This Is Your Afterlife

It's the first backward episode of the show, with Neo-Futurist ensemble member Cat Huck! We start with Cat dissecting one of her plays, "Hold," and I realize we've been talking about her coma moment, the death of her friend Ben. Content warning: suicide, grief, lilac leather, going to war with roosters, one person's love vs. the spirit of Love. Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possib...

You've seen Thomas Kelly on TV in hella commercials, and the lucky ones of us have seen him perform on stage with the legendary Chicago improv team Sand alongside previous TIYA guest Mike Brunlieb (and Scott Nelson and others). Thomas and I go way back, and this is an especially cozy chat. The rare in-person This Is Your Afterlife! Content warning: self-improvement, "Do you know who I am?," vampir...

Befitting the producer he is, Patrick Cotnoir (The Chris Gethard Show, The George Lucas Talk Show, ASSSSCAT) would book the hell out of his own funeral. He answers the usual TIYA questions and tries to deconstruct the show in the process. According to me, he fails! Content warning: Nothing, discomfort with self, booking your own funeral, SPOILERS (skip from 35:11-40:00 if you haven't seen the epis...

It's the second annual This Is Your Afterlife New Year's Special, initially recorded as a Patreon bonus episode with Claire Favret. Call it the Solstice Special. I come hard out the gate with depression and we dive into darkness and its purposes, plus all of Claire's family's solstice traditions, which are many.  Thanks for spending any part of your year with me and this show. See you in 2023...

Zoe Witt (Teen Vogue, LA Times) has written pieces I've loved about living with diabetes in the era of insulin price-gouging. " Insulin Legislation Is Leaving Out Many Diabetics: What to Know " is a great intro to an issue that makes its way onto Netflix and comedy stages despite 99% of people having no clue of the real stakes. Zoe's also an organizer with Mutual Aid Diabetes (MAD), a volunteer-ru...

"A high-ranking angel is banished from heaven and forced to work customer service in purgatory as punishment." That's the description of Luca Harsh's original pilot, Purgatory, Inc. It's a fun show that's easy to imagine animated on your streamer of choice. Add Luca's transit activism into the mix, and you've got a classic TIYA guest. Thanks to friend of the show Whitney Wasson for suggesting them...

Psalm One is a dope, experienced, independent rapper from Chicago who I just love. Her most recent album, Bigg Perrm , is one of my favorites of the year. She's also an author! Her first book is a memoir, Her Word Is Bond: Navigating Hip Hop and Relationships in a Culture of Misogyny , and it's great for the reasons she is: direct, unflinching, shocking, relatable, and funny. The way Psalm One tal...

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 After...

"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...

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 w...

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 conversa...

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 supporte...

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 Indigeno...

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...

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 epi...

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 Afterl...

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/d...

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 podca...

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 idy...

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 c...

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, ci...

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...

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 episod...

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...

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, ac...