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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

Jonathan Euseppi has passed away from cancer. I ramble in the intro about who Jonathan is to me, and I've copied the show notes from Jonathan's This Is Your Afterlife episode below to give you more context. I'm uploading this as a new episode in the feed because it is the extended version of our conversation, previously available only on Patreon. I hope you enjoy it as a brief look at Jonathan's life and work.

Jonathan Euseppi (he/they/she) is a comedian who creates one-person shows that feature stories and heightened theatricality, so we're kindred spirits. Her first show, Grief Is Horny, was about her dad's death and her love of the musical Cats. His second show, about getting cancer and marrying his wife, is called Cancer Is Gorgeous. We spend the majority of the episode talking about Jonathan's TWO times suffering through cancer (he's currently cancer-free!) and the difference between those times. But they also talk about their wedding day, their struggle to come out as nonbinary, and the calm that came after admitting who they are. 

Content warning: suicidal ideation, anxiety, cancer, dementia, Parkinson's, water afterlives, crying just thinking about your wedding vows.

Here is Jonathan Euseppi's Instagram profile: @jeuseppi

You can follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

---

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

Friend of the show Claire Favret helps me process the process of creating my new one-man show, Here to Make Friends.

Content warning: Free Palestine, creative process, postcoital vs. postpartum, Infinite Jest version, massive amounts of navel gazing, the most powerful Afterhead, future of the podcast, Free Palestine.

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

Download the Palestinian Feminist Collective's "All Out for Palestine" Digital Action Toolkit.

Follow Claire @clairefavs on Twitter and Instagram.

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.

---

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

What do comedy and magic have in common? What does it take to produce an independent magic and/or comedy show? I talk to my friend, previous TIYA guest, and magician Rebecca Spectre about our recent/upcoming shows, and how we went about both making them and putting them on.

Content warning: DIY producing, comedy vs. magic, you're not Beyonce, "borrowed" tricks, unique venues, Mark James, Max Maven, David Berglas, Gob, the trick that cannot be explained.

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

Follow Rebecca on Instagram: @rebeccaspectremagic

And grab tickets to her Halloween magic show at Inclusive Funeral Care WHILE THEY'RE STILL AVAILABLE.

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.

---

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

What percent odds do you actually believe you will experience the apocalypse in your lifetime? That's a question from my most recent one-man show, Here to Make Friends, so I brought in my pals and collaborators Meaghan Strickland, Bill Stern, and Nick Leveski to help me answer it, in a roundabout way. "Roundabout" because before they answer the question directly, we perform Bracketology, an improvised argument game show we devised back in our days on the improv team KC Redheart.

Follow along as we attempt to determine what makes for the apocalypse-iest apocalypse.

Content warning: actual apocalypse, Here to Make Friends, the humans are changing, monsters, hoisted by our own petard, laziness, magic.

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

Check out twitch.tv/caseblackwell for future content from Cigarette Sandwich, Bill's sketch group.

Follow @funnygamesla for upcoming dates for Funny Games, Meaghan's show/open mic at the Elysian Theater in L.A.

And read/subscribe to Continuous Improvement, Nick's weekly newsletter with football "recaps."

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.

---

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

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point.

We only recorded five episodes of It's a Fucking Stick, which means now it's a miniseries dedicated to promoting Dave's new one-man show, Here to Make Friends, which both contains a lot of "Survivor" material and requires no previous knowledge of "Survivor" to enjoy.

In Episode 5, the final episode of the miniseries, we talk about Jenna and Heidi stripping for peanut butter, from Season 6, Episode 7, "Girls Gone Wilder".

Get tickets to Here to Make Friends at the Neo-Futurist Theater in Chicago from 9/28/23-10/1/23!

Follow Ariel @ariel_comedy on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Follow Dave @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

IAFS' music is made by Mike Malarkey, who you can follow on IG @malarkeymike or listen to on Spotify.

This is a podcast in which two comedians, Ariel Elias and Dave Maher, talk about the television program "Survivor." It is not a recap podcast. Each episode, we chose a single moment from the show's 40+ seasons and connected it to comedy, creativity, our personal lives, our relationship to each other, and so many other things. It's a hangout show with "Survivor" as the starting point.

We only recorded five episodes of It's a Fucking Stick, which means now it's a miniseries dedicated to promoting Dave's new one-man show, Here to Make Friends, which both contains a lot of "Survivor" material and requires no previous knowledge of "Survivor" to enjoy.

In Episode 4, we talk about Dan's bonkers slide puzzle "solution," from Season 30, Episode 7, "The Line Will Be Drawn Tonight".

Get tickets to Here to Make Friends at the Neo-Futurist Theater in Chicago from 9/28/23-10/1/23!

Follow Ariel @ariel_comedy on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Follow Dave @thisisdavemaher on Twitter and Instagram.

IAFS' music is made by Mike Malarkey, who you can follow on IG @malarkeymike or listen to on Spotify.