James O'Brien
@jamesobriennyc.bsky.social
Writer. Editor. Musician. Filmmaker. Cook.
Conscience or cowardice? GOP defections from Trump and the authoritarian Republican party reveal not moral revival but strategic fear. The topic is dissent. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Dissent
From Thom Tillis to Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican lawmakers are opposing Trump, but what kind of dissenters are these?
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Conscience or cowardice? GOP defections from Trump and the authoritarian Republican party reveal not moral revival but strategic fear. The topic is dissent. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Three vignettes—glassware after a fight, driveway conversations, insects at war. Domestic unease, quiet damage, survival in ordinary spaces.
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Triptych
Mornings after, cracking concrete; spiders, wasps, moths, and yellow jackets
open.substack.com
December 28, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Three vignettes—glassware after a fight, driveway conversations, insects at war. Domestic unease, quiet damage, survival in ordinary spaces.
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
In the midst of the holiday to-dos, maybe you missed All Your Days’ annual posthumous conversation with our old friend, Mr. Scrooge. Click the link and pull up to the fire. We’re talking homelessness, healthcare, and humanity in the newest installment of AYD.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Ebenezer
Q&A: Scrooge returns to AYD for a discussion of homelessness, healthcare, and the duties of the comfortable in 2025
open.substack.com
December 27, 2025 at 2:57 PM
In the midst of the holiday to-dos, maybe you missed All Your Days’ annual posthumous conversation with our old friend, Mr. Scrooge. Click the link and pull up to the fire. We’re talking homelessness, healthcare, and humanity in the newest installment of AYD.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
"Evil is a description of the disconnect between the primal and the assumedly civilized. For instance, we don’t think a lion is evil if it roams about killing and eating lion cubs. Yet, we do think a person is ..."
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved: open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved: open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
I Wanna See Your War-Hole
Milan Kundera, drones, evil, Christmas gifts for MAGA, lost Beavis and Butthead, limericks from Mull
open.substack.com
December 26, 2025 at 1:43 PM
"Evil is a description of the disconnect between the primal and the assumedly civilized. For instance, we don’t think a lion is evil if it roams about killing and eating lion cubs. Yet, we do think a person is ..."
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved: open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved: open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Scrooge returns for a second Q&A on the state of human suffering and relief in the U.S. As inflation, tariffs, and rising costs put American households in new binds.
The topic is Ebenezer. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Ebenezer. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Ebenezer
Q&A: Scrooge returns to AYD for a discussion of homelessness, healthcare, and the duties of the comfortable in 2025
open.substack.com
December 25, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Scrooge returns for a second Q&A on the state of human suffering and relief in the U.S. As inflation, tariffs, and rising costs put American households in new binds.
The topic is Ebenezer. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Ebenezer. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” The eternal tune for troubled times. Amid a horrifying moment in human history, two writers in the 1940s captured it all.
The topic is merry (even if the times are not). The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is merry (even if the times are not). The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Merry
An eighty-year-old tune that captures the uncertainty of American times—’Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ is a song for human worriers everywhere
open.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:45 PM
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” The eternal tune for troubled times. Amid a horrifying moment in human history, two writers in the 1940s captured it all.
The topic is merry (even if the times are not). The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is merry (even if the times are not). The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Our gift to you. Here’s 30 seconds from the full video of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” featuring Karaugh Brown. May you find a moment in all of this. May this help. Share it with a friend. Share it with family. A little light. See ya in the new year, people. Nuthin’s over.
December 22, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Our gift to you. Here’s 30 seconds from the full video of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” featuring Karaugh Brown. May you find a moment in all of this. May this help. Share it with a friend. Share it with family. A little light. See ya in the new year, people. Nuthin’s over.
What if the crack in things is just where more of the darkness gets in?
Read and subscribe to EUNS for the weirdest shit you’ll read all week (… unless you’re working for the administration, one imagines): open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read and subscribe to EUNS for the weirdest shit you’ll read all week (… unless you’re working for the administration, one imagines): open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
I Wanna See Your War-Hole
Milan Kundera, drones, evil, Christmas gifts for MAGA, lost Beavis and Butthead, limericks from Mull
open.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 3:41 PM
What if the crack in things is just where more of the darkness gets in?
Read and subscribe to EUNS for the weirdest shit you’ll read all week (… unless you’re working for the administration, one imagines): open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Read and subscribe to EUNS for the weirdest shit you’ll read all week (… unless you’re working for the administration, one imagines): open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
“The Higgins win happened at what may well be the apex of Florida’s Republican swagger ... And it happened in a runoff race that was supposed to be somewhat dull ... and presumably red, red, red all the way.”
The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Miami
A Democrat takes Miami’s mayorship for the first time in 30 years, adding to a pattern in the run-up to the 2026 midterms
open.substack.com
December 20, 2025 at 1:24 PM
“The Higgins win happened at what may well be the apex of Florida’s Republican swagger ... And it happened in a runoff race that was supposed to be somewhat dull ... and presumably red, red, red all the way.”
The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The tide appears to be coming in blue for Democrats who speak to American pain—affordability, ICE on their streets, cruelty, corruption, and extraction of wealth for the benefit of billionaire oligarchs. The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days. open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Miami
A Democrat takes Miami’s mayorship for the first time in 30 years, adding to a pattern in the run-up to the 2026 midterms
open.substack.com
December 18, 2025 at 5:19 PM
The tide appears to be coming in blue for Democrats who speak to American pain—affordability, ICE on their streets, cruelty, corruption, and extraction of wealth for the benefit of billionaire oligarchs. The topic is Miami. The newsletter is All Your Days. open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin wrote “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in '43, and were promptly sent back to work on the words. Too depressing! My kinda guys. And Karaugh Brown's, too. Our rendition is full of love. And so is this world. Hard to see these days. A reminder.
Link in comments.
Link in comments.
December 17, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin wrote “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in '43, and were promptly sent back to work on the words. Too depressing! My kinda guys. And Karaugh Brown's, too. Our rendition is full of love. And so is this world. Hard to see these days. A reminder.
Link in comments.
Link in comments.
All in the Family reshaped how American arguments played out in popular media. Viewers laughed at Archie’s convoluted logic, but they also caught the contradictions in Michael’s sanctimonious pronouncements.
The topic is Meathead. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Meathead. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Meathead
Rob Reiner’s character in ‘All in the Family’ was a brave performance of imperfect progressivism and a warning from an era presaging the present
open.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
All in the Family reshaped how American arguments played out in popular media. Viewers laughed at Archie’s convoluted logic, but they also caught the contradictions in Michael’s sanctimonious pronouncements.
The topic is Meathead. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Meathead. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
It's hard to say anything about the world we are living in right now, but it's not hard to see the beauty in this little project landing on Wednesday. And perhaps that will do.
December 15, 2025 at 4:23 PM
It's hard to say anything about the world we are living in right now, but it's not hard to see the beauty in this little project landing on Wednesday. And perhaps that will do.
A brutal restaurant brawl, blazing birds, buried rivers.
Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved never promised you a bowl of cherries. But you get one anyway.
Read and subscribe to EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved never promised you a bowl of cherries. But you get one anyway.
Read and subscribe to EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Street Hassle
Fisticuffs and setups, combustible pigeons, the hired help (invisible), monumental waterworks flow beneath
open.substack.com
December 14, 2025 at 3:37 PM
A brutal restaurant brawl, blazing birds, buried rivers.
Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved never promised you a bowl of cherries. But you get one anyway.
Read and subscribe to EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved never promised you a bowl of cherries. But you get one anyway.
Read and subscribe to EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
PEPFAR stabilizes societies, keeps parents alive, and proves that a rich country can, in fact, act like something other than a vampire. Project 2025 is betting that Americans don’t care enough to stop it from tearing PEPFAR down. Get the story at All Your Days: open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
PEPFAR
Project 2025 is destroying the world’s most vital AIDS relief program, and counting on Americans not to care
open.substack.com
December 13, 2025 at 1:56 PM
PEPFAR stabilizes societies, keeps parents alive, and proves that a rich country can, in fact, act like something other than a vampire. Project 2025 is betting that Americans don’t care enough to stop it from tearing PEPFAR down. Get the story at All Your Days: open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
A friend of democracy’s enemy is not democracy’s friend. Venezuela's new Nobel Peace Prize winner represents a devil’s bargain that Latin America and the Western Hemisphere can’t afford.
The topic is Machado. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Machado. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Machado
Venezuela’s new Nobel Peace Prize recipient is a warmonger supporting foreign-led regime change while echoing Trump’s lies about U.S. election interference
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
A friend of democracy’s enemy is not democracy’s friend. Venezuela's new Nobel Peace Prize winner represents a devil’s bargain that Latin America and the Western Hemisphere can’t afford.
The topic is Machado. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Machado. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Feeling grateful today. It’s been a year of big growth.
If you’ve been following along, you’re absolutely the reason for nice things like the snapshots below. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. New stuff comin' at ya in 2026.
Listen to the new album ‘America’:
open.spotify.com/artist/3LN4q...
If you’ve been following along, you’re absolutely the reason for nice things like the snapshots below. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. New stuff comin' at ya in 2026.
Listen to the new album ‘America’:
open.spotify.com/artist/3LN4q...
December 10, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Feeling grateful today. It’s been a year of big growth.
If you’ve been following along, you’re absolutely the reason for nice things like the snapshots below. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. New stuff comin' at ya in 2026.
Listen to the new album ‘America’:
open.spotify.com/artist/3LN4q...
If you’ve been following along, you’re absolutely the reason for nice things like the snapshots below. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. New stuff comin' at ya in 2026.
Listen to the new album ‘America’:
open.spotify.com/artist/3LN4q...
The lesson of Mỹ Lai was supposed to be that there is no such thing as a “kill them all” order that stands above the law. That lesson is being drowned in a tsunami of Trump’s and Hegseth’s obscene bloodlust. The topic is massacres. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Massacres
Absent morals and historical learning, Hegseth and Trump are running the kill-them-all playbook that Americans used at Mỹ Lai
open.substack.com
December 9, 2025 at 4:43 PM
The lesson of Mỹ Lai was supposed to be that there is no such thing as a “kill them all” order that stands above the law. That lesson is being drowned in a tsunami of Trump’s and Hegseth’s obscene bloodlust. The topic is massacres. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Nobody’s packing a vinyl copy of ‘America’ with greater love and care than the faithful team (ahem) at Life Underwater Music. Wash ‘em, sign ‘em, number ‘em, dress ‘em up a little. That’s the way.
Get a copy of ‘America’ on vinyl at jamesobrien.bandcamp.com/album/america
Get a copy of ‘America’ on vinyl at jamesobrien.bandcamp.com/album/america
December 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Nobody’s packing a vinyl copy of ‘America’ with greater love and care than the faithful team (ahem) at Life Underwater Music. Wash ‘em, sign ‘em, number ‘em, dress ‘em up a little. That’s the way.
Get a copy of ‘America’ on vinyl at jamesobrien.bandcamp.com/album/america
Get a copy of ‘America’ on vinyl at jamesobrien.bandcamp.com/album/america
It took me 24 years to finish this story, which happened this morning. It was published once, long ago, in a different form. But the story was not finished. At long last, read “Dancer at the Jump” in this week’s Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Dancer at the Jump
Rorschach of a Manhattan suicide, eighty-first-floor angels, history’s changes
open.substack.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:30 PM
It took me 24 years to finish this story, which happened this morning. It was published once, long ago, in a different form. But the story was not finished. At long last, read “Dancer at the Jump” in this week’s Everything Is Useless And Nothing Is Solved.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Destroying global AIDS relief by defunding PEPFAR is a racist, anti-human policy, part of Project 2025’s goal to withdraw the U.S. from any project that treats poor, queer, Black, or brown lives as worth saving. The topic is PEPFAR. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
PEPFAR
Project 2025 is destroying the world’s most vital AIDS relief program, and counting on Americans not to care
open.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Destroying global AIDS relief by defunding PEPFAR is a racist, anti-human policy, part of Project 2025’s goal to withdraw the U.S. from any project that treats poor, queer, Black, or brown lives as worth saving. The topic is PEPFAR. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
A new single every eight weeks. Access to the subscriber-only back catalog. First listens to all the new music, general and exclusive subscriber-only.
Wavelengths is the new single series subscription at Bandcamp. Here’s a bit of the November single. Next new track in January. Link in comments.
Wavelengths is the new single series subscription at Bandcamp. Here’s a bit of the November single. Next new track in January. Link in comments.
December 3, 2025 at 6:58 PM
A new single every eight weeks. Access to the subscriber-only back catalog. First listens to all the new music, general and exclusive subscriber-only.
Wavelengths is the new single series subscription at Bandcamp. Here’s a bit of the November single. Next new track in January. Link in comments.
Wavelengths is the new single series subscription at Bandcamp. Here’s a bit of the November single. Next new track in January. Link in comments.
Trump's Honduras election interference, plus the Hernández pardon, amount to a test run of a foreign policy in which grievances, authoritarians, and fantasies of a hemispheric crusade all line up.
The topic is Honduras. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Honduras. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Honduras
As he pardons a true narco-president, Trump is leaning on Honduras’s election to export a full-blown bullshit wag-the-dog war on reality
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Trump's Honduras election interference, plus the Hernández pardon, amount to a test run of a foreign policy in which grievances, authoritarians, and fantasies of a hemispheric crusade all line up.
The topic is Honduras. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
The topic is Honduras. The newsletter is All Your Days.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Transcripts of a haunting, used without permission and presented without commentary. Read this week’s EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
Coffin Door
Transcripts of a haunting, used without permission and presented without commentary
open.substack.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Transcripts of a haunting, used without permission and presented without commentary. Read this week’s EUNS.
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
open.substack.com/pub/uselessu...
One thing is sure: the librarians fighting book bans in 2025 have settled their accounts with the American story. No fines for them, for in the final tally, they’ve had our backs, and they are among our better angels.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
Librarians
America’s guardians of knowledge and culture, wisdom and diversity—librarians and their advocates deserve the nation’s thanks today
open.substack.com
November 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM
One thing is sure: the librarians fighting book bans in 2025 have settled their accounts with the American story. No fines for them, for in the final tally, they’ve had our backs, and they are among our better angels.
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...
open.substack.com/pub/jamesobr...