This Is Your Afterlife

Air Credits (Clinton Sandifer aka ShowYouSuck & Steve Reidell aka half of The Hood Internet) contemplate artistic legacies, tell me about one of the best shows of their career, and I act out their hell as a host introducing them at a show. We also talk about the nature of epiphanies as Clinton discusses the fog of his entire school career and Steve relates the three moments women gave him advice he still returns to.

Check out the extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher, which includes a lot more talk about their music in the intro, their "Funeral Planning" segment, and an extended riff on surly sound guys.

Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

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Check out Air Credits on Bandcamp to hear their music and get their new album, Believe That You're Here, when they release it.

Air Credits on IG: @aircredits

And Twitter: @AIR_CREDITS

To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

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Intro Song = Future: "Use Me"

Transitional Music = James Blackshaw: "The Cloud of Unknowing"

Outro Song = Johnnie Frierson: "Miracles"

One man's cancer is another man's coma. Kurt Chiang (The Neo-Futurists) talks to me about the weird corners of feeling that come with surviving cancer and wanting to control that attention by making theater. He describes a particularly theatrical heaven, and I think we accidentally proved the existence of God dissecting Kurt's experience of eating Peruvian rotisserie chicken.

Check out Kurt's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher, which includes extra intro talk about his transition from active Neo-Futurist ensemble member to solo performance/video artist, plus his "Funeral Planning" segment.

Follow Kurt on IG: @chiangkurtox

And on Twitter: @chiangkurt

And keep a lookout in June, when Kurt will begin a crowdfunding campaign with support from the 3Arts Foundation for his premiere short film "Chicka-Dee-Dee-Dee!"

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

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Kennedy Bartley (Legislative Director, United Working Families) went from thinking about her movement work in terms of "I'll die for this" to "I want to live for this." We talk about building the personal and professional infrastructure to support abolition and liberation in the long-term, what qualifies someone as a "comrade," and which slang I can get away with incorporating into my post-quarantine vocabulary.

Check out Kennedy's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher, which includes extra intro talk and her "Paint Your Hell" segment.

Follow Kennedy on IG: @kbartley_

Follow United Working Families on Instagram and Twitter

Join the Defund CPD campaign!

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Drennen Quinn (IFC, America's Greatest Rock Band podcast) is my best friend since we started improv classes together in 2008. We catch up and talk about the single question that shook his unexamined childhood faith, his unique ability to wring entertainment out of obnoxious strangers, and GROWING UP.

Check out Drennen's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher, which includes an extended intro and his "Funeral Planning" segment.

Drennen's podcast: America's Greatest Rock Band

Twitter: @DrennenQuinn, Instagram: @drennenwon

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

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Vicko Alvarez (Chief of Staff for Chicago Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez) joins me for a different kind of This Is Your Afterlife. As usual, we cover her personal dreams and post-death hopes, but more importantly, we talk about the recent police killings of Adam Toledo, Travon Chadwell, and Anthony Alvarez.

Our conversation touches on community grief, what gets overlooked when narratives form in the wake of deaths like these, and growing up brown or Black in America without expecting to make it to 30.

Thanks to Vicko for opening up here. Love to families, individuals, and communities who have had loved ones ripped away by police. Abolish the police, prisons, and the entire prison industrial complex that limits our imaginations for a truly liberated, loving world.

Check out Vicko's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher for an extended intro with her organizer origin story.

Read Vicko's comics: scholarcomics.com

Twitter: @_LaVicko

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Niccole Thurman (Superstore, Shrill, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper) is kind of modest, so death... is embarrassing! She explains in detail. She also tells me a deep-but-fleeting memory of "making it" and how she's a different person since quitting drinking.

Check out Niccole's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher for an extended intro, plus her "Paint Your Hell" and "Kill 1 Thing" segments.

Twitter: @niccolethurman

Instagram: @niccolethurman

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Maureen SanDiego (Drag Queen of the Year Pageant) would love hell, but I push her to contemplate the afterlife in general. She paints the horror of having consciousness but no senses and contrasts two musical theater experiences, one affirming and the other utterly devastating. Also, selectively abolish body odor!

Check out Maureen's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher for her extended "Paint Your Hell" and "Kill 1 Thing" segments.

MAUREEN'S MERCH: maureensandiego.com

Maureen's podcast: I Couldn't Help But Wonder Mamma

Instagram: @maureensandiego

Twitter: @MaureenSanDieg3

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Edgar Blackmon (Alone Together, Arrested Development, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) contemplates the possibility of getting reincarnated on yet another remedial-ass planet, life lessons from "Defending Your Life," and a Beyonce/Jay-Z concert at Soldier Field he'll remember forever.

Check out Edgar's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher for more pop culture discursions (Drake! "Married at First Sight"!), his Funeral Planning segment ("Return of the Mack"!), plus his breakdown of one of the greatest sketches to ever grace the Second City mainstage.

Instagram: @theedgarblackmon

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Meaghan Strickland is one of the funniest comedians in the world. I ask if I can tell my favorite joke of hers at her funeral, she tells me her foolproof method to ensure she's not buried alive, and we talk about the kind of friends you just automatically connect with and who make you funnier before realizing we are those friends for each other. It's a real romp!

Check out Strickland's extended episode at patreon.com/davemaher for more than an hour of extra conversation, including LOTS of existential comedy crisis talk, extended segments of what's in this episode, and Meaghan's "What's Your Coma?" segment about ending her lifelong basketball dream in college.

Instagram: @stricklygram

Twitter: @MeaghanStrick

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To continue the conversation, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

Sarah Welch-Larson just published Becoming Alien—her book about the concept of evil in the Alien films—and she comes to This Is Your Afterlife to talk about having a low-key funeral, her infinitely relivable memory on the White Cliffs of Dover, and the tragedy that rearranged her life without her realizing it.

Content warning: There's a reference to a school shooting in this episode.

Check out Sarah's full episode at patreon.com/davemaher. It includes more intro and her "Kill 1 Thing" segment, where we discuss our mutual hatred for ranked year-end lists.

Transcript: This Is Your Afterlife on Podscribe

Get Sarah's book: Becoming Alien: The Beginning and End of Evil in Science Fiction's Most Idiosyncratic Film Franchise

Sarah's website (with her blog and links to other writing): dodgyboffin.com

Follow her on Twitter @dodgyboffin

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Hella Immaculate, at thisisdavemaher.com.