This Is Your Afterlife

This is a preview of a bonus episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

Daniel Strauss and Drennen Quinn return to talk about Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. They're my closest comedy friends since right before this movie came out in 2008, and it was fun to sit down and goof off about a movie Daniel calls one of his favorites that he'll never see again.

We talk about: bedtime, a career in the arts, phone etiquette when recording a podcast, Theatre of Cruelty, aging, nontraditional horror, no longer being able to relate to characters you dislike, still relating to those same characters.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Daniel and Drennen:

https://www.instagram.com/danielstrauss/

https://www.instagram.com/drennenwon/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

I recently saw two movies that exemplified how I want to make political art: Neo Sora's "Happyend" and "Failed State" by Christopher Jason Bell and Mitch Blummer. Both films tell intimate stories that show rather than obscure the ways political systems influence their characters' lives. In this episode of This Is Your Afterlife, I'm grateful to talk to "Failed State" co-director Chris Bell about his approach to making political work and what makes him the artist and person he is. He's TIYA's first filmmaker guest!

We talk about: DIY filmmaking, reconnecting with childhood friends, panic attacks, meditation, the mundanity of skydiving.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Chris:

https://linktr.ee/christopherjasonbell

https://means.tv/ (use his code, CHRISBELL, for 10% off)

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

This is a preview of a premium episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

I love talking to Lucas O'Neil about the specifics of standup comedy craft, and since he just released his first special, Emotional Man, I use this bonus episode as an opportunity to dig deep with him into the process of conceiving, creating, and releasing it. It's the kind of creative exercise I've longed to do in podcast form, and I'm grateful to be able to do it with a previous guest of This Is Your Afterlife who also happens to be a very funny and thoughtful artist and friend.

We talk about: Edinburgh Fringe, breaking gender and genre boundaries, outfit anxiety.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Watch Emotional Man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2mYyGhtajM

Follow Lucas:

https://lucasoneil.com/

https://www.instagram.com/mr.lucasoneil/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

Michael Penn II, aka CRASHprez, makes two rapper episodes in a row! Not since Mike Watt has there been a This Is Your Afterlife guest slinging this much of their own lingo (what is it about Mikes?), and I do my best not to pretend too hard like I understand it all. Fortunately, we take a detour into the topic of slang ("getting kirk" is simply unbelievable) on the way to Michael revealing one of his origin stories as an artist. It's a small, powerful moment, the kind I love featuring on TIYA, and I'm glad he didn't save it for his eventual Rolling Stone interview.

We talk about: gay shit, COVID shit, ally fatigue, underground rapper trade, social death theory, Lil Wayne's "The Carter" documentary, the relationship between actions and words.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow CRASHprez:

https://www.instagram.com/crashprez/

https://crashprez.bandcamp.com/

https://twitter.com/CRASHprez

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

This is a preview of a premium episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

On the heels of last week's 200th episode, I talk about why it made me more emotional than I expected, and I offer a guide to the back catalog in the form of 5 episodes that changed my thinking, 4 about death and 1 about art.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

Sometimes a guest breaks my brain, like when Open Mike Eagle asks the titular question of this episode. I'm still parsing the way the question reorients consciousness in the body rather than as an entity separate from it. Maybe it's a basic thought, but it hit me fresh this time. But let me back up. OPEN MIKE EAGLE IS ON EPISODE 200 OF THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE.

The rapper, podcaster, streamer, TV writer-performer-producer-creator, and independent art-making role model of mine has been a dream guest since I started the show. You can hear why at the beginning of the episode. This conversation took years to happen, and I'm so glad it did. He's a pro talker and an interesting thinker, and I came away deeply evaluating how I want to live, create, and move through the world, which is one of my favorite states of being. Is this the greatest TIYA episode of all time? It's in the running!

And hey, thank you for listening to This Is Your Afterlife. It is a joy to produce, and it means more than words to me that you listen.

We talk about: sad pigeon man, Edinburgh Fringe and Baby Reindeer, Comedy Central, Internal Family Systems therapy, professional jealousy, compartmentalizing, ways people don't listen, unapologetic art rap.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Open Mike Eagle:

https://openmikeeagle.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.youtube.com/@open_mike_eagle

https://www.twitch.tv/open_mike_eagle

https://www.instagram.com/open_mike_eagle/

https://www.patreon.com/openmikeeagle

Past Due podcast with Ana Marie Cox: https://pod.link/1207507389

What Had Happened Was podcast: https://pod.link/whhw

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

This is a preview of a premium episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

I use my coma as the central metaphor of This Is Your Afterlife to discover the moments that transformed my guests' lives, but is there a more transformative life experience than a coma? What's the MOST transformative life experience? This is the question we answer in this week's TIYA After Dark, Bracketology: Transformative Life Experiences.

"We" is several members of K.C. Redheart, my first improv team in Chicago at the Playground Theater: brilliant standup Meaghan Strickland, stupid (compliment) sketch comedian and improviser Bill Stern, and the very funny Nick Leveski (who improvises in Richmond, VA) and Mark "Huberman." These are some of my closest friends and oldest comedy collaborators, going back to 2008!

Bracketology is a game show format we created where we a) pick a topic, b) fill a bracket with examples of that topic, and c) argue the matchups in the bracket until we crown a winner. The thing is, the winner of Bracketology is the quintessential example of the topic, NOT necessarily the "best" or our favorite example.

If you want to follow along from the beginning without knowing the outcome of each match, here are the top 6 seeds we determined before the episode started:

1. Coma
2. Have Kids
3. Epiphany — Drug-Induced, Art-Related ("See Fall Out Boy at Ryman"), Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, Cultural (International Travel or Try New Food Whoa It's Good)
4. Sobriety
5. Had Enough
6. Big Move

I hope you love listening as much as we loved doing this. And if you listen to the very end of the full episode on Patreon, you get to find out next week's guest for THE 200TH EPISODE OF THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Meaghan:

https://www.instagram.com/stricklygram/

Follow Bill's sketch group, Cigarette Sandwich:

https://www.instagram.com/cigsandwich/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

KR Riiber wrote one of the best plays I've ever seen, Tangles & Plaques, a show about dementia and memory care borne from their time as an ensemble member of the Neo-Futurists, the Chicago theater group with core tenets like honesty, brevity, risk & chance, and transformation. Hmmmm, sound like any other show/podcast you know??? Jk, this is not exactly a "brevity" podcast. Truly though, the Neos have been a huge influence on my work, and I'm excited to finally welcome KR to the ranks of Neo-Futurists I've had on the show. The afterlife they imagine in response to the show's first big question is so rich and provides a scaffolding for everything else in the episode. What a treat!

We talk about: divorce, Marfan syndrome, how live performance contains the possibility of failure, "graduating" from the Neo-Futurists, worry vs. practicality in response to traumatic news, a life-changing improv exercise.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow KR:

https://www.krriiber.com/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

This is a preview of a premium episode from the Patreon feed, TIYA After Dark! Head to patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife to hear this full episode and all the others for just $5 a month.

I got to talk about my favorite movie with the hosts of my favorite podcast! My guests this week, Pod Casty for Me's Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine, have not appeared on the main feed. YET! But I couldn't resist easing them into the TIYA universe with a talk about a movie I first saw in the fall of 2024 that has since become one of my all-time favorites: William Peter Blatty's Exorcist III! This is the most excited I've been to release an episode since relaunching the podcast, and that is really saying something. This is a wonderful conversation about faith, art, politics, and horror, on screen and in life, wrapped in a blanket of hating on Pete Holmes. Suffice it to say, you don't need to have seen the movie to enjoy this ep! But just FYI, it does spoil plot. I can't say E3 has edged out Bad Santa as my favorite movie ever, but I was not exaggerating when I said Pod Casty for Me is my favorite podcast. If you dig This Is Your Afterlife and want a podcast with a similar worldview but not similar subject matter, you should check out Jake and Ian's show.

I hope you join the Patreon to hear the whole two and a half hour episode, and I'm even offering it as a standalone release over there for $3. If not, enjoy this meatier than usual preview.

Follow Pod Casty for Me:

https://www.podcastyforme.com

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

https://twitter.com/podcastyforme

https://www.instagram.com/podcastyforme

https://www.youtube.com/@podcastyforme

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com

https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife

[email protected]

Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage

I encountered the live feed puppetry of Theatre Nobody's "rustbelt." when I shared a venue with the show at Cleveland's BorderLight Festival 2025. That's how I met Kevin Michael Wesson, a Chicago puppeteer and theatre artist committed to the DIY ethos that so inspires me. This episode is full of gems like Kevin calling his childhood puppeteering "playing critters" or dropping the knowledge that doing puppetry is like "acting if you didn't have a body."

We talk about: the foundations of puppetry, bunraku, urban exploration, Midwestern emo, being proudly unrepresented, moving to Chicago from Florida, LaVeyan Satanism, New Year's resolutions.

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

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Kevin:

https://www.instagram.com/xmungyx/

https://www.instagram.com/xtheatrenobodyx/

https://www.instagram.com/stopmotionplant/

https://www.instagram.com/puppetqueers/

https://www.instagram.com/puppetqueersnyc/

https://roughhousetheater.com/pips-1

https://www.instagram.com/roughpuppets/

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/