I answered him with, “Like you know, she was drop-dead gorgeous.” Now he began to salivate. “Yeah, yeah.” He asked again, so I continued: “She really had a nice singing voice. But without warning, she stopped singing and out of nowhere blurts out how hers were better than almost any of her girlfriends’. Now she really had my interest, to say the least. Then she says—from out of nowhere again—how all this talk made her hungry, and without hesitation, it was what she had been talking about when she mentioned her friends’ cooking abilities. ‘You know when I said mine were better?’ I gave her a quizzical look, and she says, ‘my hamburgers, you ninny’.”
All that occurred in retrospect was simple—we were on our way to my favorite drive-in restaurant teenage hangout, and Miss Gorgeous had been thinking about it all along. When she explained it to me, she meant her hamburgers were better than her friends’. And all I said to her in a smiling, loving, disbelieving way was, “You’re such a dingbat”.
Dingbat: a silly empty-headed person.
A dingbat is an ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a printer’s ornament or printer’s character. The term continues to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts that have symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters.
What’s the origin of the word Dingbat?
- dingbat (n.) 1838, American English, apparently originally the name of some kind of alcoholic drink, of unknown origin. It has joined that class of words (such as dingus, doohickey, gadget, gizmo, thingumabob) which are conjured up to supply names for items whose proper names are unknown or not recollected.
- Dingbat. In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer’s ornament or printer’s character) is an ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, often employed for the creation of box frames (similar to box-drawing characters ). The term continues to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts…
Google
Note: The name has been changed in order to protect the innocent, but the lyrics do pertain to my inquisitive long-ago friend.
“Dingbat Dan”
Dingbat Dan
Wasn’t too smart a man
Yet all the ladies loved him
Just the same
Plain speaking
Like a politician leaking
Dingbat Dan
Gave those gals far more
Much, Much more
Than females should ever be seeking
Not ’cause of all he could do
More like what he would do
Always with his banjo at hand
Dingbat Dan, Dingbat Dan
Oh he was more than just human
He was a one-man-band
Not just the music he’d send them
All the charming notes
All his precious thoughts
Whenever he chose to lend them
They’d call Dingbat Dan
From out of the blue
I’m only a short way away from you
With something special
I think you’ll know what to do
He’d smile with a little prayer
Then with a new lyric
for them to remember
He’d sing and say
My banjo is in my office
That’s where I play
Almost everyday
And those who came up his stairs
Would quiver and shiver
And you might hear them say
Oh that Dingbat Dan
What a hell of a man
Play another for me
Before you send me away
Not today was his reply
Time for you to leave now
Won’t do any good for you to cry
One tune is all my banjo is good for
Dingbat Dan must rest awhile
A teardrop dried
A sweet and gentle smile took its place
A banjo back in its case
Another day with Dingbat Dan
Without a murmur
Without a trace
-HK-
“Remember Harv, a person’s privacy might be their most important thing they have going for themselves, don’t betray it.”
And after all these years of being a successful director, predicated by my learned skills as a professional listener, it is also remembering the artful form of not sharing from the privacy of what another has placed within the confines of my trust. I have never saved an outtake in order to benefit by experiencing the foibles of another dingbat such as me.
HK
