This Is Your Afterlife

This is an all-time great episode of This Is Your Afterlife, the entry point I'll give to TIYA newcomers going forward. Poet, essayist, cultural critic, Ohioan, and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient Hanif Abdurraqib explores death, loss, grief, awe, and even heaven so deeply in his work that I had to rephrase the show's tentpole questions for this conversation. The result is a dream episode with a new metaphor for the afterlife I can't stop thinking about. Hanif has a way with images that keep you thinking. We talk about: birds, aboutness as myth, talking to Martin Scorsese about The Last Waltz, not wanting war criminals in your heaven neighborhood, what Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchison taught him about "sad songs," making a city yours, checking in with people about the condition of their heart. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow Hanif: https://www.instagram.com/nifmuhammad/ I'm Always Looking Up and You're Jumping comes out April 2027! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790234/im-always-looking-up-and-youre-jumping-by-hanif-abdurraqib/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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 this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . I turned 42 last week, which is honestly the closest to middle age I've ever been. I decided to have fun with it and do some CONTENT CREATION by making a tier list with my buddy, TIYA After Dark regular Drennen Quinn. I created tiers based on the Afterlife Power Rankings, and we slotted in as many standard mid-life crises as we could, plus a few super specific ones. You can see the final list on Patreon, but good luck guessing what any of it means without listening to the episode! Final Tier List: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife/posts/tiya-after-dark-169078220 Afterlife Power Rankings: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife/posts/afterlife-power-157398357 Follow Drennen: https://www.instagram.com/drennenwon/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

"There is nothing theorizable or interesting about death," Tom Krell says 30 minutes into his appearance on my podcast about death. He's speaking precisely. By "death," he means what he's learned of it from watching those close to him die. The annihilation of self. The finality of it. What he's not doing is dismissing the topic. Tom earned his PhD in philosophy, metaphysics specifically, so it makes sense he's intentional and unsparing with his words. But he also makes this beautiful music. Under the name How to Dress Well, his art-damaged R&B soundtracked my bike rides the summer before my coma in 2014. Since then, his music has grown deeper and more promiscuous. He incorporates metal, noise, and field recordings on tracks with lyrics about the hegemony of realism and intergenerational trauma. But it's all wrapped around a spine of primal, haunting melody. In our conversation, Tom tells me how important it is for him to use direct language to discuss philosophical ideas. And that is what he's doing with his music. He piles layers of sound and meaning onto melodies to bury the ideas and feelings deep. I'm still listening. This episode also includes the fun of Tom claiming Hegel, Heidegger, and Marx are easy to grasp and the rare TIYA exclusive! Here it is: Tom plans to call the new How to Dress Well album "Glow Palimpsest No Hell." We talk about: working on philosophy in piecemeal while touring, writing about your own work, Gaspar Noe's Climax, exoteric vs. esoteric, his version of the "terribly stupid" movie Memento, consciousness as Hegelian "picture thinking," metaphysical cope. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow How to Dress Well: https://howtodresswell.substack.com/ https://instagram.com/howtodresswell/ https://twitter.com/HowToDressWell Listen to (and buy!) I Am Toward You. It's really very good: https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/album/i-am-toward-you Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker is the only movie I'd seen before embarking on this project, and it's in the conversation for most people's favorite Tarkovsky. But for me, the real treat of this episode is my guest. Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, and TRANSLATOR OF ARSENY TARKOVSKY'S POETRY. That's right, the father of Andrei whose poems feature prominently in several of his films, especially including Stalker. Phil and his co-translator Dimitri Psurtsev published I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, an approachable volume that shows the father as an artistic force, a fact the son clearly knew. Beyond his translation work, Phil has amassed a heap of impressive accomplishments. Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships! A Pushcart Prize! He's the director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University! And I just happen to know him socially as a fellow Clevelander and 80s punk rock fan. Who better to talk to about Andrei Tarkovsky's status as "the poet of cinema"? What a treat. Follow Philip and read his work: https://philipmetres.substack.com/ https://instagram.com/philipmetres/ https://twitter.com/PhilipMetres https://linktr.ee/philipmetres https://philipmetres.com/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary: https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . Here's another solo episode of TIYA After Dark where I give myself a starting point and an endpoint and improvise the in-between. This one is brought to you by moving to Ohio and driving to restaurants in the suburbs as well as my conversation with NEXT WEEK'S This Is Your Afterlife guest. Listen to find out who it is! I'm having fun with these. I hope you are too. I talk about: messy Chipotles, beef patties on shroom burgers, the conversation vs. the show, doing it wrong, authoritative truth, trusting your eyes. Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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 razz him for using "brutally honest" in descriptions of two separate projects, but I love Brandon Ogborn. I know the comedian, playwright, podcaster, and reluctant "content creator" from our days on the same improv team at iO Chicago, Sports Team. Reminiscing about that time is the closest I get to nostalgia, and even then, Bubba had stories that made all our eyes pop out of our skulls. He's continued to amass stories as a parent of two young kids he makes fun of on Instagram, and now he's turned his parenting and growing up stories into a one-man stage show, SAHD (Stay-At-Home Dad). It's a funny, personal piece full of heart and the idiosyncrasies that make Brandon such a joy to know. You should see it in L.A. if you can (details below). Either way, enjoy this little slice of Brandon. We talk about: his dead dad, ADHD, growing up Christian nationalist in the Midwest, out-of-body experiences vs. astral projection, people outgrowing homophobia, the accuracy of Pixar's Soul, reckoning with the statistical unlikelihood of Hollywood success. Also, there is one f-slur and a very quick mention of child sexual abuse. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow Brandon and his bad-parenting podcast, Listen, They're Fine: https://www.instagram.com/bubbaogborn/ https://www.instagram.com/listentheyrefine/ https://www.listentheyrefine.com/ If you're in Los Angeles August 22, 29, or September 5, check out SAHD (Stay-At-Home Dad) at the UCB Annex: https://ucbcomedy.com/show/sahd-stay-at-home-dad/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. We've reached Mirror, the 4th of the man's 7 fiction features but not quite the midpoint of our series because of the inclusion of a documentary and a book. I say "fiction," but this is famously Tarkovsky's most autobiographical film. In at least one interview, he claimed every single thing in it had happened. I'm skeptical, but as you'll hear, he certainly went to GREAT LENGTHS for verisimilitude. My guest for this episode is Vienna, a contributor to Madeline Lane-McKinley and Sean O'Brien's The Return of the 90s anthology who also happens to love this movie. This episode is a special one because I refer to Tarkovsky's questionnaire for his mother. He had planned to include her answers as documentary footage in an early version of the film, but instead, these wide-ranging questions serve as punctuation throughout our episode. As always, let me know what you think. Check out Vienna's work: https://heatwavemag.info/ https://www.instagram.com/htwvmag/ https://blindfieldjournal.com/2025/01/04/staying-with-the-storm-weathering-with-you-and-the-oceanic/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary: https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . These bonus episodes are nothing if not experimental. Even more than This Is Your Afterlife, TIYA After Dark is a place to test how close I can come to replicating the experience of doing a live show in podcast form. Which is to say I am so curious what you think of this week's episode, in which my fellow comedians and longtime buddies Drennen Quinn and Daniel Strauss join me to talk over Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, a recently reissued concert film Drennen saw at the store recently. He suggested we do the podcast while the movie plays, and so we did. Does the concert audio cut out at one point? Does a baby interrupt the recording? Does the episode start with three people and end with two? Yes, yes, and yes! It is chaos. Here's hoping the good kind! I know I encourage your feedback every week, but if there's any week to email, it's this one. We talk about: boomers on weed, music babies can play, how volcanoes work, wearing diapers to concerts. To watch along with us, click the link, hit pause, mute the audio or lower it to your desired volume, and press play when we do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVau7xYA8rk Follow Daniel and Drennen: https://www.instagram.com/danielstrauss/ https://www.instagram.com/drennenwon/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

"Ants experience humans as shadows and wind." And with that statement, four-time (!) TIYA guest Oui Ennui blew my mind. There are forces bigger than we can imagine, and how can we be sure of what we know??!!! My conversations with Jonn (Oui) get heady, so I wasn't surprised to be talking about the nature of time, but that ants line was poetry. It's a moment of resonance in a conversation about resonance, artistically and in relationships. The episode starts and ends with the concept of no-contact, but it's the result of the exact opposite between Oui and me. We talk about: breaking no-contact, Alice Coltrane, Prefab Sprout, not being built for these times, passive suicidal ideation, reasons to stay alive, overexplaining as kink, one-person communities. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow Oui Ennui: https://www.instagram.com/ouiennui/ https://ouiennui.bandcamp.com/ If you're in Chicago August 14, check him out live at the Electronic Buffet: https://www.instagram.com/p/DbLinkMRHMJ/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. With this Solaris episode, we're deep into this filmography. My head is full of flowing waters, plants swaying in the wind, and horses being weird, and we've reached the point of the series where I'm not sure what I've said and on which episode. Plus, this movie affects me the way the planet Solaris does everyone in its orbit: it scrambles my mind! Fortunately, I've got film critic Fred Barrett here to talk about it. Fred is sharp and insightful, and he rattled off a syllabus' worth of other films to watch during the course of our conversation. If you like it, let me know! Follow Fred: https://twitter.com/fred_beretta https://fredbarrett.substack.com/ https://letterboxd.com/electricdreams/ Incredibly Incomplete List of Works Referenced: Stanislaw Lem: Solaris Harlan Ellison: "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" Solaris (2002) Red Line 7000 (1965) Gertrude (1964) Ugetsu (1953) Laura (1944) Kiss Me Deadly (1955) High and Low (1963) Journey to the Shore (2015) High and Low (1963) Moon Rainbow aka Lunar Rainbow (1983) Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary: https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . It's another episode of Bracketology, the comedy argument game show created by me and some of my longest friends in comedy. This time, it's Bill Stern, Claire Favret, Meaghan Strickland, and me arguing Ways to Live! How it works: pick a topic, fill a bracket with examples of that topic, and 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'd like to look at the bracket in seed order before/while you listen, here you go! Golden Rule Farm With All Your Friends Surrounded by the Ripest, Most Delicious Fruits (Fruit Commune) Extravagantly YOLO Famous Musician Constantly on Tour, Beloved by Fans but at Night After the Shows… Alone (Commitment to Craft) Anonymous Double Life Vicariously Enjoy, subscribe to TIYA After Dark to hear the full ep, and spread the word! Follow Claire: https://www.instagram.com/clairefavs/ Follow Meaghan: https://www.instagram.com/stricklygram/ Follow Bill and Claire's sketch group, Cigarette Sandwich: https://www.instagram.com/cigsandwich/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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 don't remember when I started responding "THANK YOU" to guests saying, "Good question," but E Conner said it so often I felt obliged to explain the bit. I was slightly humbled by their admission it's an organizing trick for when you don't have an answer and not the turbo validation I interpret it to be. Fortunately, I don't need permission to self-aggrandize, and I have no plans to retire the bit any time soon. It's a silly moment in the midst of a really pleasant and sometimes intense conversation about E's punk rock radicalization, surprising (to me) orientation toward religion, and what it feels like to be part of an activist/artistic community in the Bay Area for 20 years. We talk about: punk roots, tenant organizing, Black Liberation Army pamphlets, Maximum Rocknroll, traveling as a homeless teenager, the Ghost Ship fire, environmental grief, turning self activity into collective activity. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Check out & support the Freedom Archives: https://freedomarchives.org/ Follow The Weakly: https://www.instagram.com/thee_weakly/ Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. This is it, y'all: the Andrei Rublev episode. I write this blurb from a future where I've now seen 5 of the 7 Tarkovsky features, and currently, Andrei Rublev is my favorite. In the Mark Le Fanu book I reference throughout this series, he says this movie "represents filmmaking about as physically ambitious as it is possible to contemplate." And here, I'm contemplating it with Pod Casty for Me's Ian Rhine. Ian is a sensitive, funny, and intelligent conversation partner, and this episode was truly a joy to make. At one point during recording, I remember sitting back and just appreciating how nice it was to be having such a great talk about such an incredible movie. This episode is longer than the final cut of the film but not as long as the original cut, The Passion According to Andrei. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Incredibly Incomplete List of Works Referenced Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed Mark Le Fanu: The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky Follow Pod Casty for Me: https://www.podcastyforme.com/ https://www.patreon.com/c/PodCastyForMe/ https://www.instagram.com/podcastyforme/ https://twitter.com/podcastyforme Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary: https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . I watched Louis CK's new Netflix special, Ridiculous, as well as the Vulture podcast about it, so you don't have to. I talk about: preserving the status quo, high school essays and college bulletin boards, toothless criticism, cancel culture, evolution, you simply DO NOT have to hand it to him, and we all deserve better. Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Gabriel Jermaine Vanlandingham-Dunn has lost enough people in his life to form a "Grief Voltron" (his words), and he didn't hold back in this wide-ranging talk that's been a long time coming. I hope you appreciate this conversation with a man who spends so much time appreciating the music of others through his writing, thinking, DJing, and, yes, curating. We talk about: deliberately cultivating your life, the Bomb Squad, "boundaries" & "healing" as buzzwords, lifelong what if-ism, grieving the recent passing of his mother, losing family members to gun violence and HIV/AIDS, invisible disability, recategorizing friendships, traveling as achievement, tech people = enemies, and our new podcast: Future Words. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow Gabriel: https://www.instagram.com/soundsbydjibril/ https://www.instagram.com/thecowartsprogram/ https://www.instagram.com/astralspiritsrecords/ https://theofficialcowmusic.bandcamp.com/ https://astralspirits.bandcamp.com/ His recent "archival appreciation" of late jazz legend Sonny Rollins is a warm and rewarding read: https://www.agatheringtogether.com/blog/the-brightest-of-sonsets He wrote the foreword to Cisco Bradley's I Hear Freedom: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/i-hear-freedom/9780231221573/ And there will be a panel for the book on August 6, so pay attention to his Instagram for details! Follow TIYA, share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Welcome to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. In this very first episode, I welcome film writer Peter Raleigh to talk about Tarkovsky's 1962 debut feature, Ivan's Childhood. After brief descriptions of the filmmaker's early life and the Soviet cinema from which he emerged, we dive deep into this movie about an orphan scout for the Red Army. Tarkovsky said one of his objectives making Ivan's Childhood was "to establish whether or not I had it in me to be a director," and surprise, surprise: he did. This is the first of many wonderful conversations about these movies I'm excited for you to hear. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Follow Peter Raleigh: Long Library Substack: https://peterraleigh.substack.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PetreRaleigh Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/petreraleigh.bsky.social Follow TIYA & share your thoughts: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary: https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife . I asked, and you delivered: the very first This Is Your Afterlife Mailbag episode. I really loved doing this, and I hope you like it too! Topic include death (naturally), seeking out new media, internalizing criticism of others' art, reality shows, poker chips, fantasy baseball, and fruit. Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisdavemaher@gmail.com 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/

Just what the title says. For next week's bonus episode, I am going to do a listener mailbag, and it will be very awkward with no input from you, a listener! So send your questions to my or the podcast's DMs on Instagram ( @thisisdavemaher / @thisisyourafterlife ) or my email: thisisdavemaher@gmail.com . Voice notes welcome! (I assume by sending you're giving me permission to include them in the episode.) I'll answer questions about me or the show, requests for unqualified advice, or whatever else you can think of, probably. Just send it now! This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes—LIKE THE MAILBAG—by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Artwork by Matt Sage: https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

I met rapper, writer, visual artist, and technical octuple threat Rhys Langston when he opened for This Is Your Afterlife's 200th guest, Open Mike Eagle, at a show in Cleveland. As I say to him in this episode, there were telltale signs he was my type of guy. I think he'll be your type of guy too. We recorded near the end of the NBA playoffs, as my partner and I were deepening our Cavs and general basketball fandom, and it just so happens Rhys has an entire former life as a basketball player. And that's not even his coma! Enjoy our conversation, and do yourself the favor of checking out his music. It's especially good for summer. We talk about: working in multiple art forms, the tingle vs. the cold sweats, being too intense, amassing an archive of your own work, brain breaking after calling off an engagement, how many notebooks he uses at once, (Long) COVID & brain fog, wishing your art was more of a conversation, anhedonia, berries from the neighbor's yard, George Jackson, Octavia Butler, My Life as a Night Elf Priest. This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show and get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Follow Rhys: https://rhyslangston.substack.com/ https://rhyslangston.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rhyslangston/ Need a starting point with his massive music catalog? Try... Pale Black Negative: https://rhyslangston.bandcamp.com/album/pale-black-negative and/or Language Arts Unit: https://rhyslangston.bandcamp.com/album/language-arts-unit Especially be on the lookout for his Pacific Northwest tour dates June 29–July 4 (details on IG) + his album and debut book of poetry, both coming in October (on his birthday, of course). Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com 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 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. This solo episode was an experiment. Of the things that have occupied my thoughts recently, I picked two, made one a starting point and the other an endpoint, and improvised my way from A to B. I'm pretty happy with it! As always, I'd love to know what you think. I talk about: no one actually understands AI, harm reduction, bubbles bursting, property over people, inane job interviews, reckoning with Tarkovsky, echo chambers, losing dreams, news flash: unemployment is hard and sad. Support the show and get the TIYA After Dark feed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife Dr. Fatima: How to (Anti) AI Better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y85nqc2zm7M Anthopic, OpenAI Should Not Be Allowed to IPO, Says Ed Zitron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbKDmkJPVvI FracTracker's U.S. Data Centers Tracker: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/5a4d072ad01449bba5698a80103fb909/page/Map Stop Bad Data Centers: https://datacenters.halttheharm.net/ Food & Water Watch No More New Data Centers!: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/11/06/no-more-new-data-centers/ How to Stop a Data Center Near You: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/03/05/how-to-stop-a-data-center-near-you/ Stop Data Centers Now! Campaign Toolkit: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/FOR-WEB-Toolkit_-Stop-the-Data-Center-Buildout-2.pdf Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife: https://thisisyourafterlife.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/ thisisyourafterlifepodcast@gmail.com 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/