After a year away, This Is Your Afterlife is back! One of the highlights of my year, creatively and culturally, was dipping my toe into black metal. The extreme music genre inspired my performance art installation, Black Metal Rooftop, which I expanded into a talk show called Black Metal Patio. My house band and musical guest for BMP was Genital Shame, a trans black metal artist from Pittsburgh who now lives in L.A. Real name: Erin Dawson. Genital Shame's Chronic Illness Wish was one of the records that cemented my interest in black metal. In between discovering her music last year and doing Black Metal Patio together in July, my friendship with Erin really began with recording this episode of TIYA, making it an ideal first episode for the podcast's relaunch.

We talk about: black metal lyricism, evangelical Christian upbringings, creative process guilt, breakup memories, undermining the toxic positivity of trans coming out narratives on social media, very specific tastes in art and dating, Erin's favorite Cincinnati nickname joke.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Genital Shame:

https://www.instagram.com/genitalshame/

https://genitalshame.bandcamp.com/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

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/

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 appreciate and share your enthusiasm for the show. Free Palestine.

Here are the regular show notes:

I promised the next solo episode of This Is Your Afterlife would be me reading and talking about the emails I've received pitching guests who are entirely wrong for the show, and here it is. This was so fun that at one point I was in my car during the recording, and I looked around to validate the experience, except I was by myself. Genuinely the most fun I've had doing the podcast in a while. Jazz is about the notes you don't play, and This Is Your Afterlife is about the guests I don't book.

Content warning: NDEs (near-death experiences), SDEs, pictures of angels, 1 picture of faerie, Albert Einstein, toxic masculinity that transcends death, afterlife employment, interdimensional relationships, dishonest PR people, and a buncha made-up names I used to anonymize people that I forget now, so you'll just have to listen.

If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want the full convos and 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 [email protected].

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.

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 & Decay
• The images of Shaaban Ahmad via @letstalkpalestine and 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 Gaza
• Why I refuse to make work that only looks inward
• This Instagram carousel from @visualizing_palestine
• Hanif Abdurraqib's and Johnny Cash's three themes of their work, and my own
• Being done coddling people with my speech, whether about the genocide in Palestine or the reality of long COVID and necessity of masking
• Serving you the meal while explaining the recipe
• Bizhiki's incredible album, Unbound, which I think I've recommended before
• The content of next month's solo episode!

I hope this episode can provide you some obsession in the best way. Thanks for listening. Please donate to a fund in the @fundsforgaza Linktree if you can. And follow/donate to the @scholarships4gh4zza initiative.

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 this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email [email protected].

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.

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, notebook cartography, the spectacular gift of consciousness.

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.

Go see The Neo-Futurists' flagship show, The Infinite Wrench, if you're in Chicago, or find a way to get to Chicago to see it. It is simply the best thing you can see.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email [email protected].

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.

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 want the uncut conversations and bonus episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Adam on Instagram: @adamgcomedy, and TikTok: @adamgilbertcomedy.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email [email protected].

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.

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 [email protected].

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.

"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 [email protected].

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.

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 [email protected].

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.

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 [email protected].

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.

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 [email protected].

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.