favorite restaurant He also wanted to take a two-month vacation and spend time with his wife and experience. “Harold and his son, Tony, treated me like family. I’ll never forget it. I had the best teenage life working there. I learned so much. And I always tell people, ‘Nobody children.

In June 2021, Sinh announced he was staying in Memphis. He said in a Flyer cooks hibachi better than Nagasaki, in my opinion.’

“We all helped each other out. We worked together as a team. At nighttime we would interview he and his wife didn’t want to move while his children were so young.

The children needed “to bond a little more as a family.” They also had another child sit down together as a family.” on the way.

Sinh told the Flyer, “When I shut Sushi Jimmi down, I hopped back into my Sushi Evolution Sinh was at Nagasaki Inn for two years. “I took the sushi game a lot more seriously work. Worked really hard like I did at Sushi Jimmi. I never gave myself a break, so I kind of burned myself out and just hated what I was doing.” when I was around 21. That was when I told myself I want to do sushi for the rest of my life. I just saw the lack of knowledge around. When people eat sushi they get confused. I told myself, ‘I want to be the one that teaches people how to eat it. And Poke Paradise The life of a chef often means hard work and long hours, and the same can be said not be afraid of trying it.’”

Later, Sinh learned how to do more advanced sushi. He got a job at the old 11 continued on page 12 Wasabi Sushi & Asian Fusion in Cordova. “That was the first time for me to do

continued from page 11

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As Sinh returns to the food truck business, he plans to go beyond the “Sushi Jimmi” moniker to expand his repertoire to poke. for any small business owner. And, if the pun can be pardoned, there’s always the risk of getting burned, or burned out. That’s when Sinh came up with the idea to improve his private chef business and open his Poke Paradise food truck. He said, “I want to bring Sushi Jimmi to you. Make sure it’s something you’ll never forget.”

Sinh is happy to be “going mobile” again. Poke Paradise is “a brand you can actually franchise,” he says.

Poke is diced fresh fish, usually served with soy sauce and onion. “You can eat it spicy, and you can make it with the soy sauce base or mayo base or eat it the way it is,” Sinh explains. “It was created by fishermen with leftover fish. It was created in Hawaii. It’s a Japanese-Hawaiian dish.”

He wanted to serve something simple and healthy for people to eat. At Sinh’s Poke Paradise, people can choose from four or five different sauces.

Sinh is ready to introduce his “version of poke.”

“Every dollar “I’m always the person who likes I make I put it the extra. I want my customers to have a little bit of an option. We’re going to right back in have heat — mango habanero sauce. the business to Nothing better than fresh fish and the right sauce.” make the business Until he gets his food truck on the better. I’m going road, Sinh is doing pop-ups, special to take my time orders, and catering. “Just so that we can keep ourselves busy and at the with this.” same time try new things to see what we can put on our new menu. To see if it will work on the truck once we have the truck out.” Customers can find him on Facebook (@SushiJimmi) and on Instagram (@sushi_jimmi).

Sinh “cooks with love,” says artist, actor, entrepreneur Kia Shine. “And it comes through when you’re eating.”

His sushi has “great presentation,” Shine adds. “And it’s really, really good, man.

He knows what he’s doing with that sushi.”

Shine recalled a few years ago after he and members of the Heal the Hood Foundation of Memphis visited Sinh’s restaurant after delivering turkeys. “There were about 13 of us, and he was just bringing sushi dish after dish after dish after dish.”

When it came time to pay the bill, Sinh told Shine, “Nah, I got this.”

Shine continues, “He’s a giver. That speaks volumes about the individual.”

Sinh plans to one day franchise Poke Paradise brick-and-mortar restaurants in other cities. For now, he wants to be mobile with maybe one or two people to help him. “All I can tell you is if the customer keeps supporting me, better things will come,” he says. “Every dollar I make I put it right back in the business to make the business better. I’m going to take my time with this.”

“Jimmy has influenced the way we enjoy sushi in Memphis,” says Suzie “Big Sue” Purnell, iHeartMedia senior vice president of programming. “What some may see as an intimidating experience, Jimmy counters by bringing joy, pride, creativity, and fun to everything he creates. That’s a real gift and what makes him such a star.”

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Shows, dates, times, and artists subject to change.

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Directed by

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Live music at

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

Circle Back

may 26th Mighty Souls Brass Band

PHOTO: URBANART COMMISSION

By Abigail Morici

Delicate Tension, on view at U of M

Put a pin in it, hold on to that thought, we’ll circle back, let’s revisit another time — some phrases are too often used for empty, soon-tobe-forgotten promises. But sometimes, if we just have a bit of faith, people can come through. Take for instance the UrbanArt Commission (UAC), now celebrating its 25th anniversary. After launching its “Revisiting” series back in mid-2019, only to have to put the project on pause before completing its second installment in spring of 2020, UAC is ready to bring back the series this summer. “‘Revisiting,’” explains Gabrielle Brooks, UAC’s communications and development manager, “is a series of temporary site-specific responses to existing public art projects created by UAC.” These responses that are works of art themselves can go beyond visual art forms and can incorporate performance art, dance, and music.

For the series’ first installation since 2019 and second installation ever, artist Brittney Boyd Bullock will respond to the colorful storybook trees of Nancy Cheairs’ Summer at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library by transforming the work into an immersive forest of fabric and textiles. “Her project is centered around rememory,” Brooks says. “So the concept of thinking things through texture and color and remembering her childhood and past. She will be having a choral performance in addition to her installation. The chorus is called the Freedom Singers.”

Boyd, whose work is featured in the airport’s Concourse B, is also one of eight New Public Artist Fellows with UAC, which opened its first New Public Artists exhibition this May. The exhibition, which will remain on view until the fall at the University of Memphis, consists of sculptures by Boyd and other fellows, and is also worth a visit, Brooks urges.

In addition to adding to its roster of more than 130 public art projects, UAC plans to begin a “Responding” series, an additive to the “Revisiting” series, but these responses will be on a smaller scale, Brooks says, and with fewer rules and guidelines for the artist.

Overall, Brooks looks forward to redeeming losses incurred over the last two years. “It’s been kind of hard to hold on to some of these great ideas and put them on pause,” she says, “so we’re really glad to be able to start this again and work with more artists to showcase some of the [public art] projects we take for granted around the city.”

A reception with refreshments will follow Boyd’s “Revisiting,” along with the opportunity to speak with the artist about her work.

“REVISITING SERIES: BRITTNEY BOYD BULLOCK,” BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY, THURSDAY, MAY 26TH, 6 P.M., FREE.

May 26-June 1, 2022

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Porgy and Bess Hattiloo Theatre, performances through June 12th, $30 In this legendary Gershwin opera set among the Black residents of a fishing village in 1912 South Carolina, Bess, a woman with a disreputable history, tries to break free from her brutish lover Crown after he becomes wanted for murder. The only person willing to overlook her past and offer her shelter is Porgy, a disabled beggar.

Their relationship is threatened by the disapproval of the townspeople, the presence of her old drug supplier Sportin’ Life, and the threatened return of Crown.

Performances are ThursdaysSaturdays at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at hattiloo.org.

Memphis Mushroom Festival Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, Nature Center, Thursday-Monday, May 26th-30th Memphis Mushroom Festival is a five-day, four-night transformational camping festival. The purpose of the Memphis Mushroom Festival is to unify the Mid-South in a mission to celebrate and improve the relationship with sustainability, to support the legalization of all plant medicines, and to create a better understanding of the benefits plant medicines provide in a region that needs it most.

The festival includes live music, interactive demonstrations, forays into the forest, chef ’s food tastings, dancing, art, classes, and more. Single day passes are available for $20, with full passes costing $50 for all the days.

Visit memphismushroomfest.com for more information and to purchase tickets.

Undugu Hip Hop Festival Various locations, Saturday, May 28th-Monday, May 30th, $10 Three days of fun at four locations, all for hip-hop lovers of all cultures.

More than two dozen confirmed performances, headlined by Jason Da Hater of the Iron Mic Coalition, Big Lukah, Duchess, and DJ Capital A. The Undugu Hip Hop Festival keeps the “Memphop” underground sound alive. Think smooth groove Wu-Tang driven by classic twin table DJs and MCs. The weekend begins with turntable exhibitions and performances at Memphis Slim House on Saturday, 7 p.m.-10 p.m., with even more performances on Sunday, 1 p.m.-7 p.m., at Carolina Watershed. The festival concludes with a Monday morning co-ed football game starting at 11 a.m. and evening performances at Hi Tone, 6 p.m.-9 p.m.

MUSIC By Alex Greene

Luís Seixas and the Thisco Duck More than just noise — charting the unlikely local influence of an experimental Portuguese label.

T

PHOTO: JACQUES GRANGER

art conservator), Seixas curated The Paik Sessions I – Music for the Vide-Obelisk, a collection of ambient pieces that paired well with Nam June Paik’s sculpture Vide-O-belisk (2002), then located in the rotunda of the museum.

The following year, he compiled The Paik Sessions 2.

Since then, he’s become increasingly more active in local electronic music. “We released the compilation for Memphis Concrète, On Triangles, and that was totally supported and paid for by Thisco,” Seixas notes. “We gave carte blanche to [Memphis Concrète founder] Robert Traxler to pick the lineup, and of course we sent copies to Europe.

We’ve also released albums by Robert, The Pop Ritual, Ihcilon (Paul Randall), and we’re still waiting on a few more to join us. The label just turned 20,

and we’re still getting new artists.”

Alas, Seixas’ Memphis chapter is now coming to a close, as his art conservation work will soon take him to Florida. Yet it doesn’t appear that his labors in music will cease anytime soon. “I started Thisco partly because I’m kind of a librarian,” Seixas muses.

“I want to preserve these things. I want to see what people are doing and put it out there. If I can document what was happening at this moment in time, I’ll do that. I guess that’s why I became an art conservator. I’m preserving something, and Thisco comes directly on the same path. It’s a way to capture what was going on in a moment. I know anyone can put their music on the web now, but sometimes they need that push. Someone saying, ‘This is good!’ There’s always this self-criticism.

‘I’m not good enough! Should I put this out?’ Or the opposite: They just put everything out without a filter.

Sometimes you need a friend to tell you, ‘Well, maybe work a bit more on that one.’ So I think there’s still a role for people like me. Someone to say, ‘Do it this way, do it that way. But do it.’”

For more information, visit thisco.bandcamp.com.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Luís Seixas

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

he experimental music scene in Memphis is an elusive thing. It’s certainly out there, as evidenced by the Memphis Concrète music festivals, but a newcomer may find it hard to discover. That was certainly the case 12 years ago, when an electronic artist and co-manager of an experimental music label in Lisbon, Portugal, found himself in the Bluff City. Luís Seixas recalls those days, after his wife’s new position at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital brought them both here, living in America for the first time.

“It was tough to find the people here,” he recalls now. “It took me a while to understand how things move in Memphis. I didn’t find the scene I was expecting to find in a city of this size.

Then I came across Mike Honeycutt.”

Honeycutt, an electronic musician who releases his work primarily on cassettes, had collected tapes that Seixas’ label partner, Fernando Cerqueira, had released decades before. “I was like, ‘He has tapes going back to the late 1980s! A Memphian with a radio show on WEVL!’” Seixas continues. “But he told me, ‘No, there’s not a scene. We’re struggling, it’s hard.’ And it was. Not finding a scene here was the strangest thing. I expected Memphis to be an epicenter, that would attract people, but regarding electronic music, I saw the opposite: People who were born and raised in Memphis then left for other parts of the United States.”

Seixas in turn may have become one of the scene’s best-kept secrets. Ever since he arrived here, he’s been helping to make that scene bigger, plugging Memphis artists directly into a network, centered in Lisbon, that reaches across Europe. Thanks to Seixas, Thisco (pronounced “disco”), the label that he and Cerqueira founded in 2000, has become a presence in the Mid-South.

“We were about to leave Lisbon,” Seixas recalls of his pre-Memphis days, “and Fernando suggested I operate Thisco only in Memphis. But I said, ‘No, we’re going to have two headquarters, one in Lisbon and one in Memphis.’ Why not?”

By now, many local knob-twiddlers (including myself) have collaborated with Seixas, who creates his own music under the name Sci Fi Industries.

And still more have benefited from the breath of fresh air he brought to that elusive experimental music scene. In 2012, when he was working for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (in the capacity of his trade as an

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CALENDAR of EVENTS:

May 26 - June 1 Metal Museum’s “Thomas Campbell: Corollary” features works by the fifthgeneration steelworker, through July 17th.

ART AN D S P EC I A L E X H I B ITS

“Albrecht Durer: The Small Passion”

Exhibition of work by one of the world’s greatest printmakers Albrecht Durer. Through June 5.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

“Alice’s Adventures at the Garden”

Meet larger-than-life Alice in Wonderland-themed sculptures constructed entirely of mosaiculture. Through October 31.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“A Matter of Taste”

Collage exhibition by Alisa Houseal Botto. Through June 8.

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

“A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration”

Exhibition of commissioned works by 12 of the most acclaimed African-American artists working today examining, the impact of the Great Migration on the social and cultural life of the U.S. Through Sept. 1.

Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENTS LISTING, VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL. new paintings by Congolese artist Doudou Mbemba and Cameroonian artist Romeo Temwa. Through May 31.

UREVBU CONTEMPORARY

“Due South: Ke Francis and Hoopsnake Press” Exhibition of both bound books and loose illustrations, with a total of 15 works on view. Through July 3.

Artists’ Link Spring Showcase

Virtual exhibition of over 90 paintings, photographs, assemblages, and more by 50 different artists. Through May 31.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

“Elvis: Dressed to Rock”

Exhibition exploring Elvis’ onstage style from 1969 to 1977.

Featuring over 100 pieces of stage wear, including jumpsuits, capes, belts, jewelry, original designer sketches, and more. Through Dec. 31.

GALLERY 1091

“Art of the African Diaspora”

Exhibition of historic and contemporary art questioning and complicating the oftenused term “diaspora.” Through Aug. 29.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

“Beautiful Metals of Ghana, Adornments, & Wearables”

Exhibition featuring a beautiful selection of metal objects exploring culture and craftsmanship of Ghana. Through May 31.

METAL MUSEUM

“Beyond Van Gogh”

Be completely immersed in more than 300 of the greatest works of Vincent Van Gogh as his art is liberated from its two-dimensional limitations into a three-dimensional experience that exhilarates. $36.99/adults, $21.99/children (ages 5-10). Though June 5.

GRACELAND EXHIBITION CENTER

MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART

May 26-June 1, 2022

GRACELAND

“Contemporary Art of Ghana”

Exhibition of contemporary artwork on display featuring a selection of artists from Artists Alliance Gallery, Accra.

Through May 31.

BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down” Exhibition of paintings by Leslie Holt exploiting the aesthetic qualities of scans of healthy brains and those affected by mental illness.

Through May 28.

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

“Driven to Abstraction” A duo exhibition featuring

Exhibition that examines Ghana’s role and contribution to trans-Atlantic slavery.

Through May 31.

NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

“Faig Ahmed: Secret Garden”

Exhibition of work by Faig Ahmed, who is known for transforming the visual language of traditional Eastern

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C A L E N D A R : M AY 2 6 - J U N E 1 Overton Square Movie Series: North by Northwest

Bring a blanket or a chair to watch this motion flick. Free popcorn provided. Thursday, May 26, 8 p.m.

OVERTON SQUARE

Saturday Morning Rewind

Every Saturday, Black Lodge will be taking you back to your youth, with an everchanging block of ’80s and ’90s cartoons, retro vintage kids’ commercials, games, and a variety of cereals.

Saturday, May 28, 1-5 p.m.

BLACK LODGE

H E A LT H A N D F IT N E S S

“Flower Power: Paintings by Kay Coop”

Exhibition of vibrant paintings with sparkling colors and high contrast depicts the joy of flowers. Through June 30.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“Focus on Light: Paintings by Gary Gibson”

Exhibition of paintings inspired by the beauty of nature. Through May 31.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

Ghanian Exhibition Bed Exhibition that highlights the country of Ghana and its native plants in partnership with Memphis in May International Festival. Through May 30.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“Isaac Hayes: Black Moses Gives Back”

An engaging exhibition that showcases Hayes’ unique dashikis collection and his humanitarian work in Ghana.

Through July 31.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

“Love in the Club: Photographs by Michael Abramson” Exhibition of images of Chicago’s South Side underground life. Through Sept. 4.

STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC

“RINGS! 1968 - 2021” A remarkable collection of contemporary rings that reveal the wide-ranging creativity of artists working in this timeless jewelry form.

Through June 12.

METAL MUSEUM

“Small and Mighty”

Exhibition of work by Jill Samuels. Through May 30.

MEDICINE FACTORY

“Solidarity Now! 1968 Poor People’s Campaign”

Exhibition that explores the little-known history of the multicultural movement to address poverty and social justice in the nation. Through July 31.

NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

Great American River Run

The run includes a half marathon, 10K, and 5K with a start and finish line on historic Beale Street. Saturday, May 28, 7 a.m.

DOWNTOWN

“Sunny, with a Chance of Thunderstorms” by Sarah Megan Jenkins

Exhibition of paintings that seek to capture the push and pull of nature’s all-encompassing energies and remind the viewer that they can find tranquility through nature’s rhythm. Through June 29.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“Sweet 16”

Each of the Dixon’s 16 gallery spaces will feature an independent, Dixon-organized exhibition. Through July 10.

S P E C IA L E V E N TS

Memphis Armored Fight Club

Memphis Armored Fight Club is devoted to the study of medieval armored combat. $20. Saturday, May 28, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

S PO R TS

Memphis Redbirds vs.

Iowa Cubs Through May 29.

AUTOZONE PARK

THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

“Thomas Campbell: Corollary”

Exhibition of work by fifth-generation steelworker Thomas Campbell, who shapes both the form and function of his work while blending tradition with innovation. Through July 17.

METAL MUSEUM

“Where I Come From”

Exhibition featuring the recent creations of Theresah Ankomah, a Ghanaian artist from Accra whose amalgamation of techniques creates bold, colorful works that reflect her origins and story.

Through May 31.

UREVBU CONTEMPORARY

F ES TI VA L

Bluff City Fair

Exciting attractions and shows. All your favorite fair food. Spectacular carnival rides and kiddie rides.

Through May 30.

LIBERTY BOWL STADIUM

F I LM

Friday Flicks at Carriage Crossing: Encanto

The Madrigal family is off on an adventure! Bring a blanket, grab a snack, and enjoy this family-friendly event.

Friday, May 27, 6-9 p.m.

THE SHOPS AT CARRIAGE CROSSING

T H E AT E R

Mississippi Goddamn

In 1963 Jackson, Mississippi, the stirring of the civil rights movement is beginning to rally a nation of long-oppressed people. But on a particular street, home to a civil rights pioneer, not everyone is pleased. Through June 5.

CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE

Porgy & Bess

Legendary Gershwin opera set among the Black residents of a fishing village in 1912 South Carolina. Through June 12.

HATTILOO THEATRE

Smokey Joe’s Cafe

The Broadway sensation celebrating the songs of Leiber and Stoller returns to the Birthplace of Rock-andRoll! Smokey Joe’s Cafe is sure to leave audiences dancing in the aisles. $27. Through May 29.

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

The Moors

Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. $20. Friday, May 27, 8 p.m.; Saturday, May 28, 8 p.m.

THEATREWORKS

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

Jill Samuels’ “Small and Mighty” exhibition is on view at the Medicine Factory through May 30th.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

carpets into contemporary, sculptural works of art.

Through Aug. 9.

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OVERTON SQUARE

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Red-headed co-owner debuts Midtown bakery.

T

he Ginger’s Bread & Co. officially opens June 4th at 1613 Union Avenue.

“It’s a bakery,” says Jimmy Hoxie, 43, who owns the establishment with his husband, Grant Whittle. “We have sourdough, challah, croissants, tarts, cookies and cookies and cookies.”

But that’s not what “Ginger” refers to.

Instead, Hoxie says, it’s “like someone who has red hair. Like I do.”

Ginger’s Bread is more than a bakery.

“We’ve also got some gallery space and a few jewelers and candle makers who are going to set up some spots in there. It’s going to be a little market.”

Hoxie is a natural for the business. “I’ve been baking and cooking since I was a kid with my mom and my grandmother.”

And, he adds, “The cooking shows were my Saturday cartoons.”

Baking didn’t come naturally for him at first, though. “I can remember lots of disasters as a kid.” He would make things that turned out “not really for human consumption. Like baking a batch of cookies and forgetting to put extract in it and trying to brush it on afterwards. It’s not quite the same.”

PHOTO: CHRIS MCCOY

Jimmy Hoxie But, he says, “You learn from your mistakes and you just keep going.”

He also got great feedback from The Lauderdale County Enterprise owner, editor, and publisher Terry Ford, who, like Hoxie’s grandmother, lived in Ripley, Tennessee. “He was an avid cookbook collector and gourmand and friend of Julia Child. He brought Julia to Ripley once, and I got to meet her.”

Ford told Hoxie, who helped him cook for his annual July 4th parties, “You’ve got some skill and you should look into this.”

After graduating from Ridgeway High School, Hoxie went to culinary school at Johnson and Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina. He worked in between semesters at Disney’s Grand

Floridian Resort and Spa, “as a cook, but [I also did] anything else that needed to be done.”

Following graduation, he worked at The Mills House Wyndham Grand Hotel in Charleston. Moving back to Memphis, his jobs included Viking Culinary Art School and Memphis Jewish Home & Rehab before working at Bonne Terre Country Inn & Café in Southaven. He also worked at Just for Lunch, Church Health, Sur La Table, The Liquor Store, City & State, and the cafe at Crosstown Arts.

After the pandemic shut everything down, Hoxie thought, “If I was going to start doing something on my own, now is the time.”

Hoxie and Whittle started an online “porch and pick-up” baking business, The Ginger’s Bread, after they converted half of a duplex they owned into a kitchen.

They moved into their current location after they outgrew the duplex. “We wanted to be in Midtown because there’s not really a bread bakery in Midtown. Certainly not where you can get a fresh croissant.”

They loved the space. “It was built circa 1930 and still has a little charm left to it. It has the feel of the 1930s, but it also has the feel of all the eras up to today.

I found some old store display cases that are circa 1930s, ’40s.

“My brother and I drove all over picking up stuff and shoving it in the back of U-Hauls and figuring out how to get it off the van and into the shop as best we can.”

As for the color scheme?

“We’ve got a really rich teal and then wood and burnt orange accents.”

He includes a range of new and fondly recalled baked goods. “A lot of people remember my stuff from City & State, and they wanted their old favorites they used to eat there,” Hoxie says.

That includes his pimento cheese cornmeal scones and stuffed pretzels with nuts and apple pie filling.

They have “a few tables,” but they don’t want The Ginger’s Bread & Co. to be a restaurant at his point. “We want people to enjoy their time while they’re there, but we want people to grab what they want and go.”

Future plans may include building out the space to add a commercial kitchen. And maybe one day they will open a restaurant.

And, yes, they sell gingerbread men.

Hoxie makes the classic cookie, but he’ll be doing others. “For Elvis Week, I’ll do a little Elvis-shaped one.”

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

FOOD By Michael Donahue

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FILM By Chris McCoy

The Kings of Comedy Two new documentaries explore the legacy of George Carlin and The Kids in the Hall.

I

May 26-June 1, 2022

n the second episode of HBO’s epic, four-hour documentary George Carlin’s American Dream, Chris Rock recalls the comedy legend telling him, “I’m not an entertainer, I’m a comedian.”

Rock says the offhand comment stuck with him, and he realized that comedians inhabited the same cultural niches that used to be reserved for philosophers. In the very next clip, Jerry Seinfeld disagrees, saying, “I’ve never changed my opinion on anything because of a bit.”

That two of the most popular comedians of the last 50 years, both of whom were heavily influenced

by George Carlin, could disagree so profoundly about their role in the world speaks to the breadth and depth of the comedian’s work. During his four decades in the comedy spotlight, Carlin mastered both the observational comedy of the everyday, which propelled Seinfeld to becoming the biggest TV comedy of the 1990s, and the insightful social commentary, which keeps his words alive in today’s

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online political discourse. The new documentary, by directors Judd Apatow (something of a comedy legend himself) and Michael Bonfiglio, aims to detail the full scope of the man who reinvented comedy many times over.

Made with the help of his daughter Kelly Carlin and second wife Sally Wade, American Dream boasts a wealth of both Carlin’s home movies and his TV appearances, of which there were literally thousands. In his early days, he idolized Danny Kaye, and every step of his journey from radio DJ to goofy variety show guest was calculated as a way to break into the movies. But the rebellious streak that got him kicked out of the Air

Force made him too dangerous for the mainstream. And besides, as he would later admit when his post-Seinfeld TV comedy was canceled after one season, “I’m not much of an actor.” Kelly Carlin describes her father as “a road comic until the day he died,” and the interaction with the crowd was always at the heart of Carlin’s art.

Carlin’s real skill was his penetrating insight and brutal honesty.

His final reinvention, which coincided with his development of the HBO comedy special, would prove to be the most profound. “The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy!” he declared in his now-classic 1992 show Jammin’ in New York. The documentary’s powerful climax comes in an extended montage of events that have happened since Carlin’s 2008 death juxtaposed with clips from his comedy routines that concisely predicted and explained it all.

Around the time Carlin was reinventing himself as a philosopher,

Available for streaming, these documentaries get at the heart of comedy. a group of Canadian 20-somethings were reinventing sketch comedy.

The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks reveals that the group got their name from the would-be comedy writers who lingered outside Jack Benny’s office trying to sell him jokes — and Mark McKinney is still bitter that they didn’t use the name he suggested, The Audience.

But the name fit McKinney, Bruce McCulloch, Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald, and Dave Foley. They were outsiders in the suburban Canada where they grew up, which bred an anarchic attitude in their comedy writing. The five friends spent much of the ’80s playing to tiny audiences of goth weirdos at the Rivoli, a punk rock club in Toronto, Canada, and the documentary features lots of priceless footage of the Kids both killing and

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FILM By Chris McCoy dying on stage as they developed their act. By the time the talent scouts from Saturday Night Live arrived in 1986, they couldn’t get tickets to the sold-out shows. After hiring Foley and McKinney for a brief stint as SNL writers, Lorne Michaels brought the whole crew to New York, where they proceeded to spend his development money on ecstasy-fueled nights on the town while creating the defining comedy aesthetic of Generation X. After a bad, mid-’90s breakup brought on by inflated egos, Foley’s gig on NewsRadio, and the cursed production of their only feature film, Brain Candy, the Kids’ cult continued to grow, thanks to endless reruns on Comedy Central.

Where American Dream is

a deep dive into the legacy of a timeless artist, Comedy Punks is more of a conventional celebratory documentary. It makes the case that the Kids’ stable of gender-fluid (nobody did drag comedy better than them) and gay-positive characters changed the comedy boys’ club for the better. Certainly, their Dadaist streak left a huge mark on contemporary comedy. Since the documentary’s release coincides with a new season of their seminal show on Amazon Prime Video, it seems the Kids themselves will get the last word.

George Carlin’s American Dream is streaming on HBO Max. The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks is streaming on Amazon Prime.

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THE LAST WORD By Craig David Meek

American Oligarchs

THE LAST WORD

Forbes did its first ranking of our country’s richest people in 1981. The top of the list was a shipping magnate named Daniel L. Ludwig with a fortune of more than $2 billion.

I discovered that fact in a thought-provoking New York Times article by Willy Staley about the impact our current crop of multi-billionaires is having on our society.

Adjusted for inflation, that $2 billion would be around $5.8 billion in today’s dollars. That sum made Ludwig the richest man in the United States. Today $5.8 billion would put someone in a seven-way tie for number 182 on the list.

Most people know someone they consider rich. Maybe it is someone with a business they’ll sell for several million dollars when they get ready to retire. Or a professional athlete who makes millions a year. When people talk about “the rich” in terms of the wealth-hoarding oligarchs who control industries and media companies and buy politicians, this isn’t who we’re talking about.

We live in an oligarchy. Most Americans would agree with that fact, and agree it is a problem.

From the left to the QAnon folks who believe the world is ruled by ultra-wealthy, demon-worshiping pedophile cannibals yet also insist the rich should have lower taxes and less regulation of their business dealings.

Historically, we’ve generally avoided using the word “oligarch” to describe America’s ultrarich. That changed as the war in Ukraine caused condemnation of Russian oligarchs, and people PHOTO: SYSTEMNIY | DREAMSTIME.COM noticed how men here like Jeff Bezos, Charles Koch, Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, and Peter Thiel perfectly fit the definition as well.

They didn’t become oligarchs through hard work. No one does. They needed a lot of family wealth and connections before they ever worked a day in their lives. A large pile of money easily turns into a larger pile of money. Our tax laws have been rewritten over the past 40 years to help bigger and bigger piles of money shift to be possessed by an increasingly small number of people.

Any attempt to rein in our billionaires gets denounced as socialism, but we have had capitalism with much higher taxation of the ultra-rich. That is how we created a large middle-class in this country, which didn’t exist before the New Deal and has been steadily losing ground since the early ’80s when the Forbes list was topped by a guy with $2 billion.

The beauty of a high tax rate for top earners was that it didn’t even require government to redistribute wealth. Anything you make over your first $500,000 in annual income will be taxed at 90 percent? Might as well spend those additional profits on hiring more people and giving them more pay and better benefits and working conditions. If inflation means there is too much money chasing too few goods, worry about the people who have more money than they know what to do with, not the people who are struggling.

I don’t envy our oligarchs. They don’t seem to be leading happy lives. When I think of people who seem genuinely happy, to me, they are people who seem grateful they have enough, not people who always want more. We’ve created a society where most people feel like they need more, whether they have nothing or everything.

The result has been skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide, addiction, and overdoses.

Oligarchs are natural enemies of democracy. A clear majority of Americans want things like universal health insurance.

Our ruling class doesn’t want that, and has made sure we don’t get it. Universal health insurance allows normal people to leave big companies to start their own businesses.

Unfortunately the elite have mastered the reverse psychology of telling people, “Here is what the elite don’t want you to think …”

They control both sides of the argument. They tell people “the elite” are teachers, professors, beat journalists, and scientists. They get to frame corporate media like CNN as “the left” and the far-right as the alternative. They love giving money to centrist Democrats.

They can always count on them to advance right-wing economics when Democrats are in power, while giving Republicans a chance to say, “Look what the radical socialists are doing to you.”

Our oligarchs don’t want young people learning about the amount of racism embedded in our society since our country’s founding. Racism was and still is a valuable tool for keeping poor white workers in their place. The Old South was a terrible place for white workers. But racism was so effective that impoverished white Southerners got duped into dying for plantation owners in the Civil War. Men who never owned an inch of land were willing to waste their lives to protect the fortunes of aristocrats who looked down on them. So don’t be surprised that someone buried in debt today will take five minutes to dash out a tweet in defense of whichever billionaire is currently masquerading as their champion against the elite.

Craig David Meek is a Memphis writer, barbecue connoisseur, and the author of Memphis Barbecue: A Succulent History of Smoke, Sauce & Soul.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Too much wealth concentrated in too few hands gives those hands too much influence in our democracy.

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