Daniel O'Brien's Newsletter: March '25!

Hello! This is the official substack of me, Daniel O'Brien, six-time Emmy-winning Senior Writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents and its adaptation Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team, Head Writer for the Cracked De-textbook and editor and contributing author for You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News (a New York Times Bestseller), and co-host of the popular hang out podcast Quick Question with Soren and Daniel (now on YouTube). I co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Cracked After Hours, which is easily the most popular thing I've ever done, but that's in the past. This is the latest issue of my substack, a thing you signed up for on purpose.

Every month I will send an email with a list of what I'm reading, updates on whatever I'm working on if applicable and that's really it! Fun fact: The only reason I remember to post this newsletter is because I have a calendar alert that syncs with my daily to-do list app to tell me, once a month, POST NEWSLETTER. That reminder is set for the 29th day of every month which explains why we went dark in February. No cool reason, just a poorly-designed system meeting general incompetence.

"Hey, Daniel-- change that date in your calendar right now so this doesn't happen again next year!"

"Hey! Shut up!"

Anyway, my 2025 book-reading continues at a pace slower than I'd like, but I think things have calmed down enough that I'm finding my rhythm again. It's tough, because I've been trying to-- for lack of a better word-- "de-automatize" several aspects of my life this year. I'd previously been living exclusively on my to-do list app which includes some necessary calendar reminders but also several daily tasks including MEDITATE and EXERCISE and WRITE and, yes READ. The attempt was to create habits, the result was I'd turned several of my favorite things into sometimes homework or chore and sometimes a game I could lose if I failed to tick a box. That's no fun and no way to live; I don't think we're meant to assign point values to things like reading, running, meditating or living. We should do the things we like because we like them. In taking a step back from automatizing and optimizing, I am falling behind on my reading.

It's a process!

BOOKS!

Tom Lake: (Ann Pratchett)

It's a story about horny, reckless, young love, it's a story about thoughtful, healthy adult love, it's a story about theater kids, it's a story about parents, it's a story about the play Our Town, it's a story about what our parents used to be. It's a lot and it's great! I can't remember why I picked this up, but it was great and a fast read. Made me nostalgic for doing theater summer stock, something I've never done.

Our Town: (Thornton Wilder)

The thing about this book is it's a play. I saw it when I was in middle school and my brother was in it and there's a pretty good chance I read it in school too at some point, but neither made an impact. Our Town plays a big part in Tom Lake so once one was done I picked up the other. Now that I've read it For Real, I'm an evangelist! It's a classic for a reason. "Whenever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense."

Cops and Robbers: (Donald Westlake)

I will eventually read all of Westlake's stuff. This one isn't in the Dortmunder series but it's still a) about crime and b) funny. Donald Westlake is great at a lot of things and one of them is describing New York. "A guy I was talking to in a bar once a couple years ago said it was his opinion that the main characteristic of New York is that it's going through all of the phases of the phoenix at once. New York is living, and it's on fire, and it's dying, and it's ashes, all at the same time and all the time."

Final note! This newsletter is free and will be forever, but if any of you sickos want to support me, the podcast I do with Soren is available to support on patreon. Quick Question is completely independent, we use the money we make to buy ads to spread the word and pay our engineer/editor/producer Gabe. If there's any extra money at the end of the year, Soren and I get a little Christmas bonus, which we do not invest wisely.

That's all! Volunteer at your local food pantry, call your parents and remember to get up and move around every 30 minutes.