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Mort Lippman with his dog on a trip to the Grand Canyon. (Photo courtesy of Andy Lippman).
Andy Lippman - I’ve heard friends say how hard it is when your last parent dies.
I now know the feeling.
My dad Mort, who lived in Scottsdale, Ariz., died last Thursday at age 97.
I’m fortunate that I got to share him and put off that lonely feeling for a lot of years.
But he fell and broke his leg two weeks ago, and a lot of complications, plus old age, brought his life to a close.
My dad never met a stranger. That doesn’t mean that he was a party person.
He wasn’t big on parties. He was rather, extremely outgoing. My mother, brother and I might be out the door of a store, and my dad would still be talking to the clerk. My mom would roll her eyes and say, “There goes your father again.”
I once introduced him to an old-order Mennonite family in northern Indiana. He took such a liking to them that every year he sent them a box of lemons that grew from a tree in his backyard. They returned the favor by baking him lemon cookies.
My red-haired dad grew up in Brooklyn, NY. By age 10, he was bringing lilacs from his backyard to the girl across the street, Mimi, whom he married when he was 19 and she was 18.
She followed him across the country while he served in the Army during World War II. Any story about my dad is a story about my mom, my brother Glenn and I and later, his second wife Nancy.
My dad got gunshot concussion during training and spent time in being treated in hospitals during the war-along with being tapped to learn Japanese in case America had to invade Japan.
But he never put himself in the category of being someone special. He didn’t even apply for military disability until he was in his mid- 80s-and even then, he had to be convinced to do so by a longtime friend. A VA administrator looked at him as if to say “where have you been all these years?” before approving his request.
Every Thanksgiving, the family would sit down to dinner and my dad would tell what my brother and I called “the story” of how he and my mom during one Thanksgiving during the war had to make do with a few dollars worth of food for the holiday meal.
My dad was definitely a “Greatest Generation” guy. He had a strong work ethic and never complained outwardly about what was bothering him. We would hear only after the fact about the time he continued working despite having a bloody sock because of an infected toe.
He was a pharmacist, and owned a drug store in Alexandria, Va.
Despite his long hours, I remember times when he came home and played catch with me. There were occasional days off when we had what my mom labelled “Men’s Day Out”, and we went to lunch and a movie.
I grew up in the 1950s in a home where dad worked and mom took care of the home front.
But, my dad and mom rarely thought of going away by themselves.
Vacation meant going with their two sons, and so we got to go to Arizona for baseball spring training (my dad loved baseball), and Ireland.
Often in the winter, we’d get in the car and travel from our home in Bethesda, Md., to Williamsburg, Va. In the mornings, my dad and I would walk the cobblestone streets of the colonial town.
We’d also go back to his old stomping grounds in Brooklyn, and hear stories about his hero, the New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig - another guy who never complained about an injury; about his mother’s cooking (we were always delighted to confirm his judgment); and listen to stories about how hard he tried both in his studies and in sport. He was often one of the shorter guys on a team at 5-foot-6.
My dad, after the war, went to college on the GI Bill.
My dad’s credo was that he’d work as hard as he could to get the customer what they needed, and he wanted those who worked for him to do the same. Every Christmas, he’d get cards from young people who had worked for him and remembered the experience.
That proved to be a winning strategy when he and my mom moved to Arizona in 1970, and opened the first of four Hallmark card and gift stores around the state.
He genuinely enjoyed most of the customers and they were often effusive in their response. He offered new products. One time when he was visiting me in Kentucky, he discovered a Southern candy called “Goo-Goo Clusters” - which is a mass of nuts and caramel bathed in chocolate.
Wouldn’t you know it was a hit with the folks in Phoenix, Arizona.
My mom died in 2001. She was 73 and they had been married 53 years.
The years that followed were lonely, but he tried to stay involved both socially and with the public. It was while working part-time at a local bookstore that he met his second wife, Nancy, who was also working at the store.
My dad doted on both of his wives. He kept a closet where he put gifts for future occasions. I ’know that when my mom died, he was several holidays ahead toward presenting a gift. I know the same is true now. If I told him that there were daffodils available at Trader Joe’s, he’d tell me that he’d already been there and bought some for his wife.
He brought Nancy flowers every week.
My dad wasn’t perfect, and neither was my relationship with him. There were bumps along that road, and my dad could get mad and wasn’t afraid to say, if he thought I did something wrong.
But, starting after my mom died, I started calling my dad almost every afternoon about 4 p.m. I did it at first thinking it was for him. I realized after awhile, that I was doing it for me too.
I’m glad that my last conversation ended with my telling him that I loved him. My dad was not the kind of man who often actually said those words to me. This time, he answered, “I know that son. I feel the same way,”
My dad once told me that he’d like his epitaph to be “I tried” - because he tried so hard to do well in his life.
Dad, you succeeded.
Stories of interest
They are TV’s ghosts — networks that somehow survive with little reason to watch them anymore (AP)
BY DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) — The list of memorable characters and personalities who entered popular culture through cable television is long: Honey Boo Boo. Tony Soprano. Lizzie McGuire. Don Draper. Jon Stewart. Beavis and Butt-Head. Chip and Joanna Gaines. SpongeBob SquarePants.
Pick your own favorites. Chances are there won’t be many more to join them.
Few cable and satellite networks are a force anymore, the byproduct of sudden changes in how people entertain themselves. Several have lost more than half their audiences in a decade. They’ve essentially become ghost networks, filling their schedules with reruns and barely trying to push toward anything new.
Says Doug Herzog, once an executive at Viacom who oversaw MTV, Comedy Central and other channels: “These networks, which really meant so much to the viewing public and generations that grew up with them, have kind of been left for dead.”
As they fade, so are the communities they helped to create.
Read more here.
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Lobbyist Marion Hammer’s NRA sugar daddy LaPierre is gone, but she’s still riding high on NRA cash (Florida Bulldog)
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre’s ticket to ride the NRA’s gravy train was canceled last week with a New York jury’s widely reported corruption findings, but his longtime Florida collaborator Marion Hammer continues riding high on NRA millions he funneled to her.
Hammer’s pay deals were among stacks of evidence the jury weighed before determining that the NRA, LaPierre, ex-treasurer and CFO Wilson “Woody” Phillips and general counsel and corporate secretary John Frazer are liable for violating the law. LaPierre, who resigned as executive vice president shortly before the civil corruption trial, was found to have abused his position for his personal benefit and by steering lucrative contracts to relatives and friends, like Hammer. He was ordered to pay $4.35 million.
For decades, the powerful Hammer has sought to come off to Florida’s public as the NRA’s unwavering advocate for the paramountcy of the Second Amendment. Here’s what she told the Tampa Bay Times when she announced her “retirement” in June 2022:
Read more here. Shared by Nick Penniman.
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ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen dead at 72 (Fox News)
By SCOTT THOMPSON
Chris Mortensen, the legendary ESPN NFL reporter, died Sunday morning, the network announced. He was 72.
"Mort was widely respected as an industry pioneer and universally beloved as a supportive, hard-working teammate," ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. "He covered the NFL with extraordinary skill and passion, and was at the top of his field for decades. He will truly be missed by colleagues and fans, and our hearts and thoughts are with his loved ones."
Mortensen stepped away from his longtime role with ESPN after the 2023 NFL Draft, announcing that he needed to prioritize his health and family.
Read more here. Shared by Dennis Conrad.
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Alibaba’s New AI Video Generator EMO Makes Photos Talk and Sing (PetaPixel)
JEREMY GRAY
Chinese multinational Alibaba, best known for its e-commerce operations, also heavily invests in technological development projects. Researchers in the company’s Institute for Intelligent Computing showed off their new AI video generator, EMO.
EMO, or Emote Portrait Alive, is an “expressive audio-driven portrait-video generation framework” that turns a single still reference image and vocal audio into an animated avatar video with facial expressions and poses.
EMO AI engine examples
Among the numerous examples the team created is taking a still AI-generated sunglasses-wearing woman from OpenAI’s Sora debut and having her sing “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa. Fortunately, the character is one of the least terrifying of Sora’s creations.
Another example shows an AI-generated photo of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and having her sing “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, as covered by YUQI. In another clip, Audrey Hepburn sings a cover of an Ed Sheeran track. The YouTube channel RINKI compiled all of Alibaba’s demo clips and upscaled them to 4K.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac, who said, "Chinese company Alibaba is not only a huge competitor to Amazon but it is also one of the largest artificial intelligence companies in the world. Here’s a PetaPixel story on its ability to turn a STILL photo into a video where the subject not only speaks fake words but also sings in a very convincing manner. Watch the composite video showing what it can do. Frightening."
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