This Is Your Afterlife

Tyler Parker (The Ringer) wrote a damn novel! A Little Blood and Dancing is a technicolor Oklahoma revenge story, and I was so stoked to talk to an old friend from Chicago improv about the transition from performing comedy to writing fiction. Content warning: Christian music, wanting to record your own audiobook, what hell would do to your vocal cords, accepting you're not too good for Minions. Pa...

Friend, TIYA superfan, and This Is Your Aftershow cohost Claire Favret returns to the main feed for our annual New Year's Special episode. We celebrate our years of minimal and no resolutions, and we answer a series of New Year's reflection questions Claire is pretty sure came from Simi Botic of Movement Unmeasured. Content warning: YOU DON'T NEED RESOLUTIONS TO DO THINGS, relationship to the word...

Comedian, sex worker, and writer Daniel Shar directed my first one-man show, Dave Maher Coma Show. The experience changed everything for me creatively and turned us from acquaintances into full-blow friends. Shar is so creative and funny, and he produces work as efficiently as a Comedy Terminator. Content warning: mom's death, breakup, porn career, surprise Beyonce fandom, this is absurd, evolving...

John Michael is my solo play-creating peer, independent art comrade-in-arms, and throwing-humor-at-heavy-subjects brother. I talked to him in my kitchen a couple weeks after seeing his most recent show, Spank Bank Time Machine, at the Neo-Futurist Theater. It's a new TIYA classic. Content warning: drug overdose, mental illness, weird bits, giddy laughter, Narcan, toxic friend representation, traum...

Al—first names only this episode—is a member of MASK UP, a group of organizers who authored a 70-page doc called “How to Talk to Your Loved Ones About Covid,” which you can find at covid.tips . I don't follow the usual format for this interview. COVID has given shape to This Is Your Afterlife in many ways, so I wanted to explore my current thoughts around it with Al directly, rather than mediated...

Matthew Sage (aka M. Sage) and Fuubutsushi put out four records—aligned with the seasons—that helped keep me sane in quarantine. I talked to him in 2021 in this classic TIYA, and now he's my friend. I took my editing finger to this episode as an experiment to see if I could bring it under 30 minutes. I'm calling this leaner version of the podcast TIYA REMIXED. Let me know what you think! Content w...

I've been loving Kayte Terry's cannibalism podcast, Tender Subject. It's a weird sell, and that's what I like about it! The visual artist and podcast joins me to bond over type 1 diabetes stuff and talk about the art school permission that was her coma. Content warning: body horror (& Cronenburg, & Crimes of the Future), blood lickers, mushroom suit, the Five Obstructions, reparative readi...

Jonathan Euseppi has passed away from cancer. I ramble in the intro about who Jonathan is to me, and I've copied the show notes from Jonathan's This Is Your Afterlife episode below to give you more context. I'm uploading this as a new episode in the feed because it is the extended version of our conversation, previously available only on Patreon. I hope you enjoy it as a brief look at Jonathan's l...

Friend of the show Claire Favret helps me process the process of creating my new one-man show, Here to Make Friends. Content warning: Free Palestine, creative process, postcoital vs. postpartum, Infinite Jest version, massive amounts of navel gazing, the most powerful Afterhead, future of the podcast, Free Palestine. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus epi...

What do comedy and magic have in common? What does it take to produce an independent magic and/or comedy show? I talk to my friend, previous TIYA guest, and magician Rebecca Spectre about our recent/upcoming shows, and how we went about both making them and putting them on. Content warning: DIY producing, comedy vs. magic, you're not Beyonce, "borrowed" tricks, unique venues, Mark James, Max Maven...

What percent odds do you actually believe you will experience the apocalypse in your lifetime? That's a question from my most recent one-man show, Here to Make Friends, so I brought in my pals and collaborators Meaghan Strickland, Bill Stern, and Nick Leveski to help me answer it, in a roundabout way. "Roundabout" because before they answer the question directly, we perform Bracketology, an improv...

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point. We only recor...

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point. We only recor...

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point. We only recor...

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point. We only recor...

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point. We only recor...

It's September 2023, which means ANYTHING GOES in the lead-up to my third one-man show, Here to Make Friends . In this episode of the podcast, my aftershow co-hosts Meaghan Strickland and Claire Favret join me to present the one-man show that could have been: How to Use the Sidewalk Properly. Sidewalk Commandments You must be willing to shift down to a single file line whenever someone is approach...

Announcing my new one-man show and first big live show in 4 years: Here to Make Friends. In 2020, I watched 40 seasons of "Survivor" in 4 months. That + COVID alienation = Here to Make Friends. Enhancing the show is my recent revelation that at my artistic core, I'm an interviewer. Here to Make Friends will be at the Neo-Futurist theater in Chicago September 28-October 1, 2023. Until then, I'll be...

David Drake is a father, doer of drugs in national parks, and fantastic comedian. We talk a lot of comedy process on this episode! Content warning: drugs, being an observer, standup comedy, major vs. minor storytelling, snapping out of limbo. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher . Follow David on IG: @d...

Comedian and video creator Steve Tapas (Win It All, Easy) inspires a This Is Your Afterlife first: a long-form exploration of gambling addiction. Content warning: gambling, addiction, suicidal ideation, storage facilities, Greece, homemade filo, a bench with your name on it. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/d...

You may hear writer and theater/performance/comedy/sound theorist Eleanor Russell, but you may not see her. Content warning: nature vs. nurture fuckup, first time seeing Jurassic Park in the theater, childbirth but more like having a pregnant body. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher . Follow Eleanor o...

Alyx Goodwin (#StopShotSpotter campaign) posits: What if you could be an organizer who is tired and, like, kinda happy? Content warning: abusive relationship, Everything Everywhere All at Once, "ugh, adulting," parenting is easy, beer weenies. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher . Follow the #StopShotS...

Comedian and good buddy Lucas O'Neil (Comedy Central) shares his deep need to do things right. Content warning: grieving correctly, mother's death, Mainers, pet boundaries, being freed of potential. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher . Go see "Lucas O'Neil: Emotional Man" at Littlefield in Brooklyn on...

A subtle snow theme in this episode with sketch comedian and improviser Karl Bradley (Cigarette Sandwich). Content warning: suicidal consideration, black hole event horizons, wishing to be at least 200 different people, I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE HAS ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED DEJA VU. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com...

In a This Is Your Afterlife first, comedian Ian Abramson (Conan, Gary Busey's Pet Court) brought a full-on written piece as his sideways answer to "What's your coma?" It's a description of the afterlife that's really about his dad's death, and it rings eerily familiar to my experience waking up from a coma after being eulogized on Facebook. Content warning: parent's death, Ocean's Twelve, The Phan...