This Is Your Afterlife

Zach Peterson wants to be the Butthole Surfers of comedy. Next step: release his new special, A List of Wet Celebrities, this Thursday, January 25!

Content warning: anxiety, OCD, dead parents, Burger King panic attack, sobriety, success, Neil Young, cigarette heaven, Rick Rubin's "The Creative Act," John Prine's "The Tree of Forgiveness," outsider art, avoiding sour grapes.

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 A List of Wet Celebrities on Four by Three's YouTube channel. Stream the album version, and buy it from the iTunes store.

While you're in the listening mood, stream Zach's previous album, Midwestern Jokes of the Americas, and buy that too!

Follow Zach @kingoftheriverpeterson on Instagram and TikTok.

Find his merch and tour dates at zachpetersoncomedy.com or museumofuglyfathers.com.

And listen to his great podcast, No Coast Comedy Club, where he talks to comedians who live and work in cities that aren't huge entertainment hubs.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Surprise! It's another installment of TIYA REMIXED, in which I re-edit classic interviews from the archives as refreshers for fans and great introductory episodes for new folks.

Dylan Rodriguez is a founding member of Critical Resistance, an organization that for decades has provided leadership and resources in the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex. As importantly, he's a down-to-earth dude who could absolutely handle a heaven of sushi buffets every day.

Content warning: copaganda, collectivity vs. individualism, Geronimo Ji-Jaga, humility, rude baby.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

If you're looking for an introduction to abolition, I highly recommend Critical Resistance's "Resource Guide for Teaching and Learning Abolition."

Dylan's books:

White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide

Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons (edited by Colin Kaepernick)

Check out the Cops Off Campus coalition: copsoffcampuscoalition.com

And, of course, Critical Resistance: criticalresistance.org

Follow Dylan on Twitter: @dylanrodriguez and Instagram: @dylanrodriguez73

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Four Tet: "Two Thousand and Seventeen" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Alejandro Salinas may or may not be a death doula, but he's definitely a vampire.

Content warning: even more death talk than usual (incl. dead dad), ice cube as reincarnation metaphor, bird eye contact, why goths are tall, dying practice.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Alejandro on Instagram: @alej_salinas

Follow Chicago Death Doula Collective on IG too: @chicago.death.doula.collective. CDDC is hosting a death cafe on January 27 at Chi Yoga Shack, where Alej teaches dream yoga.

Buy the Coffin Cards deck, and listen to the Coffin Cards podcast.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Read Tyler's book, A Little Blood and Dancing! And check out his basketball writing for The Ringer.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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 "prayer," cooking with loved ones, CD shopping, love/frustration with your union, validation at Socialism Conference, good vs. bad hating, printing stickers, Free Palestine.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes, including every This Is Your Aftershow with Claire. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Claire on Instagram: @clairefavs

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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 ambitions, objectively correct places to haunt, the hell of no comedy, the hell of using comedy work to outrun personal pain, Better Questions.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Listen to/watch Shar's Weird Copcept Album, which features prominently in his Relive 1 Memory segment!!

And he's not on social media, so check out his other projects or get in touch with him via his website, danielshar.com. Tell him he needs to name his show Best Non-Sex Performance!

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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, trauma dump vs. trauma bond, our sibling dynamic, twisted mom humor.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow John Michael on Instagram: @jmsilly

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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 through the usual questions. Until the end!

Content warning: tick bite, microscopic feces and blood, chronic illness, fitting in = safety, fatphobia, anger on Twitter, holding complex feelings, experiences with spirits!

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Al on Twitter: @Akshaps

Follow prominent MASK UP member Liz on Twitter: @RealGayArbys

After you learn how to talk to your loved ones about COVID at covid.tips, share your stories about these conversations with MASK UP at covidjournal.org.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

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 warning: nondenominational Christianity, type one diabetes, coma snobbery, mushroom suit, memory palace, IVF treatment.

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Follow Matt on Instagram: @matthewjsage

Visit his website: matthewjsage.com

Listen to Fuubutsushi on the cached.media Bandcamp.

Read about Fuubutsushi in the Chicago Reader.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

Poem = Walt Whitman: "This Compost"

Poem Reading Bed Music = Fuubutsushi: "I Hold Dearly (for Miles)"

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 readings. 

Patreon supporters make This Is Your Afterlife possible and get awesome bonus episodes. Become an Afterhead at patreon.com/davemaher.

Listen to Kayte's podcasts: Tender Subject and Fangs for the Memories (a Buffy and horror podcast)

Check out Kayte's art at kayteterry.com

Follow her on Twitter: @kayteterry

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

And check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I'm analyzing TV and movies with writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

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Music = Future: "Use Me" / James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing" / Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"