This Is Your Afterlife

Angel Bat Dawid ("2019's brightest new jazz star" –The Guardian) is incredible: a clarinetist, composer, leader of multiple bands, spiritual space jazz conduit, and maker of Great Black Music. Hear her OWN St. Peter at the pearly gates and talk about the magical school concert at a zoo that foreshadowed the rest of her life, plus so-so-so-so much more.

Angel's the first artist I've reached outside my immediate circle to talk to on this podcast, and she is as perfect a guest as I knew she'd be.

Listen to her funky, ethereal album The Oracle and MESSAGE FROM THE DAOUI, her new collaborative album with beat maker Oui Ennui. And follow her on Instagram (@angeltheoracle) to keep up with the constant stream of new work she's doing all the time.

References in this episode:

-Angel's "Transition East" single

-Sun Ra, Space Is the Place (movie)

-Elgar's "Enigma Variations"

-"PEACE: A Suite for Skylanding a Mended Petal Odyssey," Angel's composition responding to Yoko Ono's "Sky Landing" sculpture

Follow me on IG, and SUPPORT MY NEW PATREON at patreon.com/davemaher for bonus content from this and other episodes of This Is Your Afterlife.

Joz Norris (2019 Edinburgh Fringe Comedians' Choice Award, Best Show) dives into meaning-of-life talk right away in this episode. He also has detailed thoughts about friendship, ghosts, and courgettes (American zucchini). Joz is one of my new favorite comedians, and he's as silly, thoughtful, and sincere in this conversation as he is in his act.

Download and watch the film of Joz's great new show: You Build the Thing You Think You Are

Follow Joz on IG (@joznorris) and Twitter (also @JozNorris).

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Kimberly Michelle Vaughn (Second City) goes HAM on me as St. Peter, multiple times, in this episode. She demands to be reincarnated as a Solange BUT NOT ANY KIND OF BIRD OR PLANE. And we bond over missing our toxic pasts spent high and listening to The Weeknd.

Kimberly is wild and so fun throughout our conversation, even when it takes a turn for the vulnerable and dark (heads up, there's a story about an abortion). I'm grateful she went to the places she did. Kimberly contains multitudes, and so does this episode.

Follow Kimberly on IG: @suburbanblckgrl

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Kyra Jones (The Right Swipe) wants strippers, or at least pole dancers, at her funeral! She talks about the artistic heroes she's met on earth (Donald Glover/Childish Gambino), the ones she'd want to meet in heaven (Prince, Hendrix), and we talk about the lessons of Chadwick Boseman's legacy.

Follow Kyra on IG: @kyra.a.jones. Watch her series, The Right Swipe. And support the new film she's making, Go to the Body, at its GoFundMe page.

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Max Thomas (stand-up, improv group PREACH!, organizer with BYP100) wants a full-on roast and an open casket at his funeral, and a sort of roast in a psych ward as a kid changed his life.

Follow Max on IG: @searchingformax and Twitter: @VoodooChild9593

Follow BYP100! on Instagram and Twitter

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Jasmine Henri Jordan (Neo-Futurists) loves a party so much she wants to plan them in her afterlife, as long as she doesn't have to plan her own. She tells me about the Hobbit Day she would choose to relive over and over again, thinking she was grieving college when she just needed glasses, and poses the question, "If you hate astrology, do you also hate queer people?" Invite your enemies, just like Jasmine would to her funeral, and enjoy this episode!

Follow Jasmine on IG: @live.laugh.blood

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You gotta live your life to make sure you have enough pallbearers at your funeral. Gary Richardson (SNL, Shrill, High Maintenance) drops gems like this and hella jokes in this conversation. He talks about becoming a more authentic version of himself after moving to New York, how much he hates "shoes off" culture, and the ear-opening experience of hearing definitively white karaoke songs.

Watch Gary's short film, "Places, Thank You Places," here.

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Angela Oliver (actor, writer, teaching artist, Annoyance Theatre homie) DOES NOT want her ashes turned into a diamond, and she wants Kirk Franklin and God's Property to play her funeral. We talk about her museum vision of the afterlife, the scourge of grind culture, and I implore her to teach me "how to do the deserving thing."

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Notes:

Angela's Medium essay, "Systemic Racism in Chicago Improv Scene: One Black Woman’s Experience"

The painter of President Obama's National Portrait Gallery portrait is Kehinde Wiley!

The Nap Ministry!!

Derry Queen (Derry Queen's Big Queer Variety Show, her devil video on TikTok) wants a panini bar and potatoes every way at her funeral reception. There was a single dude who made her realize she was gay in college. And the memory she'd choose to relive again and again involves a "Phantom of the Opera" lip sync.

Follow Derry Queen on Twitter and Instagram!

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Songwriter and otherworldly-beautiful-voiced singer Andrew Sa (Cosmic Country Showcase) and I (Dave, host of the show!) DOES NOT WANT HIS OWN MUSIC PLAYED AT HIS FUNERAL! He's down with being put into one of those human seed pods that grows a tree, but I think those are creepy and I'm not having it. The memory he'd choose to relive is relaxing and surreal, and I feel like this episode would honestly be great to listen to in the bath.

Follow Andrew and find out about his upcoming (live-streamed!) shows on Instagram.

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