This Is Your Afterlife

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 ea...

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,...

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, Tr...

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 t...

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...

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. Leav...

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 alien...

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,...

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...

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 s...

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 bet...

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 Siste...

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 c...

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,...

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 s...

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...

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...

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 t...

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 i...

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 a...

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 yo...

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 th...

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!...

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...

Writer Sasha Geffen (Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NPR) wrote the book Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary and hosts the podcast Shattering Gleam: A Podcast About Music and Gender, so it's fitting we tackle gender and pop music HEAVY in this episode. In his Relive 1 Memory segment, Sasha goes in depth about his memories of pop star Sophie: interviewing her, talking to her at dinner, an...