This Is Your Afterlife Dave Maher

Improviser, actor, and teacher Mary Cait Walthall directed Feed Wolf Ice Cream, the one-man show this podcast grew from. I talk to her about how the project has evolved and the comas that lead away from the dream of fame.
Content warning: punishment, parenting, enlightenment, death of childhood friends, talking circle funeral, Karens.
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.
Mary Cait's improv team, Super Human, performs on Thursday nights at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago.
Get tickets to the play she's in, Comet, at Rhino Fest 2024. There are two more performances, on June 19 and 28.
Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.

Moving from Chicago to Cleveland, how do I pay tribute to my home of 22 years, my entire adult life? I do this.
Read the poem I reference (and read), David Whyte's Sweet Darkness.
If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want more solo (and other bonus) episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.
Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.

It's an all-time-great This Is Your Afterlife with artist, musician, and independent folklorist Daniel Bachman. Daniel creates huge concept albums like Almanac Behind, which documented the climate crisis with field recordings of extreme weather that sometimes swallowed his guitar playing, and writes pieces on his Substack like “Well Seasoned”: A History of North American Immunocapitalism.
Content warning: I use this space to alert folks to traditional content warnings as well as cheekily share some of the topics covered in the episode. This time, we've got some fairly heavy genuine content warnings, almost all to do with the American culture of white supremacy: hate crime, suicide, drug overdose, Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, animal cruelty, COVID, and colonialism. AND there is so much genuine beauty, history, camaraderie, and fun in this episode! From Daniel teaching me about abolitionist minister and writer Moncure Daniel Conway to discussing his non-human collaborators, this is just a wall-to-wall banger of a conversation.
If you believe in This Is Your Afterlife and want fun bonus episodes, like the Crossing Guard Trilogy of This Is Your Aftershow episodes, become a patron for $5 or $15/month at patreon.com/davemaher.
Follow Daniel: @almanacbehind on Instagram and Twitter.
Listen to his most recent recording for Longform Editions, Quaker Run Wildfire (10​/​24​/​23​–​11​/​17​/​23) for Fiddle and Guitar.
Follow this show on IG: @thisisyourafterlife, and get more info at thisisyourafterlife.com. Have thoughts on the show? Email thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.

How do you make political art that isn't dogmatic or trite? What are ways to reimagine live performance to activate an audience instead of creating a seated mass of mindless consumers?
It's my performance chat with Bindu Poroori!
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 Bindu on Instagram: @himabindu
Check out Do the Needful at @dtn_chicago on Instagram.
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 thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.

Bindu Poroori is a warm, deep, brilliant writer, performance artist, and singer whose creative practice can't be summed up tidily. She's in a band called Do the Needful, and her time hosting Salonathon made her the live performer she is. We bonded over our approaches to performance and the struggle to make political art that is authentic to us, so much so that there will be a whole bonus episode with our performance talk!
For now, enjoy Bindu's answers to the prompts, "What do you hope happens when you die?," "What's your coma?," and "Relive one memory."
Content warning: friend breakups, Hinduism, castes, the use of reincarnation for oppression!, invitations into intimacy, the ancestral pleasure of one specific meal at Saravanaa Bhavan.
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 Bindu on Instagram: @himabindu
Check out Do the Needful at @dtn_chicago on Instagram.
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 thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.

Devin Bustin is not just a poet, songwriter, musician, and, gulp, minister (official title: Director of Spiritual Growth and Students). He's one of the most influential people in my life. Listen to us plumb our shared evangelical Christian history, the possible different functions of doubt in our lives, our shared love of poetry, and the entry of recovery into our lives.
Content warning: going pro with Christianity, poverty tourism, sobriety, the unmarketed opinions of evangelical churches, A Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps, Carl Rogers' unconditional positive regard, Ross Gay's Last Will and Testament.
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.
Devin has a website, devinbustin.com, and an Instagram, @devinbustin. He doesn't use either much, but if he has new projects to announce, it should be on one or both of those platforms.
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 thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.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.