Daniel O'Brien's Blog, page 14

Quick somebody date me and then break my heart so I can get a...

Quick somebody date me and then break my heart so I can get a Revenge Makeover/find out what a Revenge Makeover is.

amandaduncan:Day 13 - Buffalo Cauliflower “Wings” First food...

amandaduncan:

Day 13 - Buffalo Cauliflower “Wings”

First food pic of 2016. Hahaha! I even made homemade blue cheese dressing. Wing sauce rules the world! It doesn’t matter what it’s on. This is much better than you think it is. #cauliflowerwings #project365 #photooftheday

Amanda, recipe please.

startthemachine:My birthday was a mixed bag.WAS IT YOUR...

startthemachine:

My birthday was a mixed bag.

WAS IT YOUR FUCKING BIRTHDAY TODAY?!

cracked:Maybe the orcs just want a piece of that Middle Earth...

cracked:

Maybe the orcs just want a piece of that Middle Earth pie.

Why Sauron Is Secretly The Good Guy In ‘Lord Of The Rings’

There’s a new one of these today!

Come Watch Me Talk About Stuff

Friendly reminder that Wednesday, January 6th, I’ll be recording a live podcast at UCB (Sunset) with the stoic Jack O’Brien, the endlessly curious Alex Schmidt and the wonderful and deadly Carmen Angelica. These live podcasts are always fun and almost always sell out so get your tickets while you can!

How do you decide what items you are going to have on your desk for OPCD episodes?

Totally arbitrary! In the beginning I tried to pick stuff that contributed in some way thematically to what the episode was about. But I ran out of stuff/interest in doing that.

Lately it seems like I’ve been featuring books I like (Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, South on Highland, Serpent of Venice) because I like supporting authors and I have a hunch that a lot of the people who like my show will also probably like the books I enjoy. I try to always have a coffee mug (either the Oatmeal Tesla/Edison mug that an anonymous fan mailed me or the Teddy Roosevelt mug Star got me for Christmas last year) but sometimes I forget to bring one (what an interesting answer, Daniel!). 

The majority of the small trinkets that show up are gifts that incredibly nice fans have given me over the years (usually a Spider-man toy or something related to presidents).

I can say that everything that has ever appeared on the desk is a thing I personally own. Cracked isn’t big enough and I’m not fancy enough that I can say to a production designer “Hey, I would like some thematically relevant trinkets on the desk, thanks” because we don’t have production designers on these shoots and that sounds like a gross misuse of money. For the first three years of OPCD, even the desk I sat behind was a piece of furniture I owned that I lugged back and forth to set every time we shot (Fun Fact: Probably the reason OPCD took a hiatus last year was because I didn’t feel like loading that desk into my car). 

I’m running out of little trinkets and things so I’ll probably end up repeating stuff soon. My dream is to do an entire episode where my dog Jackson is on the desk, walking back and forth, getting in my face, licking the desk, and we’d just never address it, we’d just accept that “sometimes this show has dogs.” Probably won’t do it because he’s a very private dog and doesn’t have any interest in being in front of the camera, but a boy can dream.

Writing Style

I use placeholders a lot when I’m writing. Sometimes in a script I’ll write: 

“MICHAEL: Neo in The Matrix did BULLSHIT. I haven’t seen a whiney white guy do less since [INSERT FUNNY JOKE HERE LATER, DANIEL].” 

And then, eventually, I’ll replace that bracket order with a funny joke.

I do it all the time because I try to avoid sitting around and waiting for the perfect joke to show up. I recognize that a JOKE should happen so I mark the opportunity, but I don’t want to dwell on it so I put a pin in it. I’d rather burn right through it and come back later, when all of the other work is done.

I bring this up because I’ve been going through the first draft of my children’s book and I came across the introduction. Here is the Author’s Note, in its entirety, for the first draft of my (one more time) children’s book:

Author’s Note

Life is cool, fuck off moms and dads.

[Immediately, I wish I could turn back time and replace that comma with a semicolon, but life is a series of small regrets and nightmares.]

But otherwise, hey, that’s literally it. Months ago I sent a multi-hundred page manuscript over to my publisher that included this as a placeholder for the Author’s Note (my editor responded with “Haha… we’ll change that, right?”). And it’s definitely a stand-in for my larger message for the book (”The world is more exciting/interesting than your parents/history teachers would have you believe, so read/research/listen more”), but I think it might also sneakily be the underlying thesis for everything I do/everything I think about comedy and life, I guess.

“Life is cool.” I believe that. All of it. It’s so dumb and weird and lucky that we’re all allowed to be alive. What a fun thing we get to do. The worst experiences make the best stories. Even when you feel pain, you should take a moment to appreciate the fact that you GET to feel pain.  

“Fuck off moms and dads.” That’s more about rejecting authority, which will always be important. One of the coolest things about life is that when someone tells you how it is, you get to say “No.” Everything I’ve ever written has been a reaction to someone else trying to tell me “how it is.” No. Fuck you,

I have a theory. I think your awkwardness is the byproduct of the many years you've had to fight off women trying to hit on you. A polite Panty Dodging strategy, if you will. Please confirm. Do not suffer in silence.

If by “fight off” you mean 

*trips over own shoelaces*

*pants fall down*

*bug flies into mouth*

*farts*

How do you feel about the musical Hamilton?

It’s incredible and I wish everyone in the world could see it right now. It’s one of those things that’s simultaneously amazing and heartbreaking about a really great Broadway show. I’m lucky that I got to experience this incredible, impermanent thing. I’m thankful that I was born at a certain point in time and in a certain place and at one point landed a job that allowed me to make enough money to afford tickets to a new Broadway show while the original cast was still there. Like, I’m alive at the same time that the original Broadway cast of Hamilton is doing the show and I got to see it, and I can appreciate what a miracle that is, the way it must have felt like a miracle to see the Beatles perform live, or meet FDR or watch the moon landing in real time.

At the same time, I want everyone in the world to be able to see this at any time, forever. This isn’t like a book or movie or CD. Daveed Diggs’s portrayal of Lafayette/Jefferson is a piece of god damn art, it’s happening right now, and I know I will never get to see that again and it’s so crushing. I can’t have this show and keep re-watching it over and over again to develop a better understanding of it and find more things to love about it, like I can with my favorite movie or book. But that’s just the nature of Broadway and live theater in general.

If you can, go see it. There’s nothing like it.

Do you do the beatboxing on the intro to OPCD? Because I didn't know you could recognize a person's voice beatboxing, but it sounds a whole lot like you.

Yes! That’s me beatboxing through all of OPCD. And if you live in the town where I grew up, you can see me beatboxing for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at Midnight Mass this Christmas, in what is certainly my favorite entry in the file of “Weird Things Daniel Never Expected He’d Do in His Life.”