Mike Oppy
In a candid conversation, two hosts and Mike Oppenheim (not that one) navigate topics from nostalgic childhood drills to the anxieties of modern active shooter preparedness. They delve into the evolving landscape of art and entertainment in the digital age, lamenting the decline of focused attention. Mike shares his personal journey as a diverse artist grappling with the challenges of capitalism and the rise of AI, prompting a broader discussion on societal shifts, unrealized potential, and the growing sense of disconnect. Despite these concerns, they find a measure of optimism in the cyclical nature of change, suggesting that current anxieties surrounding technology may eventually lead to unforeseen improvements.
MikeOppy.com
Coffin Talk
https://youtube.com/live/pK3_YC0pSmw
Bad AI Transcript
Hey, everybody, and welcome to a conversation with Mike Oppenheim. Did I say that right? You did. Okay. Usually you go by Mike Oppie, and so you make it easier on everybody to not have to have the last part, which is the more confusing part. I think everybody can do Opp, but it's the Oppenheim part that is difficult. Now, were you inundated with information during the whole Barbie Oppenheimer thing? Well, so when I was a little kid, I grew up in California in the Bay Area, which is like famously in Berkeley, there's signs that say like nuclear free zone and stuff. And I, like the idiot I was as a little kid, saw that this guy who was associated with the atomic bomb had my name. I mean, I willfully ignored the ER at the end, which is not my name. And so I told everyone at school as like a little kid that I was related to him.And the teacher was horrified at me, and I didn't understand it. And then they didn't call my parents in. It wasn't this dramatic.as a kid, it felt dramatic. And they basically sorted things out, and I was told, you're not related to the guy. And then I was told, you also might not want to be related to the guy. He was associated with communism and disgrace. And then the rest of my life, up until the movie release, was a lot of people saying, oh, Oppenheimer, are you related? And I'd say, no, no, no, there's no E-R at the end. So I would be correcting them. But then I did some research on him, and he's a really great guy. He actually did some great things. And the movie tries to capture that, but he was kind of pinned for something he wasn't really doing. It's funny, because I was just being silly, but I thought maybe you probably did. But it's amazing that people forget the last part of the name. Yeah. You know, like, I guess…What would you say? Oppenheim would be the name and then Oppenheimer would be of Oppenheim, perhaps. Yes, I think so. Oppenheim is a town in Germany. I know that. So that's interesting. But I figured just because of the first part that people would probably ask you a bunch of questions, even though that's not really your name. But it's funny that you had a story about how you thought, oh, yeah, I'll be… I'll be Oppenheimer, sure. What the heck, right? It's cool. He made the bomb, right? Yeah, yeah, big bomb. And, you know, it's now 2025. We teach history very differently. This is like in the 1980s. We were still in a Cold War with Russia, so we were pretty braggadocious about it. Right, well, yeah. So, yeah, in the 80s, exactly. Did you have to go through the nuclear drills? Do you remember these at all? Yeah, me too. Oh, my gosh. It sounds so ridiculous when you…When you're a kid, you just kind of go along with everything. Yeah, I'll get under my desk when the nuclear bomb goes off. Now you're like, what's the point? It's idiotic, right? I mean, I think the whole idea behind that was just to make everybody feel better maybe, even though what everybody was being asked to do was really quite ridiculous. Yeah, and I liken it in a completely opposite way too. I have been told I have young children, so they have not yet been – taught this but they do active s...