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PODCAST

This Is Your Afterlife

What happens when we die? What if this is the afterlife? Comedian, coma survivor, and former Pitchfork writer Dave Maher ("This American Life") asks artists, entertainers, and activists for definite answers to these unanswerable questions.

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

50:00

Just Us: The Guests I Don't Book

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/11/12

READ THIS!Life has made it hard to put out the podcast weekly, and I can't stop myself from apologizing for that. Just know this is a temporary situation. Diabetes trauma, depression, and full-time work have been hurdles, but I've nearly cleared the first two. I know better than to make promises about show frequency or format now, but I didn't when recording this episode. Rather than tack on an intro, I'm letting you know here:I'm doing fine.I'm sorry the delays.TIYA will go weekly again ASAP.I

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42:00

Just Us: The THIS

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/10/16

THIS solo episode comes from my car during my lunch break.I talk about:Reading Black Metal Rainbows and the uncanny experience of enjoying reading about an art form more than the art form itself, though I'm still enjoying Dawn Treader's Bloom & DecayThe images of Shaaban Ahmad via @letstalkpalestineand so many other places: a 19-year-old software engineering student burning alive in his bed in a hospital tent with IVs still attached to his arms as a result of IOF attacks on GazaWhy I refuse to

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01:07:25

Keys to All My Favorite Places with Emma Casey

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/10/08

The Neo-Futurists series continues with dyed-in-the-wool weirdo Emma Casey. We bond over our recovery from the hyperindividualism of mistranslating punk ideology, and she shares a walk through New York City that could only happen with the confidence of youth. She's very cool and thoughtful and lovable, and I hope you love her!Content warning: whiteness, pristine coffee shop hell, personality/worldview copes for not being wealthy or authentic, Taylor Swift, Harold and Maude, Afterlife Tycoon,

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01:03:30

What Is Won't Be with Adam Gilbert

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/10/01

Adam Gilbert (Just for Laughs) is a real sweetie, and he was in a punchy mood (or maybe that's just him?) when we recorded. And even though he compared me to Bill Maher, we had a lot of fun. This makes two weeks in a row of standups, and who knows, maybe this is the start of This Is Your Afterlife as traditional comedy podcast! (It's not.)Content warning: alcoholism, dead dad, escalators, spiders, time, self as a concept like gender or money, unsucked boy.If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and

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51:00

80% TikTok, 20% Mushrooms with Steven Castillo

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/09/24

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

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01:35:00

Not Everything Is a Sign + The BLT Scale with Claire...

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/09/17

"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

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55:25

RIYL Will Oldham's Episode: The Patrick Shiroishi...

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/07/31

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,

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01:17:00

My Best Self Is the Person That's Making Songs with...

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/07/23

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

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55:50

This Existence Is So Much Grasping with Steven Strafford

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/07/17

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

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01:08:00

Punishment Is Not Balance with Benji Hart

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/07/09

I've wanted artist, writer, educator, and organizer Benji Hart on the show for a while, and today we finally make it happen. It's such a pleasure to speak with them about navigating abolition work while acknowledging the very human desire to see evil punished. It's something I think about a lot, and clearly Benji does too.Content warning: abolition, punishment, religion, not being able to relate to doing a genocide, Saturn return, voguing, bomba, dismantling the binary between thinking and feeling,

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01:06:00

I Incarcerated the Spider with Lyn Rye

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/07/02

My conversation with Lyn Rye was so intense and locked in that I gave up on taking notes (and doing bits). They're a bass player, songwriter, artist, gardener, "house dad" at Casa Al-Fatiha (an autonomous sanctuary house for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers), and abolitionist troublemaker. Yet our conversation stretched beyond even all that work!Content warning: domestic violence, carceral violence, assisted dying, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Islam's day of reckoning, Joe Hill, afterlife-as-memory synchronicity

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01:06:00

What Made My Day Today? with Daniel Wyche

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/06/25

Daniel Wyche is a composer and improvising musician who uses guitar, pedals, and other electronics to make tracks full of ideas, noise, and even humor. I love his new tape with Lia Kohl, Movie Candy, so I talked to him in my living room about how to listen to experimental music (a Patreon-only part of our talk) and just how important other people are to his well-being. Content warning: hell is NO people, a gap year without the name "gap year," Chris Wiersema, learning how to hitchhike, metalhead

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01:29:26

Non-Dual Thinking with Mary Cait Walthall

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/06/18

Improviser, actor, and teacher Mary Cait Walthall directed Feed Wolf Ice Cream, the one-man show this podcast grew from. I talk to her about how the project has evolved and the comas that lead away from the dream of fame.Content warning: punishment, parenting, enlightenment, death of childhood friends, talking circle funeral, Karens.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. Mary Cait's improv team, Super Human,

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43:07

Give Up All the Other Worlds

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/06/11

Moving from Chicago to Cleveland, how do I pay tribute to my home of 22 years, my entire adult life? I do this.Read the poem I reference (and read), David Whyte's Sweet Darkness.If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want more solo (and other bonus) episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher. Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com.Follow me

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01:30:05

The Solidarity of the Ages with Daniel Bachman

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/06/04

It's an all-time-great This Is Your Afterlife with artist, musician, and independent folklorist Daniel Bachman. Daniel creates huge concept albums like Almanac Behind, which documented the climate crisis with field recordings of extreme weather that sometimes swallowed his guitar playing, and writes pieces on his Substack like “Well Seasoned”: A History of North American Immunocapitalism. Content warning: I use this space to alert folks to traditional content warnings as well as cheekily share some

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46:00

How We Make Political Performance Art with Bindu Poroori

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/05/30

How do you make political art that isn't dogmatic or trite? What are ways to reimagine live performance to activate an audience instead of creating a seated mass of mindless consumers?It's my performance chat with Bindu Poroori!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 Bindu on Instagram: @himabinduCheck out Do the Needful at @dtn_chicago on Instagram.Donate to the Chicago Abortion Fund via my page to

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01:02:00

What If I Was Vulnerable Right Now? with Bindu Poroori

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/05/28

Bindu Poroori is a warm, deep, brilliant writer, performance artist, and singer whose creative practice can't be summed up tidily. She's in a band called Do the Needful, and her time hosting Salonathon made her the live performer she is. We bonded over our approaches to performance and the struggle to make political art that is authentic to us, so much so that there will be a whole bonus episode with our performance talk! For now, enjoy Bindu's answers to the prompts, "What do you hope happens when

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01:29:00

Where Are You At With the Christian Stuff? with Devin...

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/05/21

Devin Bustin is not just a poet, songwriter, musician, and, gulp, minister (official title: Director of Spiritual Growth and Students). He's one of the most influential people in my life. Listen to us plumb our shared evangelical Christian history, the possible different functions of doubt in our lives, our shared love of poetry, and the entry of recovery into our lives.Content warning: going pro with Christianity, poverty tourism, sobriety, the unmarketed opinions of evangelical churches, A Gentle

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50:36

The Bittersweet Files with Annie Share

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/05/14

The snap of a good jerky stick. The taste of very wet eggs. Venturing off alone to see art. Performing as a Neo-Futurist. Annie Share enjoys her life! It's a skill she's cultivated through a careful selection of little treats.Content warning: yearbook enemies, wanting to die young and riding your bike, imaginary friend Gerald Oliver Dickens (G.O.D.), solo adventures, breakfast food preferences. If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want fun bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month

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54:51

We Should Collect Acorns and Record Ourselves with...

This Is Your Afterlife ·

2024/05/07

Brad E. Rose is a musician, podcaster, music writer, label owner, graphic designer, and dad, and we talk about his motivations beneath and for all of that. Content warning: COVID, parenthood, legacy, the undertow, extremely metal Capsula Mundi alternative, Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air.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. Listen to Brad's excellent podcast, Songs of Our Lives!Read his music writing

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