This Is Your Afterlife

Beneath the singing, performing, and party organizing, Anna De Ocampo Kain sees themself as a facilitator. I get to the bottom of how the pandemic has changed her career plans to explore my own anger about it.

Content warning: seeing a dead body, dead friends, vocal hemorrhage, Lyme disease, storefront opera, funeral karaoke, rejecting institutions where you're not wanted, radical hope.

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.

Follow Anna on Instagram: @kain.deo.anna.

AND follow Parallel Play, Anna's collective organizing COVID-conscious events, at @parallel.play.chi on IG. You currently CAN STILL GET tickets to Dilly Dally, their speed-friending karaoke mixer in Chicago on April 13, at dillydally1.eventbrite.com.

Donate to the Chicago Abortion Fund via my page to provide life-saving healthcare to folks who need abortions.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email [email protected].

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Comedian, writer, and artist Julie Mitchell and I get on like gangbusters in this episode that easily could have gone twice as long. The whole conversation felt like unhinging a release valve for me, despite taking on one of my toughest challenges yet as a host: Julie has a definitive coma moment, but it's too raw and unresolved for her to go into detail. How do you talk about a moment that changed you when you can't talk about the moment itself? You talk about the changes!

Content warning: musical improv, rape jokes, Long COVID, Palestine, big "T" vs. little "t" trauma, vulnerability requires anonymity, Maya Shetreat, the Psychedelic Assembly, crowdwork in standup comedy, Pigeon Feathers, finally getting the movie Magnolia.

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.

Follow Julie @juliepoptart on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Subscribe to her Substack—Girl, Uninterrupted—at juliepoptart.substack.com. And read her movie reviews on her blog, I Heard the Book Was Better!

Donate to the Chicago Abortion Fund via my page to provide life-saving healthcare to folks who need abortions.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email [email protected].

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

The Fuubutsushi collection is complete! Chris Jusell, the ambient jazz band's violinist, joins me to jump down all the pop culture rabbit holes our brains present us as we try to get to the bottom of why Chris says he wants to take up as little space as possible. 'Cause does he really?

Btw, I forgot to mention the Pigeon patrons on Patreon in my intro, so here they are: G, Barry Fontenot, Shubha Singh, Kati Llewellyn, Fred Fedewa, and DEBO. Thank you all!

Content warning: grandparents' deaths, therapy, judgement, safety vs. variety, Titanic, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Chris is single.

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.

Find out more about Chris (and hire him to arrange music!) at his website, chrisjusell.com.

Follow him on Instagram: @jusellll

Buy Fuubutsushi's music at cached.media/shop, and listen everywhere! Their Instagram is @_fuubutsushi.

If you'd like there to be a working class of musicians in the U.S., sign this petition to support the Living Wage for Musicians Act.

Donate to the Chicago Abortion Fund via my page to provide life-saving healthcare to folks who need abortions.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

"All the perfections are left in," I say in the intro to this perhaps-greatest-ever episode of the podcast, and yes, I meant "imperfections." But I enjoy the mistake, so it stays in, which is fitting for an episode I've minimally edited so that you can experience it as close to how I did as possible. And fitting for an episode in which legendary experimental/ambient musician and hospice chaplain Jefre Cantu-Ledesma helps me understand in a deep way the meaning of accepting all our feelings about death.

Content warning: hospice, the experience of dying, old age, Zen Buddhism, grieving previous versions of yourself, Frank Ostaseski's The Five Invitations, relationship to creative career success, the Five Remembrances.

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.

Follow Jefre Cantu-Ledesma on Instagram: @jcantuledesma

Listen to and purchase his wonderful, beautiful, mind-blowing, life-affirming music on Bandcamp.

Sign on to support the Living Wage for Musicians Act.

And donate here to help me raise money for abortion access with Chicago Abortion Fund!

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Does Pinko editor Max Fox have a thing with posthumous projects? We explore Max's relationship to death by talking about his work editing his friend Chris Chitty's book, Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capital in the Rise of the World System.

Content warning: suicide, dead friends, anxiety, legacy, Accountability, history is real, gay communism, Amphitheater of the Dead, having sex in nature.

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.

Follow Max on Twitter: @mxwfx, and check out his website, maxfox.site. You can read his translation of Guy Hocquenghem's The Amphitheater of the Dead for free on his website. You can buy Sexual Hegemony at Duke University Press.

Visit Pinko at pinko.online. Issue 3 of the magazine starts shipping soon! You can follow Pinko, @pinkomagazine, on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com.

Donate to Chicago Abortion Fund during their fund-a-thon via my link here!

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Mark Richardson (former Editor-in-Chief at Pitchfork, current rock and pop music critic at the Wall Street Journal) tells me about his tendency to help others rather than himself, being pushed into following his dream, and keeping a grasp on the substance of that dream.

Content warning: anxiety, cancer, dementia, parents dying, Christian heaven sounds nice, part-time job with health insurance, difficulties of creating a funeral playlist, helping others to avoid helping yourself.

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.

Read and subscribe to Mark's newsletter at markrichardson.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter @MarkRichardson.

Get a taste of Mark's writing at his website, markrichardson.org.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

After 20 years in prison, C. Fausto Cabrera is free. Six weeks post-release is quite a time to talk about transformation, and here we go.

Content warning: prison, anxiety and depression, social death, not being a victim, dry room, Keats' negative capability, doing party drugs and getting lost at sea, beets and boiled eggs.

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.

You owe it to yourself to check out C. Fausto Cabrera's work at his website, faustocabrera.com.

Follow him: @CFaustoCabrera on Twitter and @chris.fausto1 on Instagram.

Chris and I met thanks to my work for Haymarket Books on their announcement of the inaugural Writing Freedom Fellows, of whom he is one. Find out more about the fellowship and Chris' fellow writers at writing-freedom.org.

Learn about the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop at mnprisonwriting.org, and read the collective's essay anthology, American Precariat. One of the book's coeditors, Zeke Caligiuri, will join Bill Ayers in conversation at Pilsen Community Books in Chicago on Friday, March 15.

Learn about the narrative non-profit We Are All Criminals at weareallcriminals.org.

Find info about human rights org Until We Are All Free at uwaaf.org.

Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary.

Check out my other podcast, Genre Reveal Party!, where I analyze TV and movies with my friend, writer and cultural critic Madeline Lane-McKinley.

Chaz texted me, "it’s pretty nice to be reciprocal fans dave."

I texted back, "It’s so nice! Such a well of comfort and inspiration."

Chaz is the third of four members of ambient jazz band Fuubutsushi who I've had on the podcast. And his solo-and-friends recordings as Lake Mary are divine. Enjoy this exploration of his artistry, pains, and loves, which is also the beginning of our friendship.

Content warning: deaths of family members and pets, grief seizure, against ego death, Big Fish funeral, mischievous trees, people turning into coyotes, long walks to private lakes, death as a break.

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.

Follow Chaz on Instagram: @chaz.prymek

Listen to Lake Mary and Fuubutsushi on Spotify, and listen to/buy Lake Mary albums on Bandcamp.

Buy Fuubutsushi's music at cached.media/shop.

Donate to Care for Gaza's fundraiser to provide direct aid to Palestinians in Rafah and beyond, and follow their efforts on Twitter @CareForGaza.

Here's a Twitter thread with more organizations helping on the ground in Palestine.

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

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

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All music by Lake Mary

Neo-Futurist Abby Pajakowski joins me for an in-person episode from my kitchen, and we get real specific on their hell, a party game, and the exact ways in which a single night in bed can change your life.

Content warning: anxiety, depression, someone slowly approaching with a gun, Antz, mailed cremains, glorious limbo, losing your religion and it's chill.

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.

Follow the development of Abby's prime time show at the Neo-Futurists' at their website, abbypajakowski.com.

On Instagram, follow Abby, @abbypaj, and the Neo-Futurists, @theneofuturists. And if you're in or going to Chicago, see the Neos' flagship show, The Infinite Wrench, ASAP!

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

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

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

Perfect This Is Your Afterlife guest alert! Aaron Weaver is a comedian who's been thinking about spirituality maybe his whole life? He shares the tools he's picked up recently for being present and staying in his body. Those are buzzwords, but we get specific.

We also talk a lot about Aaron's friend, Kenny DeForest, an excellent comedian and amazing person who was killed by a car in December 2023 at age 37. It's brutal and senseless, and I'm grateful Aaron was so open in talking to me about Kenny and his influence on Aaron's life.

Content warning: comedy as detachment (vs. enjoyment), classic eyeball stuff, Kenny DeForest, men's groups, somatic experiencing, un-numbing, alligators with podcast ideas, Katt Williams' appearance on Club Shay Shay.

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.

Follow Aaron on Instagram @weavedreaming, and listen to his wonderful album, Cosmic Joke.

Follow Shamady, Aaron's spiritual comedy channel, @comedyfrombeyomedy on Instagram and YouTube.

You owe it to yourself to watch Kenny DeForest's newest special, Don't You Know Who I Am?

Follow me @thisisdavemaher on Instagram and Twitter.

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

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