This is a preview of a premium episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

I love year-end list season! Whether you're as gung ho as I am or view these lists with skepticism (or both), I've decided to share my enthusiasm by reading a bunch and then very UNSCIENTIFICALLY telling you which albums on them are truly the best. I sorted through hundreds of albums to arrive at these 11, unranked but sorted into six groupings. Plus three Unlisted Faves that didn't make the lists I perused but that I liked enough to share. You can read the full list on Patreon, but here are...

The Groupings: Rap Faves From Earlier in the Year, Other Faves With Good New Albums, Previously Familiar With a STATEMENT, Discovery (Ambient), Album of the Year?, Discoveries, Unlisted Faves

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

Keir Neuringer is my kind of artist. The saxophonist, improviser, writer, and composer of Irreversible Entanglements and DROMEDARIES faces down the horrors of our world and plays AT them. He's not making easy-to-compartmentalize "political art." He's grappling with how to be an artist, father, bandmate, and human being during collapse. Like we all are.

We talk about: being radicalized during the Iraq War, incorporating politics into music, depression, divorce, playing saxophone after a car accident, hospicing both of his parents when they died of cancer, literally arming the audience, No Mas Lagrimas in Ithaca.

Support the show and get the TIYA After Dark feed on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Keir, and get the new DROMEDARIES album, The Burning Bright Light:

https://www.keirneuringer.com/

https://www.instagram.com/keirseye/

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-burning-bright-light

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

SNL writer, stand-up comedy comrade of mine, and O.G. observer of my coma, Steven Castillo joins me to brag about the memory of his second Saturday Night Live audition. Actually, this is a very sweet and warm chat between old friends, and I was so grateful to have it (on my 40th birthday! I don't mention this on the main feed, but it's in the full convo on the Patreon). Now it's yours.

Content warning: YouTube comments, therapy, failure, convoluted reincarnation, a healthy amount of "fuck you," vape soul.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want the uncut conversations and bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

Listen to Steven's new podcast, Mind of Castillo, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and/or watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOfCastillo/

Visit his website: stevencastillohasawebsite.com

And follow him on social media.

IG: @steezus_castillo

Twitter: @STEEEZUSCHRIST

TikTok: @steeezuschrist

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Sean Morrow (Senior Writer, More Perfect Union) wrote the Eli Lilly tweet. You know, "We are excited to announce insulin is free now"? As a type 1 diabetic grateful for his service, I wanted to learn more about the man behind the mischief.

Content warning: depression, Nothing, Pete Campbell, not introspective enough, is "SNL" the New York Times of comedy?

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Sean on Twitter: @snmrrw

Check out his work at More Perfect Union too!

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs. And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

Finally, if you want me to launch this new newsletter, Surrounded by Blankets: An Independent Podcast Review, you can subscribe here.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

"If you're not having fun, you're the asshole," is a Susan Messing joint. It's a zen koan of a piece of comedy, art, and life advice that I took issue with back in my improv days. The hella influential improviser and teacher shares why she said it, her own issues with it, and ideas about death, learning what you actually want, a motorcycle ride with her dad, Neptune Society, and being choke fucked with love by a redwood tree.

Content warning: cancer, stroke, improv comedy.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Susan is teaching a 5-day improv intensive with Rachael Mason at iO Chicago December 12-16, which you can sign up for here.

Follow Susan on Instagram: @susanalicemessing

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs. And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

We need good comedy criticism, and Madeline Lane-McKinley's new book, Comedy Against Work, assesses comedy not just as an art form but as a way of envisioning utopia. She examines our relationship to work and the kinds of futures we imagine through the lens of comedy on stage and TV.

In this episode, she shares herself as well as her ideas. She also tells me what to do for my next show.

Content warning: suicide, childbirth, constipation, the opposite of constipation, childhood abuse, misogyny, Blob.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Buy Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times, and read more of Madeline's work in Blind Field Journal.

Follow Madeline on Twitter: @la_louve_rouge_

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs. And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Franco Danger is a superb standup I met when he opened for Chris Gethard, and we immediately hit it off. That energy—and a jaw-dropping Relive 1 Memory segment—translates into one of the funniest conversations ever on the podcast.

Content warning: anxiety, Catholic guilt, Edinburgh Fringe, food poisoning, God is a single dad, multiverse reincarnation.

R.I.P. Mimi Parker of Low. Revisit my conversation with Mimi and her husband/bandmate Alan Sparhawk here.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Franco on Instagram: @franco_danger

Check him out on Twitch and YouTube at @francodanger

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs. And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Tiffany Topol's debut album, Sophomore Effort, is a bubbly, swooning, nostalgic pop record years in the making. I'm so happy she came on this show to share her anxieties about death and have a full-on psychological epiphany.

Content warning: seeing NSYNC live as a 14-year-old, sensory deprivation chamber, friend's death, crying to Beyonce's Lemonade, how reliable is your memory?

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Listen to Tiffany's album, Sophomore Effort!

Follow her on Instagram and TikTok at @tifftopol.

On/after November 11 (I say November 4 in the intro, don't crucify me!), check out the new Youth in a Roman Field album Tiffany plays on, Get Caught Trying.

Catch her live with Youth in a Roman Field at Mercury Lounge in New York City on December 1.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Cannibalism? Addiction? Colonialism, patriotism, capitalism? What is the Windigo?! Abolitionist organizer and previous guest Bettina Johnson and I get to the bottom of Ravenous (1999) on this edition of This Is Your SLASHERLIFE.

Content warning: blood, guts, skeletons, eating people, tricksterism, telling time by the moon, overblown queer readings of this movie, did Dave condescend to the Indigenous painting?

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows and Afterlife Movie Club episodes, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Read Braiding Sweetgrass, and check out Liberation Library, an organization Bettina co-founded that provides books to incarcerated youth.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Thanks to Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

All that shimmers is... whatever The Shimmer is. I'm talking Annihilation (2018) on this edition of This Is Your SLASHERLIFE with previous guest Oui Ennui, the brilliant and thought-provoking experimental musician.

Content warning: bad words, magic, the gimp, is it COVID?, Isaac Mizrahi & Lena Dunham.

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows and Afterlife Movie Club episodes, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Listen to Oui Ennui's music!

Thanks to Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Thanks to Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

John Waters' Serial Mom is the horror-adjacent movie up for discussion in this edition of This Is Your SLASHERLIFE, with previous guests Annie Donley and Jo Scott, cohosts of the Mom Stomp podcast.

Content warning: motherhood, the MNU (Mom Nutting Universe), unconditional family support, useless cops.

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows and Afterlife Movie Club episodes, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Listen to Mom Stomp!

Follow Mom Stomp on Instagram: @momstomppodcast

Thanks to Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Thanks to Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Johanna Isaacson wrote the freakin' book on The Babadook. It's called Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror, and it's about a bunch of other horror movies too. She kicks off This Is Your Afterlife's FIRST EVER themed series, a run of four episodes in October about horror movies I'm calling This Is Your SLASHERLIFE.

First, I talk to Jo about standard This Is Your Afterlife stuff—hell, the afterlife, memories, her "coma" moment—and then we kick off the SLASHERLIFE series with an in-depth discussion of The Babadook! Hopefully it goes without saying, but there are gonna be spoilers up and down this series.

Content warning: woo woo Marxism, communal luxury, the "manosphere," smoking a bunch of hash, Arches National Park, the grotesque feminine.

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Here are reasons it is good:

• Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows, and shoutouts in future episodes.
• It's the same cost as a nice coffee or a cheap meal.
• You're part of making independent art outside of corporate backing.
• I need literal insulin.

Buy and read Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror!

Catch Johanna live at The Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR speaking before a screening of The Babadook on October 23 and before a screening of It Follows on October 30 in San Francisco at the Roxie Theater.

Read more of her work at Blind Field Journal: blindfieldjournal.com.

Join her on Facebook in the group she runs, Anti-capitalist feminists who like horror films.

Follow Johanna on Twitter: @StepfordDotter

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Thanks to new Associate Producer Sam Welbel!

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

One of the most unique episodes yet! Jon Matteson (StarKid Productions) comes on the show with a mission: to make sense of a spiritual experience he had as a child. Once he introduces the experience, I spend the rest of the episode helping him chip away at its meaning.

Content warning: Catholicism, Kansas, terrible choirs, beautiful music.

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Here are reasons it is good:

• Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows, and shoutouts in future episodes.
• It's the same cost as a nice coffee or a cheap meal.
• You're part of making independent art outside of corporate backing.
• I need literal insulin.

Follow Jon: @jon.matteson on Instagram and TikTok, @jonmatteson on Twitter and Twitch, where you can watch him play video games.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

"Why Cleveland?" is the question I get when I tell people I moved from Chicago to Cleveland, mostly from people IN Cleveland. This Very Special Episode of This Is Your Afterlife does not answer "why" and in fact cautions against reading too much into every little detail of such a huge life transformation. My lovely pal, very funny comedian, and big TIYA fan Claire Favret helps me tease it all out.

Content warning: employment, power outage, crappy apartment, COVID precautions, reckoning with the concept of sour grapes, relationship between making a living and making art, disillusionment with standup, commute soundtrack, are you a club or BLT?

Here's the Craig Wedren post on the 30th anniversary of Shudder to Think's Pony Express Record, which I reference.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want the uncut conversations and bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Claire @clairefavs on IG and Twitter.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

It's part 2 of my first two-episode week, celebrating my new favorite book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072. M.E. O'Brien is the book's other co-writer (along with Eman Abdelhadi), and our conversation stems from an email in which she told me her practice of a religion with "a very elaborate idea of the afterlife" might make for a less interesting podcast. Suffice it to say, she was wrong!

Content warning: suicide, Tibetan Buddhism, the lack of kindness in leftist spaces, absolutely refusing to Relive 1 Memory.

Show your love for This Is Your Afterlife at patreon.com/davemaher. Here are reasons it is good:

• Subscribers get extended episodes, aftershows, and shoutouts in future episodes.
• It's the same cost as a nice coffee or a cheap meal.
• You're part of making independent art outside of corporate backing.
• I need literal insulin.

Read Everything for Everyone (and buy it from the publisher, Common Notions, here). Then let's talk about it!

Follow M.E. O'Brien on Twitter: @genderhorizon

Support her on Patreon: patreon.com/meobrien

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Eman Abdelhadi co-wrote Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072, my favorite book in the longest time. I love it so much I'm doing the podcast's first ever two-episode week featuring separate episodes with Eman and her co-author, M.E. O'Brien. So stay tuned!

Content warning: banana peel violence, Islam, being a "bad" Muslim, polycule drama, the literal most idyllic Relive 1 Memory segment ever.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, fund the show for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Eman on Twitter, @emanabdelhadi, and Instagram, @eabdelhadi.

Read Everything for Everyone (and buy it from the publisher, Common Notions, here). Then let's talk about it!

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Take a moment with me to celebrate 100 episodes of This Is Your Afterlife!

Content warning: surprises, dreams, evolution, lessons learned, 50/50/50 rule, white vs. non-white afterlives, how to use the sidewalk properly.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, fund the show for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and culture essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

My mother, Katie Maher, came prepared to EPISODE 100 of This Is Your Afterlife. The first guest to bring notes! She shares her experience during my coma and her strong beliefs about the afterlife. I share a piece about her from the one-man show that gave birth to this podcast. And the episode ends with the funniest five minutes of the show so far.

Content warning: medical trauma, faith, dating, cinnamon rolls, The Bible, Uvalde, thoughts and prayers, lots and lots of paper towels.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, fund the show for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Thanks to Al Church for the music in "Mom's Darkness." Stream his music (Night Games is incredible), and buy it on Bandcamp.

You can read "Mom's Darkness" in my newsletter, Definitive Answers. Subscribe for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Joanna Jamerson (The Neo-Futurists) records the most scatological episode of This Is Your Afterlife yet while leaving the door open to becoming a very devout Christian by the end of her life.

Content warning: depression, Steve Harvey, Fifth Harmony, the curse of empathy.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, fund the show for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave me a voicemail to play on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Joanna on Instagram: @noanna_namerson.

Go see The Neo-Futurists live in Chicago 50 weekends a year, and take their classes!

Joanna recommends Mishkan Chicago, the synagogue where she teared up at the bar mitzvah while doing videography.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Bummer-pop artist Meredith Johnston (aka Warm Human) and I go back many years to our improv comedy days, and that rapport allows me to give her the shit she deserves for her love of butt rock and nu metal. Meredith's a great storyteller, charismatic, complex, dark, and painfully honest about the twists of her brain. Her willingness to display all these facets of herself makes for an intense episode AND one of the most entertaining.

Content warning: eating disorders, physical abuse, (drug/alcohol) addiction, Meredith likes Imagine Dragons, Cream Cheese Hot Dog.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Meredith/Warm Human on Instagram, @lovechunkz, and Twitter, @w000rm.

Buy Warm Human tunes on Bandcamp, and stream on Spotify and everywhere else.

See Warm Human on September 3 at Sleeping Village in Chicago.

Check out her podcast, Sobriety Sucks.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Pool Kids songwriter, guitarist, and singer Christine Goodwyne talks to me about why Christian heaven seems unrealistic and the mushroom trip she intentionally used to change her life. I love Pool Kids' new album, and this convo was a breeze. What aspects of our personalities survive huge changes, and is it good that they do?

Content warning: toxic Christianity, mushrooms vs. Lexapro, poorly laid out grocery stores, full-on ego death.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Stream Pool Kids on Spotify and everywhere else.

Buy their new, self-titled album on Bandcamp. It's fantastic.

Go to poolkidsband.com for dates and tickets to their fall tour.

Follow Pool Kids, @poolkidsband: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

I talk to Em Gonzalez (Liberation Library, Chicago Abortion Fund) every day. They're a teacher, a transformative and restorative justice practitioner, a fierce abolitionist organizer, and one of my closest friends. So it was a distinct pleasure to have a different kind of conversation for the podcast. This is one of the most accessible political conversations I've ever had, examining abolition, accountability, and self-esteem through the lens of the Hot Bimbo Genius.

Content warning: amateur witchcraft, Florida Water, not getting dick jokes, wiping your feet on someone's towel, community accountability.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Em on Twitter: @small_meatball

Learn more about and donate to Liberation Library and Chicago Abortion Fund.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Mike Brunlieb (Joe Pera Talks With You, South Side) is one of the greatest improvisers of his and my generation of Chicago comedians. We dig into the reasons behind his love for playing both bullies and cucks. But performance is just the tip of this conversational iceberg.

This is a particularly intimate conversation for 2 reasons: 1) Mike's a close friend, and this was the first time we'd seen each other since pre-COVID, and 2) his daughter Nina slept against his chest for the duration of the interview.

Content warning: crying, having a daughter, pressure to say something smart in college, Nietzsche, heaven, forcing funeral attendees to play improvisational theater games, trying to isolate to find yourself.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show: (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs ! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Chris Santiago is a hilarious, odd, and one-of-a-kind comedian and an exceptional visual artist. He cares so deeply about creativity he taught high school art for 20 years. Is it true "those who can't do, teach"? Hell no, dude! What are you even talking about? Listen to wise, sweet Chris.

Content warning: stability, space, binge-watching humanity 'til its end, dreams falling through and changing, working at the mall.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal, please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Chris on Instagram: @chrisobscura

Listen DAILY to the Chris Obscura Voicemail Podcast (working title) ONLY BY CALLING (773) 234-2784.

See Chris live in Chicago at the monthly TORNADO show at the Hideout. This month's show is "Loppalapooza: Official Pre-After Party Show, Presented by TORNADO," Wednesday, July 27 at 9pm. Tickets here.

Subscribe to my newsletter, Definitive Answers, for weekly personal and cultural essays, plus music recs ! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

As a follow-up to last week's Will Oldham episode, I'm re-releasing my episode with the man Will called an "internet angel," saxophonist and Fuubutsushi member Patrick Shiroishi.

This conversation has been on my mind because my move to Cleveland has come with consuming more Taco Bell than I have in the past decade, so take any shade I throw toward T. Bell with that grain of salt.

In my mind, this is a classic This Is Your Afterlife. I hope you enjoy it.

Content warning: Japanese internment camps, ambiguously supportive parents, ancestors, shit, therapy, the Get Up Kids, Taco Bell.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want fun bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Patrick on IG, @patrickshiroishi.

Check out Patrick's website for tour dates.

Go buy Fuubutsushi's new album, Meridians, right now at cached.media/shop!

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Sarah Knittel (Edinburgh Fringe, Pig Iron School) is one of my best friends, in part because she is a mischievous, sexy, insecure, sweet, and hilarious clown and solo performer. We met at 2019 Cincy Fringe, and I quickly forced my friendship on her. She breaks the seal on This Is Your Afterlife guests crying on the mic.

Content warning: broken engagement, love of performance, normcore funerals, Tree of Life, emotional bitch, Edinburgh Fringe, being hard on yourself, trapped in pantyhose.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal (I do!), please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Sarah on Instagram for "daily laughs:" @sarahhmonster. She'll post there about her upcoming video series "Hell Town."

Can't believe I'm doing this, but follow her on frickin' LinkedIn and hire her ass!

See Sarah live at her free, monthly variety show, Sarah Knittel's Hell Ride, every 4th Thursday at Sutton's in Philadelphia, starting August 25 at 7:30pm!

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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R.I.P. Jak Knight

He was a brilliant and hilarious comedian who, at 28, already had a deep body of work. If you haven't, check out this 2019 standup set of his at Dynasty Typewriter in L.A.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

In the midst of searching for a job to support my art, bombarded by doubts and old attitude habits, and aching from my second COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, I attempt to find a way to believe the ideas about creativity that I want to believe.

Content warning: discouragement, quitting, insulin, Rilke, job search, life not turning out like you planned, “Don’t have a Plan B,” second booster.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal (I do!), please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Texts:

"Austin Kleon on the Gift of Obscurity" (In Conversation with Brad Listi on Otherppl podcast)

Andre Gee: "Just Write"

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Jonathan Euseppi (he/they/she) is a comedian who creates one-person shows that feature stories and heightened theatricality, so we're kindred spirits. Her first show, Grief Is Horny, was about her dad's death and her love of the musical Cats. His second show, about getting cancer and marrying his wife, is called Cancer Is Gorgeous. We spend the majority of the episode talking about Jonathan's TWO times suffering through cancer (he's currently cancer-free!) and the difference between those times. But they also talk about their wedding day, their struggle to come out as nonbinary, and the calm that came after admitting who they are.

Content warning: suicidal ideation, anxiety, cancer, dementia, Parkinson's, water afterlives, crying just thinking about your wedding vows.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal (I do!), please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Jonathan Euseppi on Instagram: @jeuseppi

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Looking for an abortion resource? Find your local abortion fund at abortionfunds.org.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Mike Park (Asian Man Records, Skankin' Pickle, the Bruce Lee Band) is an antiracist ska/punk O.G., a DIY role model, and a goofball who wants to throw his funeral at Chuck E. Cheese.

Content warning: traffic, crowds, animatronic funeral performances, free stuff, eating food people off strangers' plates at Denny's and out of the movie theater trash, Venn diagram of punk ethos and Christianity.

Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal (I do!), please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Asian Man Records, @asianmanrecords: TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

Listen to the new album by the Bruce Lee Band: One Step Forward. Two Steps Back.

Listen to Mike's Degrassi podcast, I'm in Love With a Girl Named Spike

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Looking for an abortion resource? Find your local abortion fund at abortionfunds.org.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

I've said the funniest three people in the world are Meaghan Strickland and Annie Donley (previous guests), and I don't even know the third. Well, we have a candidate for that spot: Parker Callahan! Parker is a sketch comedian, solo show director, TikToker extraordinaire, and he once did a PowerPoint bit about the original Queer Eye that made me choke laughing.

Content warning: mushrooms are aliens, platonic soulmates, sharks eating dead bodies, 2019 Diane Keaton vehicle Poms, chosen queer family.

Share your thoughts! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872). Leave a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show.

If you think This Is Your Afterlife is worth the price of a nice coffee or a cheap meal (I do!), please consider joining my Patreon for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Parker, @parkthelark: TikTok, Instagram, Twitter

Go to Parker's shows:

July 18: Applause with Maggie Winters & Parker Callahan at The Hideout

July 24: The Cosmic Country Cookout at Judson & Moore Distillery

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Something different this week: a 3-pack of aftershows!

Third and finally, Claire Favret and Meaghan Strickland join me to unpack Shalewa Sharpe's episode of This Is Your Afterlife, including such topics as:

• day jobs and making a living from your art
• the birth of This Is Your Afterlife's newest segment
• 2 Wigs, Ring Light or Hat

Get all episodes of This Is Your Aftershow, my full convos with guests, and shoutouts in future episodes by subscribing at patreon.com/davemaher.

Wanna share your answer to the questions or thoughts on an episode? Leave me a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Meaghan on Twitter: @MeaghanStrick and Instagram: @stricklygram, and go to her website: meaghanstrickland.com.

Follow Claire @clairefavs on Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me"

Something different this week: a 3-pack of aftershows!

In number two in the pack. Claire Favret and I unpack Chris Gethard's episode of This Is Your Afterlife, including such topics as:

• COMEDY! lots and lots of comedy talk
• rehearsing a TV audition that I BOOKED (I'll tell you more when I can!)

Get all episodes of This Is Your Aftershow, my full convos with guests, and shoutouts in future episodes by subscribing at patreon.com/davemaher.

Wanna share your answer to the questions or thoughts on an episode? Leave me a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Claire @clairefavs on Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me"

Something different this week: a 3-pack of aftershows!

First, Claire Favret and Meaghan Strickland join me to unpack Bianca Diaz's episode of This Is Your Afterlife, including such topics as:

• believing in ghosts to placate them
• Fran Lebowitz is overrated
• needing to see reality to change it

Get all episodes of This Is Your Aftershow, my full convos with guests, and shoutouts in future episodes by subscribing at patreon.com/davemaher.

Wanna share your answer to the questions or thoughts on an episode? Leave me a voicemail, and I'll play it on the show! Call (313) MIST-URA (647-8872).

Follow Meaghan on Twitter: @MeaghanStrick and Instagram: @stricklygram, and go to her website: meaghanstrickland.com.

Follow Claire @clairefavs on Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me"

All I have to do is wind up Marty and Sarah with my death questions, then sit back and ride the wave as they spin podcast gold. They're quick, thoughtful, generous, and silly as they talk about the recent death of a close friend, Marty's memory of first meeting Sarah, a suicide at their old apartment building, and getting so fed up with your own patterns that you make permanent changes for the better. Consider it like an episode of their podcast, except instead of wrestling it's Marty & Sarah Love Talking About Death. Plus, Sarah improvises intro jingles for every segment!

You get a full half hour of bonus material for the cost of a coffee or a meal at patreon.com/davemaher, including their funeral plans and creative/life lessons Sarah learned from our improv days. Subscribers get my full convos with guests, the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Content warning: suicide, depression, calliope music, hospital stuff, death, Muppets, hella comas, past lives, codependency, the consciousness of windows, musical improv.

Marty & Sarah Love Wrestling comes out Fridays via the MLW Radio Network. Listen and follow on Spotify and Apple. Follow @martysarahpod on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow Marty, @martyderosa: Twitter, Instagram

Follow Sarah, @sarahjoyshockey: Twitter, Instagram

Sarah also games live on Twitch with friends: Adventure Tuesday at 8pm Central

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Grappling with despair this week in the wake of the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, plus the quotidian stress of my job search. How do you have hope in hell? I turn to Audre Lorde and Mariame Kaba for answers. But if hope is not a feeling, what is it?

Content warning: gun violence, Uvalde, Buffalo, despair, Audre Lorde, Mariame Kaba, hope.

Texts:

Audre Lorde: "Uses of the Erotic" (printed in Sister Outsider)

Beyond Prisons podcast: Hope Is a Discipline feat. Mariame Kaba (excerpt printed in We Do This 'Til We Free Us)

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = The Thermals: "A Pillar of Salt" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Booking This Is Your Afterlife sometimes looks like me hand-writing a list of dream guests off the top of my head. Will Oldham appears on every one of those lists. I've been a fan since he released the first Superwolf album with Matt Sweeney in 2005, and their 2021 follow-up, Superwolves, joins it as one of my favorite albums ever.

Few artists are better at combining mystery, sincerity, wisdom, and mischief. And rather than strive for any sort of definitive Will Oldham interview, I just wanted to do the best This Is Your Afterlife episode I could with him on the day we recorded. I hope you like it.

Content warning: dying parents, genocide, convenience, hell is a Twitter feed, the shock of early Facebook, the scourge of superhero movies, Kentucky Pocket Wolf, examining the function of music, George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Patrick Shiroishi as internet angel.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want fun bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

If you want to follow Will on social media, he's @wignifier on Instagram and @signifyingwolf on Twitter.

Listen to Superwolf and Superwolves and all the Bonnie Prince Billy solo albums and the old Palace records and and and...

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Dylan Rodriguez is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national abolitionist organization that has shaped my thinking about the abolition of police and the prison industrial complex. As importantly, he's a rad, righteous, down-to-earth dude who is fine with people creating Elvis-and-Tupac-style conspiracy theories that he's still alive after he dies. This is a long episode because I just couldn't cut much (though there is an extra 20 minutes on Patreon)!

Content warning: copaganda, collectivity vs. individualism, Boyz II Men, academia, Geronimo Ji-Jaga, humility, rude baby.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

If you're looking for an introduction to abolition, I highly, highly recommend Critical Resistance's "Resource Guide for Teaching and Learning Abolition."

Also, check out Dylan's books:

White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide

Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons (edited by Colin Kaepernick)

Read the article he wrote in response to his invite to the UC Riverside Campus Safety Workgroup: utotherescue.blogspot.com/2021/06/a-public-response-to-ucr-chancellors.html

Check out the Cops Off Campus coalition: copsoffcampuscoalition.com

And, of course, Critical Resistance: criticalresistance.org

Follow Dylan on Twitter: @dylanrodriguez and Instagram: @dylanrodriguez73

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Jo Scott (Joe Pera Talks With You) introduces a unique funeral feature, which rarely happens on This Is Your Afterlife, and that's just one part of a free-flowing conversation that includes talking about introducing the concept of death to kids, a side-investigation into my romantic relationship, and a memory Jo would choose to relive for investigative reasons! 

Content warning: motherhood, families, children crying, rough childhood, fear of Nothingness, me shitting on reincarnation, Defending Your Life.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow MOM STOMP: Apple, Spotify, Instagram

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Abortion stories flooding my timeline got me thinking about how we mine our most intense experiences for art, or worse, content. As a comedian with a couple one-man shows about my coma, it's a familiar process! Why do we do this? What are we looking for? Do we need to share at all? How can we know what's right for us? Comedian and frequent This Is Your Afterlife guest Claire Favret joins me as a sidekick to sort this all out, once and for all, absolutely no more follow up required, ever, we did it, we're the ones.

Content warning: mansplaining, moms, abortion, social media philosophizing, seeking comfort and connection, unrealistic expectations, boundaries.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Donate to Chicago Abortion Fund's 2022 Fund-A-Thon: https://fund.nnaf.org/daveandhope

Follow Claire @clairefavs on Twitter and Instagram

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Lucia Whalen has a killer joke that combines environmental disaster with infertility, and you should know that's the sort of screaming into the abyss I encourage on This Is Your Afterlife. She tells me about her upbringing among hippies devoted to Vedic astrology, the bad mushroom trip that got her sober, and her craving for words of affirmation, even in death.

Speaking of fertility, abortion is healthcare. Here is the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' statement to that effect I read in the show's intro. And here is a list of abortion funds in every U.S. state for you to donate to fight the Supreme Court (possibly, likely) overturning Roe v. Wade: bit.ly/abortionfundslist.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Listen to Lucia's new environmental comedy podcast with fellow comedian Tyler Horvath, What a Waste: website, Apple, Spotify.

Check out Lucia's tour dates at her website, and follow her on Instagram: @luciawhalen.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Taja Cheek records brilliant, kaleidoscopic, genre-bursting music under the name L'Rain. She joins me to talk about the amount of twee in her personal hell, "nice" vs. kind vs. "interesting," and all it takes to grow as a person. We hear about a joyous all-night Thanksgiving cooking binge, and she reckons with a perpetual L'Rain topic, the possibility of change.

The Patreon version of this episode includes a discussion about what Taja is learning about abolition and how we wrestle with ideas of community and self-improvement in our work.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Listen to Fatigue, L'Rain's most recent album, on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple.

Check out L'Rain's tour dates at her website.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Afterlife Movie Club is back! Rapper and previous guest SHOWYOUSUCK joins me to discuss the 2000 Adam Sandler vehicle Little Nicky. The cameos, the soundtrack, the Popeye's, this movie's got it all! And somehow we're able to overthink our way to a genuine discussion of human nature by the end of the episode. Enjoy this silly, strange, surprisingly real conversation.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow @SHOWYOUSUCK on Twitter and Instagram, and follow his band Air Credits on Instagram and Twitter.

Buy tickets for Air Credits' April 30 show at the Empty Bottle.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Incubus: "I Miss You"

Skyler Higley (Conan, The Onion) is a Black comedian with white parents who grew up Mormon and isn't anymore. He loves comedy, but he wants to be remembered for more than comedy. His new album, SALTWATER, IS more than just comedy. He worked with collaborator Nicholas James to weave comedy and music organically, and they created something that transcends musical comedy. And after a lot of comedy talk, Skyler tells me about losing his religion.

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Listen to SALTWATER on Spotify and other platforms.

Follow Skyler on Twitter @skyler_higley, and check out Nicholas James on Spotify.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

The second solo episode of the show is about living half-alive, unreasonable expectations, deaths of communities, isolation, disability, and hope. I feel vulnerable putting this out. I hope it connects.

Please let me know what you think. Email me at thisisdavemaher@gmail.com.

Inspiration:

Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel

Rebecca Solnit: "The world is unpredictable and strange. Still, there is hope in the madness"

Alabaster DePlume: GOLD on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify

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Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers (not "Definite Answers," like I say in the episode). Here's the most recent one I'm so proud of. And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

I think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month. If you do too, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my mostly-unedited full convos with guests, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

---

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Music = Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Shalewa Sharpe (HBO, Comedy Central) is a fantastic standup. If you don't know her, I'm psyched to welcome you into the fandom. She describes a highly physical hell and a surprisingly detailed belief about angels for someone who's not religious. We talk about both her parents dying within two years of each other, including the lessons she learned about funeral planning and the ways she shut down all feeling afterward. No resolution offered, and none needed on This Is Your Afterlife!

I think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month. If you do too, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my full convo with Shalewa, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Shalewa, @silkyjumbo on Twitter and Instagram, and @silkyjumb0 on TikTok.

Check her out on "Bust Down" on Peacock too! She's super funny.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Oui Ennui (bold, brilliant, and beautiful electronic musician/synthesist) is back as the first return guest on This Is Your Afterlife! We hit it off so much in our first conversation, and here, we have a more expansive, less structured talk about topics like:

• Language devolving
• Imposing vs. discovering/defining your creative niche
• Afterlives created by human fear
• The absurdity of being alive

If you think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month (I do!), subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my full convo with Jonn (aka Oui Ennui), every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Check out Oui Ennui's music at ouiennui.com. The new album, Forensic Architecture, is especially good.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Definitive Answers (it's my best social media)! You can also follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Playwright, actor, and well-balanced adult Steven Strafford is a breath of fresh air when it comes to putting creative pursuits in their proper place, i.e. as part of a life rather than a whole life. It was wonderful to talk to him about sobriety, meeting his husband, and moving from Chicago to Ohio as a grown man.

Content warning: sobriety, family, having kids, people pleasing, ants and grasshoppers, the "Pumpkins" song, a funeral at a sensible black box.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want fun bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

Watch Steven's solo show, Methtacular!, free on YouTube.

Buy his play, Small Jokes About Monsters, from Dramatists Play Service.

Follow him on Twitter, @StevenStrafford. He doesn't post often on Instagram, but you can follow him there too, @stevenstraffordelkins. Hell, you can go follow him on Facebook if you like!

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Rashawn Scott (South Side, Abbott Elementary, Second City) tells me about the hell of the Old Navy stock room, the impulse to narrativize your life, a couple of really intense moments at funerals, and her grandmother delivering an unintentional post-college wake-up call. Rashawn is one of my favorite comedic actors, and she's expansive, self-assured, and vulnerable all in one in this episode.

I think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month. If you do too, subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher. You'll get my full convo with Rashawn, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Rashawn, @rashawnscott on Twitter and Instagram. And listen to her podcast, Mystery County Monster Hunters Club!

Here's my favorite Rashawn performance on South Side: Season 2, Episode 2, "Ambulance"

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

New segment alert! Standup Michael Timlin (Shameless) is the first guest to tell me the superlative he'd get (and the one he'd want) in his eulogies. He talks about showing up for loved ones, and worrying about their wellbeing. He starts the show committing to never having kids, and he ends it with abundant, specific declarations of love for his wife. It's a complex episode with a lot of feelings!

To get the full experience, start by listening to my episode of Mike's sanity-bestowing podcast, Work Sucks, I Know! Who doesn't love a crossover event?

I think this show's worth the cost of a coffee or a meal a month, and if you subscribe for $5 or $15 at patreon.com/davemaher, you can get my full convo with Timlin, every installment of the companion podcast This Is Your Aftershow, and shoutouts in future episodes.

Follow Mike on Twitter: @MichaelTimlin

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

We finally did it! We recorded the first episode in a new series, the Afterlife Movie Club. Claire Favret and Bill Stern join me to talk about the movie most referenced by far on This Is Your Afterlife, 1998 Robin Williams vehicle What Dreams May Come.

Why is there so much purple in this movie? Does the story measure up to the set design? Exactly how fucked up is it for a movie this horny to end with two reincarnated lovers meeting as children? Oh, and spoiler alert.

If you like this episode, subscribe to my Patreon at patreon.com/davemaher to suggest other movies (and guests) for Afterlife Movie Club!

Here are the two Hieronymus Bosch paintings I reference:

1. The one above the bed: The Garden of Earthly Delights
2. The one that reminded me of Annie's hell: Ascent of the Blessed

Follow Claire and Bill's sketch group, Cigarette Sandwich: @cigsandwich on Instagram and Twitter.

Follow Bill on Twitter: @dollarbillstern

Follow Claire on Twitter: @clairefavs

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate! And follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.

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Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Music = Future: "Use Me" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"