My Life in the Fast Lane

When I married Parker Dinkins in 1972, he, Allison Miner, and Quint Davis were working together like sled dogs to resurrect the career of Henry Roeland Byrd a/k/a Professor Longhair a/k/a Fess a/k/a Byrd. A friend, recently asked me how this came about. I don't recall who it was exactly who stumbled across Byrd sweeping floors in a record shop on Dryades Street (I think). I do remember a lot.

Professor wearing the first licensed NOJHF t-shirt, 1974.
Design by moi.

Parker, Allison, and Quint became friends in the sixties when they hung out at the Tulane Jazz Archive. All were passionate music scholars. Allison and Quint were a gorgeous, charismatic couple. Both loved to perform and did at various times with various bands. Allison sang. Quint played tambourine. Parker, on the other hand, was a classic introvert of the Asperger’s variety. He was phobic about drawing attention. (We have a brilliant, handsome son with a similar temperament.) I was a fly on the wall and can say with confidence Parker was the steady hand in all that follows. 

Allison and Quint did lots of drugs and disparaged capitalist pigs. Call them the hippy faction. Parker was quiet, technically brilliant, a self-educated audio engineer. Plus, Parker entered Tulane Law School specifically to acquire expertise in intellectual property law. He had no interest in practicing law. Call Parker — and later me — the capitalist faction.

In the sixties, Parker built his own field recording equipment that he and childhood friend Fred Weinstein took to remote places in Louisiana and Mississippi to tape obscure blues musicians. Their label, Ahura Mazda, was a modest success, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia. Fred went off to med school in Mexico, and Parker stayed home and entered law school. Parker bought Fred’s share of Ahura Mazda. 

In 1970 I had been dating Fred, whom I’d met at LSU, when I moved from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to work as the PR chick for Charity Hospital. Fred introduced Parker and me. Unbeknownst to me, Fred was Parker’s yenta. Fred proudly called ours a marriage made in heaven. In a thousand ways it was. In a thousand other ways, it wasn’t. Parker’s a shy introvert; I’m a shy extrovert. 

Parker and I spent eight years on the road with Byrd, driving him and his band to gigs, working the door at out-of-the-way dives and then at the 501 Napoleon Club, which morphed into Tipitina’s. We spent a week in the Library of Congress sorting out Byrd’s intellectual property rights. I designed and made press packets. When Byrd’s rehearsal studio in Central City burned down in the middle of the 1974 festival, the gang hastily organized a benefit concert at the Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas Street. In a single manic day, I designed and had printed a t-shirt to sell at the benefit. My t-shirt, which I slept in, ended up on Linda McCartney’s back years later. It’s a long story. 

Our first child, Matthew Byrd Dinkins, was named after Byrd who died a few weeks before Matt was born in 1980. Byrd died the very day his best, most important album released. Byrd had spent the day driving around town showing the album off. It was a peak life moment for him.

Shortly after Parker and I married in 1972 (we divorced in 1989), we took Byrd to a party at Cosimo Matassa’s studio where Ahmet Ertegun (Atlantic Records) sought out Byrd’s manager, my husband. Ertegun had produced some hits with Byrd in the forties and fifties. Ertegun asked Parker if Byrd needed help. “Yes,” Parker said, “He needs work.” Sure enough, a bit later Ertegun called Parker to offer Byrd a gig — in London — at some posh debutante ball. 

Allison, Quint, Parker, the Professor Longhair band, an elderly musician (whose name escapes me), and Henry Hildebrand headed to the London Ritz. Note I was not part of the entourage. I have never taken kindly to being OfParker. Needless to say, this pissed me off. Henry Hildebrand? Quint’s dope buddy from next-door? WTF? Parker was too timid to get my ticket aboard this spare-no-expense joy ride. That was the kind of humiliating othering I endured for well over a decade.

I’ll never forget Snooks Eaglin arriving at Moisant Airport with his belongings in a Schwegmann’s bag. “Dee fixed me up real good this morning,” Snooks sighed contentedly. (It wasn’t because Dee had packed his Schwegmann’s bag either.) Parker, Allison, and I had scrambled to get Fess ready for the trip. Fess didn’t have a birth certificate, and he’d long left a first marriage that was technically still a thing. We had to clean up all that mess before Fess could get a passport.

Beautiful Allison Miner

Quint Davis and Professor Longhair back in the day

While Parker was in law school, still running Ahura Mazda and managing Byrd, Allison and Quint hooked up with Newport Jazz Festival producer George Wein. Big Daddy Wein, with two fanatically energetic young volunteer jazz scholars, stood up the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1970. The trio depended on sponsorship from a beer distributor and a cash infusion from Quint’s father, Arthur Davis of Curtis and Davis, architects of the Super Dome. Thus was Wein’s mad respect for Quint set forever in concrete.

By 1974 Parker was out of law school and Allison and Quint asked him to manage food booth sales at the Fair Grounds, a larger, new venue for the festival. The festival was a money pit. Quint and Allison had no expectation of turning a profit — ever. Until Parker came along, they’d had no desire and no idea how to monetize the event. Parker, on the other hand, was an equally respected music scholar, a lawyer, and descended from a long line of New Orleans capitalist pigs. Before Parker came aboard, the Festival actually paid Mignon Faget to make Festival t-shirts. Food booths were a mere $150, then $300 a pop. 

Amid howls of protest from the hippy faction, Parker raised the cost of food booths to $3000 (I think), and booths sold out as quickly as before. He insisted anyone proposing to sell NOJHF-branded merch compete for a license. In fact, it was Parker who first thought to register the brand. He purchased rain insurance. What a concept! Quint and Allison ridiculed capitalist pig Buddy Brimberg, Parker’s friend from law school, when Buddy proposed the outré concept of granting him a license to publish NOJHF posters. I’d done the art for the 1974 poster. I asked nothing for it, but Allison insisted on paying me $150 (I think). I also did the 1975 commercial poster. It was terrible. I couldn't top myself. In 1975, I lent Buddy my 1974 t-shirt drawing so he could produce what became the first limited-edition New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival poster. By the time Parker finished selling food booths and licensing deals, NOJHF had all the start-up cash it needed. The money rolled in. Beer distributor, kiss my ass! Big Daddy Davis, ta-ta for now.

My 1974 Poster

My 1974 T-shirt and Tote Bag Art

1975 Adaptation of My 1974 Art
(I hated the colors and Art Nouveau vibe.)

Meanwhile Allison and Quint broke up. Allison moved to New York to work for George Wein, then Sarah Lawrence College. Allison married Andy Kaslow, a musician and Columbia ethnomusicology doctoral candidate. Once Andy had only his dissertation to complete, he and Allison moved back to New Orleans and started a family. Andy played sax with the Professor Longhair Band and became road manager.

After the split from Allison, Quint went into a prolonged tailspin. Quint was stoned and mostly missing in action from 1976 through 1977. Parker took over all Fair Ground operations from 1975 to 1977. It was a nerve-wracking period. Parker and I had to climb up to peek through windows and pound on doors merely to learn whether Quint was alive. Big Daddy Wein up in New York had no idea what was going on down in New Orleans because Quint invariably appeared out of thin air whenever there was a camera or a journalist around. As far as Big Daddy knew or cared, it was Quint who had the Midas touch.

George Wein was fat and happy after the 1977 festival and decided to take the NOJHF show on the road to Hawaii. We couldn’t give tickets away. In Hawaii, in an Elysian field of sublime music, there was nary a festival goer in sight. Pure folly. Plus, Quint was at his lowest ebb. He holed up in the Honolulu Hyatt randomly sending women plane tickets to Hawaii. One woman he flew in overdosed right there on the festival grounds and was hauled off on a stretcher. 

Understand this: For Parker, it was a life of total immersion. It was that for me, plus a life of fending off groupies with zero support from a distracted, walled-off husband. I worked for nothing save the glory of being Parker’s handmaiden. Neither of us was paid to babysit Quint, for sure. The whole thing started to piss me off*, especially after NOJHF started raking in residuals and Quint scored a full-time job with George Wein. We needed income. We needed to start a family. I made a fuss. Sure enough, Wein left timid ole Parker and invisible ole me twisting, twisting in the wind. And Quint — the man who called us his best friends — said nada, zip, zilch. Quint Davis has never ask me to forgive him. Until he does, I don’t.

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* As my marines used to say when I worked for USMC, “Don’t make Ms. Dymond say the F word.”

My Life as a Brahman Impersonator

I was recently triggered by a fellow conspiracy nut who sent me this:

When business partner Betsy Salmen Sterck and I ran Archives Inc. (1984-94), Fred Dymond, who would become my second ex-husband, was our accountant. My first husband’s nephew George Dunbar* worked for us. George referred Fred to Betsy and me. Fred and George were drinking buddies at Bruno’s, a New Orleans uptown frat-boy hangout.

Frederick Irvin Dymond, Jr. was eight years younger than me. Like all Dymond men, Fred is a basso profondo. (That voice makes me weak.) Fred was also polished, witty, charismatic, and audacious. Fred’s father Irvin was famous for securing Clay Shaw’s acquittal in the one and only JFK assassination trial.

I married Fred in 1994 after my divorce from Parker Dinkins in 1989. Parker, scion of a family which enjoys the great anonymity that comes with great wealth, was an heir to King Cotton and a municipal bond fortune. When I started dating Fred in 1992, Parker and his second wife Debora Tremont were perfecting the art of vexatious litigation — against me. A fever blister popped up whenever I got a letter from Parker’s lawyer. That ended abruptly once Fred, scion of a famous defense attorney, entered the picture.

Parker deeply regretted marrying a poor girl — me — in 1972 when he was young, dumb, and full of cum. He had enjoyed live-action role-playing poverty, but had had enough fun after seven or eight years. For a long time, my ambition and poor-girl skillset dovetailed nicely with his Republican stinginess.

I was a disappointment to Parker. Were I coming of age today, I might have tattoos and piercings to camouflage the heart of a compliant Mormon wife. It came as a blow to my carefully crafted image as a sexual giant to learn Parker started cheating within months of our wedding. My unimaginative way to defend my ego was the isolated revenge poke. Once I became a mother after eight years of marriage, the core values kicked in. Parker and I might have been more successful in this day of bespoke identities. Our kinky friend Stephen once gleefully asked, “Parker’s kinky too, isn’t he?” Looking back, I realize had I been able to view kinkiness as liberally as did Stephen and his wife, my marriage would have lasted.

While I blinked, Parker often advised newlyweds the first few years of marriage are a power struggle. With our combination of social connections, resourcefulness, and talent, I wanted to leave my mark on New Orleans. Parker’s mark had been secured at birth into a superior caste. Further, he scorned long-term planning for his loved ones as marketing hype for rubes. What we managed to acquire together was all entangled with separate property. By that point I had many reasons to lack confidence in our future together. Whenever I expressed worry or tried to make plans for myself, he’d say, “You’re fine as long as you’re with me. All I have to do is wait for people to die.” I took it personally and felt degraded. He was vengeful, and because he could, he left me destitute with two children, seven and five.

In 1987, things happened fast. Mr. Dinkins, Parker’s father, went into a nursing home. Parker quit his job at the bank and moved in allegedly to oversee Mr. Dinkins’ country estate across the lake. Parker’s brother called to ask what’s going on. I told him Parker was not living at home, and I liked it that way. Mr. Dinkins died. Parker never worked for a paycheck again. In Louisiana at the time, the child-support formula was based on wages, not wealth. Archives Inc. was going broke, and I couldn’t pay myself. My two kids and I lived on $750 a month child support and a stable-turned-apartment I rented out for $350 a month. Though I got the house across the lake, I could barely keep the lights on. Meanwhile, Parker married a woman with whom he’d been involved for years, at least since our second child was an infant.

I’d seen all the signs. Mean as a snake. Long mysterious absences. No sex. His explanation? “I can’t get turned on to a mother.” How could I learn what forces were shaping my life? I was tied down with babies and too scornful of Jerry-Springer-style ickiness to have him tailed. Then came the gaslighting. “You should have an affair,” he said. “It’ll be good for you.” He had the lover all picked out — a sailing buddy from New Orleans toney artsy set. An affair? Arranged by the cuck? I began to hate him from that moment.

After Parker had extricated himself from our marriage for cheap, he quickly married Debora. Debora? His assistant at the bank? How did I miss that? Parker claimed to have met Debora through the résumé she sent him around the time we moved across the lake for a bank job and a new sailboat. Our youngest was a year old; our oldest was three at the time. The faithful Debby commuted from New Orleans to arrive at our house across the lake at 5:00 a.m. so they could drive together to the bank. Later Parker told me Debby had once worked in a New Orleans bank with the man who hired him. Coinky-dink! Another brother-in-law told me Debora once babysat the Dunbar children. Small world!

It didn’t take long to figure out Parker’s and Debby’s relationship preceded Parker’s and mine. Further, I had suspected she was sweet on my husband when they worked together. However, I had no idea how potent her charms were for a man like Parker. That is, until I ran into a director from the bank where they both worked. When I told him Parker married Debora, he did a spit take and started laughing.

“Debora? Parker married Debora?”

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Debora Tremont has more money than she can count in a year,” he howled.

Why funny? You see, this gentleman was chatting up the statuesque babe who was Parker’s ex-wife [moi] while he conjured the image of the Jolene who took her man away. Debby is 4-feet 8-inches and is — as a friend charitably put it — sweet, but very plain. I liked Debby and still do. Blinded by narcissism, I had not suspected a thing.

Fast forward to 1992. I’d volunteered to write and design the campaign material for a successful candidate for the state legislature. My candidate had only seen me out socially with girlfriends. She insisted I attend the inauguration with a man. I didn’t know any available men, except my accountant, Fred. What I thought I knew about Fred was he was divorced, had two young sons, was in treatment, and going to meetings. “He’s good looking,” I thought, “and he’s had therapy. That’s a plus.” I asked Fred to escort me to Gov. Edwin Edwards’ third inaugural ball. Fred was a perfect gentleman. Thus, a disappointment.

A bit later Betsy and I were chatting with Chilly, another Dunbar Debby babysat. When Fred’s name came up, Betsy — being helpful — asked Chilly, “Does Fred have a girlfriend?” 

“Girlfriend?” Chilly said. “Fred’s married.”

I called Fred and asked, “You’re married? What the heck? When did you get married?”

“A couple months ago,” he said. “I thought I told you. I wear a ring.”

“You did not, and you do not,” I said. “Women notice stuff like that. I would never have asked you to the inauguration. Why did you agree?” 

Fred mumbled something unconvincing about his wife off skiing and our business relationship. Within days, Fred announced he was separated. 

“That was quick,” I laughed. “I guess I don’t need to give you a wedding present.” 

Shortly thereafter, I got my mojo back and Fred moved in with my kids and me. More important than the machismo and sexy voice Fred brought into my life was the protection from lawfare I enjoyed being Irvin Dymond’s daughter-in-law.

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*George Dunbar is the nephew of George Dunbar, the artist.

Technically, I was married to Parker and then Fred a combined thirty-three years. I rarely think of Fred, but Parker, because we had children, left a mark on me. It’s permanent. A tattoo.

Lydia, the woman who once saved my life, said Parker never loved me.

Fabled Labels®

c. 1890. The original was badly stained and damaged.

In another country, in another life, I was called the Louisiana Label Lady. In 1975, I discovered a huge cache of trade labels in neglected files of a New Orleans printing company that had been in continuous operation since 1882. This collection represents a fascinating period in New Orleans history when the city was a vibrant commercial center and one of the largest, most important port cities in the world. I supplied antique labels to both The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana State Museum. I displayed labels in several galleries including the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York City. Numerous newspapers and magazines ran stories about the collection.

In 1984 I founded Archives and began reproducing label designs on fine porcelain gumbo bowls and coffee mugs. Archives sold these products all over the US and in several countries, including Argentina, England, and France. The bowls and mugs were manufactured in and imported from Japan. I ran the business on a shoestring and was unable to survive the numerous beatings the dollar took against the yen. Once costs doubled, I was out of business.

Gold-trimmed mugs with antique label designs.

I've maintained this collection for almost 40 years. Most of it even managed to survive Katrina.

Suffragette Coffee & Chicory, c. 1916, Shreveport, LA.
Click to enlarge and read the historically and politically interesting copy.

There are approximately 500 different labels in the collection and I'm toying with the idea of selling high-quality prints.

Woman's Club Coffee, c. 1890

There are several reasons why this idea appeals to me more than selling original labels as I once did.

• The original labels fade badly when exposed to light.
• Many of the originals are in fragile condition. Some are stained and damaged. I can repair the damage in Photoshop.
• Prints can be sized and proportioned better for framing and display.
• Since conservation is unnecessary, framing prints is substantially less expensive than framing antiques.
• I won't run out of inventory.
• Prints are a lot more affordable than antiques.

I hope this will morph into something that supports my writing habit. At this point, I don't have any idea how much the prints will cost. Maybe some of you have ideas about that. I'd love to hear them.

Included here are a couple of images I recently scanned and cleaned up. These labels weren't chosen for any reason other than that they were apropos of something friends and I were discussing on Facebook.

c. 1900

Please leave comments letting me know what you think.