When I saw musician Maria Jacobson (the creative force behind Fran) was starting a new podcast called Godless—asking guests, "Do you believe in God?" and all the other questions it encompasses—I knew I had to have her on This Is Your Afterlife. So here she is! It's a warm, fun, easy convo about hard stuff, just like we like it. Content warning: anxiety, mom with cancer, climate crisis, Gnostic Gospels, the reward and risk of making friends with strangers on the road, Irenaeus, good in a crisis?, letting go of pressuring others to be good friends/siblings/parents/etc. If you believe in This Is ..read more

Second City and Matt Damon Improv's Phylicia McLeod sits down with me to hash out how to deal with strict Christian parents whose idea of what's best for you is different than yours. Content warning: dead sibling, alcoholism, Pentecostal childhood, playing Lil Boosie/Boosie Badazz at your funeral, presence as the solution to boredom in paradise, masturbating in the staircase at work? 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 Phylicia on Instagram: @laugh_with_phee Go see her show, HOT GIRLS PR ..read more

When everyone went scrambling to therapy during lockdown in 2020, what did the therapists think? Find out in this sweet and intimate conversation with Nick Turner, aka the experimental ambient musician Tyresta. I've had lots of musicians who are in Nick's orbit as guests, but he's the first one to really delve into the music-making process, so this could be a good intro to thinking about a genre that can get pretty heady. Find joy in the music and in this episode! Content warning: mom dying, burnout, insomnia, anxiety, modular synthesis, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Zen, making instrumen ..read more

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 col ..read more

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 ..read more

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 sing ..read more

"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 ..read more

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, maxfo ..read more

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 @chr ..read more

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 yo ..read more