My Water Cremation Expert - Steve Pomerantz

Summary

Tosh Show — "My Water Cremation Expert - Steve Pomerantz"

Host: Daniel Tosh
Guest: Steve Pomerantz, owner of a water cremation company in Florida
Date: May 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Tosh Show explores the world of water cremation with guest Steve Pomerantz, an entrepreneur and co-owner of "Gentle Water," Florida’s first modern water cremation business. Daniel Tosh uses his signature irreverent humor to probe both the science and business behind this eco-friendly alternative to flame cremation, while delving into cultural attitudes toward death, his own morbid curiosity, and a variety of quirky, candid tangents. The episode balances dark comedy with genuine interest in changing how people care for their dead — and a lot of banter about bones, body parts, and unique funeral traditions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Road Rage and Social Decorum (00:00 – 08:21)

• Tosh opens with a personal story about a road rage incident involving his family, reflecting on civility and societal aggression.
• He and his co-host discuss how people in the U.S. seem "meaner" these days and relate this to larger cultural and political shifts.
• Quote: "Everybody feels justified by just talking horrible and being horrible. And I find it, to be honest, refreshing because it makes me look great." — Daniel Tosh (06:32)

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2. Introducing Steve Pomerantz & His Path to Water Cremation (08:21 – 17:52)

• Background: Steve grew up in Florida, studied philosophy at Northwestern, worked in film finance, and fell into the funeral industry after volunteering at a grief camp for bereaved children.
• The lack of generational ties to the funeral business sets Steve apart.
• Motivation: Wanting to provide families with a gentler, more environmentally friendly option than flame cremation.
• Quote: “To some, this is gonna feel like a more gentle treatment of the body.” – Steve Pomerantz (16:46)

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3. What Is Water Cremation? (10:50 – 15:13; 18:44 – 22:20)

Steve explains the process, scientifically known as alkaline hydrolysis:

• The body goes into a large metal chamber with 95% water and 5% potassium hydroxide (alkali).
• Heated to 300°F and pressurized for 4–6 hours.
• Breaks down soft tissue; only bones remain, similar to traditional flame cremation.
• Safety & Details: The chamber door is the same as those on British nuclear subs (12:36).
• Bodies are typically placed in a biodegradable shroud for privacy.
• Families can view the body before cremation, and the process is considered more gentle and produces fewer emissions.
• Leftover water ("effluent") is treated, and ideally will be used as fertilizer, though currently it is processed as wastewater.
• Quote: “The number one cause of death while driving in a car is no accidents.” — Daniel Tosh (07:46, humorously misdirected but characteristic Tosh)

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4. Cost, Logistics, & Environmental Impact (18:44 – 24:15)

• Cost: Starts at ~$3,000, similar to or slightly more than basic flame cremation, but cheaper than burial with a plot or full-service funerals.
• Price for direct cremation (no extras) is ~$1,000–$1,200; direct burial ~$3,000–$4,000.
• Environmental Angle: Water cremation uses 90% less carbon than flame cremation.
• Regulations: Only one body is processed at a time due to law, except for special cases (e.g., mother and infant with proper paperwork).
• Quote: “It’s 90% less carbon footprint. It’s a lot better for the environment than a cremation.” — Steve Pomerantz (19:06)
• Tosh jokes about keeping his mom’s remains (“I want to take a bath in my mom at the end… Can we keep the water?” 22:20), and Steve notes some families have asked for the water to water gardens.

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5. Cultural Attitudes, Show and Tell, & Industry Oddities (24:15 – 39:48)

• Handling Remains: Water cremation leaves bone fragments larger and purer (white) than flame cremation, which produces gray, powdery ash.
• Families may keep bones, including skulls, legally in Florida (23:47).
• Steve brings show-and-tell items:
  • Samples of remains ("that’s human remains" 36:43), which are shown as a fine, white powder.
  • Reclaimed medical implants (a hip, a pacemaker, a breast implant), which survive water cremation and can be recycled, unlike in flame cremation where batteries (from pacemakers) can explode.
  • Custom urns, including a water-dissolvable urn and a miso soup spoon for portioning remains.
• Tosh’s fascination with the process leads to more morbid humor and candid questions.
• Quote: "How am I not … putting holes in the top of this and just putting it on your table at home?" – Daniel Tosh on the remains container (36:56)

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6. Legal Hurdles & Industry Expansion (28:04 – 31:48)

• State Regulation: Legal in about 30 states; Florida was the first to allow retail water cremation. California passed a law in 2017 but bureaucratic confusion and zoning issues made it hard to start there.
• Florida’s regulatory environment was surprisingly supportive.
• Steve plans to open more locations as legality spreads.

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7. Shifting Funeral Trends & Societal Observations (31:36 – 32:25)

• National trend: Cremation has overtaken burial (now ~63% vs. 37%).
• Tosh expresses his mission to push cremation rates even higher, stating a distaste for traditional burial.
• Quote: "Who wants to put a body in the ground?" — Daniel Tosh (31:55)

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8. Grief Work, Comfort Zone Camp, and Emotional Impact (24:16, 44:06 – 47:07)

• Steve discusses volunteer work at Comfort Zone Camp, helping kids who’ve lost family members process grief.
• Tackling death in both professional and volunteering settings gives Steve a greater appreciation for life and relationships.
• Tosh shares his own comfort with morbid topics, shaped by his mother’s work in the ER.
• Quote: "Spending time around it and doing the volunteer work makes me appreciate things in my life more." – Steve Pomerantz (45:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tosh on societal aggression:
  "What I see is people feeling justified to be super dicks and super aggressive right out the gate." (06:18)

• On water cremation's reality:
  “If you allowed family members to, like, throw a ball at it… before they plunge in. I’m just looking at making this a fun experience for people.” – Daniel Tosh (13:41; irreverent, satirical)

• On keeping the water:
  “You can keep the water. We've had some families ask us for it. They put it in the garden out back." – Steve Pomerantz (22:33)

• On size of remains:
  “A big shoebox full of remains? … Like a you-size person. Maybe a big shoebox.” – Steve Pomerantz (25:13)

• On expansion:
  "Our biggest challenge is people don't know about this. We want people to know they have the option." — Steve Pomerantz (39:27)

• On becoming desensitized to death:
  "It just makes you think about how lucky you are." — Steve Pomerantz (46:04)

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Humorous, Surreal, or Memorable Bits

• Show and Tell: Pomerantz brings a sample of human remains, a hip implant, pacemaker, and breast implant — which Tosh gleefully examines and jokes about.
  (36:33; 38:17; 39:57)
• Tosh: "I want to bathe in my mom" (22:20) – morbid, boundary-pushing humor.
• On funeral home zoning:
  "We wanted it to be water themed, right?" — Steve Pomerantz (26:29)
• On celebrity death wishes: Tosh talks about combining cremation methods and including necrophiliacs in his posthumous plans. (27:22)
• Various asides about water parks, wrestling (The Undertaker and Paul Bearer’s ashes shtick), and giving/receiving odd gifts (children’s books, pink Jeep for Steve’s daughter, empty urns, Erewhon glass jars). (32:44–35:56; 42:07–44:16)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–08:21 — Road rage story, cultural commentary.
• 08:21–17:52 — Introduction to Steve, his background, why he entered death care.
• 10:50–15:13 — Step-by-step water cremation process.
• 18:44–24:15 — Comparisons, costs, logistics, environmental impacts.
• 24:15–39:48 — Remains handling, show-and-tell with body parts and urns.
• 28:04–31:48 — Legal landscape, regulatory headaches, market trends.
• 44:06–47:07 — Comfort Zone Camp, emotional/business impact, discussions on death.
• 36:38, 22:33, 25:13, 45:40 — Sample notable quotes and moments.

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Episode Tone

Candid, irreverent, educational, and darkly humorous. Tosh’s style maintains a comical edge over the sometimes-macabre subject matter, while Steve provides factual, compassionate insight into an emerging death care practice.

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Summary for New Listeners

Daniel Tosh and Steve Pomerantz dive deep (pun intended) into water cremation—a process using alkaline water to break down bodies as a more eco-friendly alternative to fire. The episode is rich with Tosh’s trademark dark comedy, plus practical info about the business and logistics of dying in 21st-century America. There's lively discussion about grief, funeral business quirks, and why traditional burial may be outdated. The episode is suited for those curious about alternative death care and fans of unfiltered humor unpacking real-world taboos.

Transcript

[A]

Here's what I want to do. I want to take a bath in my mom at the end. How's that? How's that? For her final wish, I'll call her right now and ask her if she'll sign off on this Tosh show. Posh show. Tosh show for show. Welcome to Tosh Show. I'm Daniel Tosh. Eddie's over there. I'm in a foul mood.

[B]

Oh, man. Let's hear it.

[A]

I had a bit of road rage, and I want you to know that there was a time in my life where I would fly off the handle, you know, a little quicker. You know, I would fake reach for the glove compartment as if there was something in there escalating, you know? You know, those. Those old tricks. But it's been a long time, certainly since I've had children. You know, I knock it off. I'm not an aggressive driver. Rarely am I speeding. I'm going to give you all the information for this bit of road rage, and that way you can tell me how much fault is mine, because certainly there was some that was mine. Okay, here's the situation. I'm in my Rivian pickup truck, wife in the front seat, two children in the back. Okay. Not good to have road rage in front of your family.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Okay. Also pretty easy to not have road rage when the old ball and chain is next to me because she's like, knock it off. Okay. We turn onto a road that is only about a half a mile in length. The speed limit on this road is 25. There is an empty lot immediately on the driver's side. And in this empty lot, they were setting up something. An event or something like that. So I'm rubbernecking this event, and I'm going probably 10 miles an hour. Again, this road, how long did I say it was?

[B]

Half a mile.

[A]

Half a mile at the most. And I'm going at the very beginning of it. I'm going extra slow because there's this event being set up. Okay, whatever. I'm going 10 miles. I'm. The speed limit on the road is 25. This person gets up behind me very quickly, just starts hitting the horn, and then flies around me over double lines. You can't pass. And there's another car, you know, maybe a hundred feet in front of me that is probably going faster than I was. But, like, it's not like there was just infinite room. And once you pass me, they aggressively fly around them. That person actually swerves over to prevent the pass, you know, and whatever that they get around them, and they go to the stop sign, which is less than a half a mile away. We continue on to the same stop sign, they turn to the left, and they go into a hardware store. Okay. We have to be parking right next to the hardware store. That is a children's playground. That's where we were going.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Okay. I roll my window down, and we arrive all of eight, 10 seconds after they had pulled in. So that was her speed. That's what she made up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, now. And now, spoiler alert, it's a woman gets out of the car and flips us off.

[B]

Jeez.

[A]

Flips us off right away. So at this point, my window's down on my wife's, and I say, hey, there's a lot of kids around here. Is it necessary to drive like that? Something to that effect?

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't say anything different than that. Some version of that. A lot of kids around here. Do we have to drive? And she says, the speed limit's 25. Okay? Obey the laws or. And I just. I say to her, you're a horrible person. And my wife doesn't even. Doesn't even. Doesn't even bat an eye at what I say. I'm like, you're a horrible person. And she goes, you're a horrible person. And that was the end of it. How wrong was I? First of all, they were setting something up. I was looking at it for a few seconds. Yes. I was driving too slow. She's going to a hardware store, and she's milling about the gardening section. And I can see this the whole time I'm at the playground. Like, she's just. That's what she had to get to so quickly.

[B]

But she also got out and threw the bird at you right away.

[A]

Right away.

[B]

So, I mean, like, I feel like at that point, you're able to say,

[A]

tell her, well, I was driving too slow.

[B]

Exactly. Horrible person.

[A]

Okay. But she's dressed in, like, a very formal dress. But, like, not like a formal dress. You would. First of all, nobody in Malibu ever dresses nice. And she's dressed, like, in, like, 50s attire.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Like that type of dress. Okay. So I'm telling this story to our friends at the playground, and then she says to me, this girl that I'm telling the story to, she says, I was on the beach the other day jogging. You know, on our beach, people bring their dogs illegally. And you're allowed to. I mean, you're not allowed to. Just nobody says that you can't do it.

[B]

People are cool with it.

[A]

Okay. She was jogging on the beach, and this woman had a few dogs, and she's a dog person. And one of the dogs came up at her while she was running and nipped at her. Like, nipped at her leg. And she went to the lady and said, hey, if your dogs are actually going to chase after people, you should probably leash them. And the lady replies with no hesitation, I'll leash you. And I'm just like. So I'm like, what's going on? You're like, where's this story going? Well, this is my problem with Trump, okay? I don't care. This is what I think has happened. People are just meaner. This whole, like, oh, we're gonna make America great. I don't see that. What I see is people feeling justified to be super dicks and super aggressive right out the gate. Everybody feels justified by just talking horrible and being horrible. And I find it, to be honest, refreshing because it makes me look great.

[B]

You're right. By comparison, you're so calm.

[A]

I'm like, who would have thought that, you know, I turn into the guy that's like, oh, why can't we all get along, guys?

[B]

Let's reason here.

[A]

I'll put you on a leash.

[B]

Oh, that's a wild thing to say.

[A]

Now you say, how do I. That person easily could have voted for Kamala.

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

I don't know. Now, the person that I had the altercation with, I can't tell you where they lie politically. My wife has seen this woman before, and she's always dressed like this, and she's always alone. My wife thinks she's mentally unstable. So if that's the case, then, you know what? Let the birds fly. Yell at me in front of my children because I was driving too slow. I always drive too slow. I drive like a grandpa. That's my move. You know, the number one cause of death while driving in a car is no accidents.

[B]

That makes sense. Yeah.

[A]

You know how to greatly reduce those accidents? Get to where you're going quicker. Ah, less time in the road.

[B]

You're right about that.

[A]

Less time on the road makes sense. Get further than that one mile from your home distance. But I do feel good when road rage happens and the driver is a woman, because I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm not going to get dragged out of my car and pummeled to death in front of my kids.

[B]

What if you did this lady just rips you?

[A]

I mean, that'd be kind of cool, too.

[B]

That'd be cool. And Also, the kid's horrified.

[A]

I don't want anything bad to happen to her. But when she inevitably dies, I hope she considers the services of today's guest. Enjoy Paw Show. If you've ever heard someone say they know a guy who can completely dispose of a body in under six hours, chances are they're talking about today's guest and he's the owner of a water cremation empire in, you guessed it, Florida. Please welcome Steve.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Do you believe in ghosts?

[C]

No. But sometimes, you know when it's dark and I hear a bump? Uh huh. I second guess that.

[A]

Well, you get nervous.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You get scared.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You grew up in Florida and you moved to Boston after college. So my question is, how racist are you?

[C]

I didn't move to Boston after college and I'm not racist.

[A]

Okay, wait, you did? Well, you didn't move to Boston?

[C]

No, I almost moved to Boston.

[A]

Oh, I thought you went to Boston. Okay, where did you go to school?

[C]

I went to Northwestern. So I was in Chicago, it was cold. I had a job lined up in Boston and I called the company. I was like, you know, do you have an opening in a warmer office? Because I prefer that. And they said la. And I've been here ever since.

[A]

And you just gotta ask.

[B]

You asked.

[A]

They're like, you were about to be in Boston. You have no idea how many fights you avoided. Honestly, you're just gonna be in fights every day. And now you're here. Did you major in aquatic cremation?

[C]

I did not. I majored in philosophy.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

That's a great.

[A]

That's the right field, isn't it? You also worked in the film finance. Any projects that you worked on that we would know about?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I worked for MRC Studios. I mean, they were like behind the Bruno movie. And what was the Kevin Spacy political one on Netflix that was like House of Cards. Yeah, House of Cards. That they've done a lot of cool stuff.

[A]

I loved House of Cards. Then he had to go and just grope a couple young dudes and then the show just went. Went to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He did that years before. Whoa. Okay, whatever. I. Listen, I don't know all the details of the allegations. All I know is that I bought a water rower because of Kevin Spacey's character on House of Cards. There you go. I just like that he hate rode at night in his basement in dc. All right, explain to me what water cremation is because I've got a lot of questions about it.

[C]

It's a big metal chamber that fills with water and a little bit of alkali. What's a little bit 5% versus 95% water? And so in the Earth's crust you got 2.5% potassium. So our chemical is potassium hydroxide. So we have 5%. So we're basically doing the same process or a similar process that happens when you bury somebody, but we're speeding it up. So it winds up taking four to six hours for you to wind up with the same bones that you get at the end of a flame cremation.

[A]

How big of a metal chamber?

[C]

Like person height plus a few feet.

[A]

And then could you put Shaq in there?

[C]

You could put Shaq in there.

[A]

Will you put Shaq in there?

[C]

If Shaq wants to come, we'll put Shaq in there. I mean, we've had people up to £350 in there.

[A]

And it fills. The entire thing fills. It's not just like you're floating in it. Like it's.

[C]

Well, at various phases of the process, it's more and less full because, you know, the sprinkle comes in and eventually it gets pretty full.

[A]

It takes four to six hours for this to happen.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What actually happens?

[C]

Okay, there are a few cycles of filling with the water and the solution. So it's, you know, the 95% water, 5% alkali, it's going to fill a little bit, it's going to heat a little bit, it's going to pressurize. Then things start to happen, really. It breaks down the soft tissue in the body. So you're left with the same bones you get from a flame cremation. Once it goes through the first cycle, that does most of the work, then it empties out, drains.

[A]

How long does that take, first cycle?

[C]

Well, really, most of that four to six hours is getting the pressure up, getting the heat up and then getting. Getting the water filled.

[A]

What kind of heat are we getting?

[C]

To like 300 degrees, which is hot. But in a flame cremation, you're talking 1600-2000 degrees.

[A]

By the way, do you guys peek in at four hours and go, oh, this one needs another two hours.

[C]

You can't peek in dense. The door on the thing is. So it's manu. Our machine is manufactured by a company in Leeds, England. It's called the Leeds Bradford Boiler Company. They make the door on the British nuclear subs. So the door that we have on the machine is. It's the same door you'd find on a British nuclear.

[A]

Does it have what kind of.

[C]

It's got the.

[A]

Oh, that's the.

[C]

No, it doesn't have the thing, but it's got. It's got, like. It's round and it's got the bolts in it. Yeah.

[A]

Big hinges.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is it heavy?

[C]

Oh, my God. It's really. I need to put force to open it and close it.

[A]

So you're hands on. You've. Have you done this?

[C]

I'm not a funeral director. I've been there for it. I've helped a funeral director do it.

[A]

But, you know, the equipment. All right, you've never shoved a body in there.

[C]

Not myself.

[A]

How do they put the body in?

[C]

On a tray with rollers.

[A]

Okay, that makes more sense than what I was.

[B]

What were you thinking?

[A]

I was just thinking he's like, you know, weekend. Of course.

[C]

You watched that documentary.

[A]

Shoving them in. No. All right. How quickly when a body comes in, do they get into the dunk tank?

[C]

Well, they gotta. Okay, so they gotta go to the dunk tank. We don't call it the dunk tank.

[A]

Oh, that's good name. Good name for it.

[B]

You shouldn't use it. But it's. We.

[A]

I mean, if you allowed family members to, like, throw a ball at it with like a little circle next to it, puts it in before they plunge in. I'm just looking at making this a fun experience for people. It doesn't have to be so depressing.

[B]

Water squirt thing in the clown's mouth and kind of blow. There's a lot of things you could do with this on the road.

[A]

Stop taking. This is serious stuff. All right, back to this question of how long from when they come in to them being in the tank.

[C]

It could be next day or a couple days later if the medical examiner signs off really quickly and the physician signs off really quickly. But those are the things we're usually waiting for. So there's like someone at the state, the physician needs to sign off. Whoever's the treating physician, the medical examiner needs to, like, decline to do an autopsy. And then the state has to give you the. The medical examiner approval. You know, the approval.

[A]

Have you ever had one just in the freezer? That's just that. You just haven't gotten around to.

[C]

No, eventually everyone gets gotten around to.

[A]

Are people allowed much like, you know, dropping off a baby at a. At a fire station? Can. Can people just drop a body off out front?

[C]

No, please don't.

[A]

I mean, it's just. It just seems like a convenient place. We'll be right back paw show the breakdown. The Body. What does the water look like at the end?

[C]

Depends, you know, how clear it is. Depends on the person. Kind of like beer.

[A]

You put them in completely naked, they

[C]

get a shroud that's like biodegradable for privacy. And yeah, they go in that shroud.

[A]

I bought my father in law these vanishing. It's a bathing suit that disappears when it gets into water.

[C]

Probably.

[A]

Okay, it was a prank joke. And he put him in the Jacuzzi and we're all in the Jacuzzi. Next thing you know, he just starts realizing that everything's floating away. And I tell you what, we couldn't have been more tickled. We were howling. My son was in there so funny. And he was just. He was like, what is happening? And I'm like, ah, we bought you some joke bathing suit. It disappears in the water. Oh, it was. It was the best 5 or $10 from Amazon. Anyway, maybe it was 15, I don't know. It was just. We were just howling. My son and I were just crying. And as he's like, well, get me a towel. Any. What about jewelry? Do they. They wear like a. They want to be buried in their ring.

[C]

I think you could be. Yeah, you could go in in a ring, but you'd want to retrieve that after. So.

[A]

No, I'm not.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I'm not taking that vow to the afterlife.

[C]

Good point.

[A]

I'm a free man. Are you from a line of people that were in this business? How do you stumble into this world?

[C]

I'm unusual being in this world and not being from a line of people

[A]

who are in it, because funeral records, all of them, they're just generational. They all do this stuff.

[C]

Not all, but a lot. Okay, so I volunteer at a grief camp for kids who've lost parents and siblings. It's called comfort zone camp.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

We rent out sleepaway camps when they're not in session. We do a Friday to a Sunday every. Every big is paired to a little. So I'm assigned to a kid for the weekend. And it's like half sleepaway camp and half group therapy. So in the group therapy part, I've heard kids say, you know, I didn't like that. Mom, dad, brother, sister was burned. And so then I heard about this technology and I was like, okay, this actually could help families grieve better. Cause to some, this is gonna feel like a more gentle treatment of the body.

[A]

And from that you were like, oh, I.

[C]

Well, that's not the whole story. So, yeah, from that I was like, okay, this is really interesting. And for lack of a better description, I've been, like, a serial entrepreneur. So I've started, built a few different companies and I.

[A]

All of them, huge successes.

[C]

No.

[A]

What's your rate?

[C]

Like, one out of three.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Hey.

[A]

I mean, that seems pretty incredible, too, like, moderate success.

[C]

I know. So I was looking for what to do next, and I knew that I wanted something that wasn't going to get put out of business by AI and this. Checked that box. Then I started researching it with my now business partner, and we liked each other a lot. She's been the best business partner I've ever had. And we called around to all the funeral homes in the country that were already doing this, talked to them, got the story, and it just started to feel like the right choice. So took like three months for us to actually say, all right, we're going to do this.

[A]

How many locations you have? One.

[C]

We have one. But we serve the whole state of Florida. Eventually we'll have more locations throughout the state, but right now we've done everywhere. Tallahassee, Jacksonville, us. Like, all.

[A]

Could somebody in a state that doesn't have this service have their bodies shipped there?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that expensive to ship a body?

[C]

Like, a thousand bucks.

[A]

Just so you know where I'm at. Okay. I only. I rant about this on stage constantly. If anybody comes to my show, which we really should. I'm just a huge believer in cremation. And I'll. I'll do water. I don't care. I just recently flipped my parents, who are on death's door. They don't know it, but it's gotta be. And they're like, okay, you can have us cremated. So we're gonna do it. So I mean. And they're in Florida. Maybe I'll have them come visit the place. It's kind of nice to see where you're gonna end up.

[C]

We love giving tours.

[A]

Do people actually wanna see it before they sign up?

[C]

Yeah, a lot of people do.

[A]

That's good stuff. And what's the benefit of this versus traditional flame cremation? Are we calling. I don't think we should call the other one flame cremation. I think they just get cremation.

[C]

We usually say traditional flame cremation, but you can say cremation. People know what you're talking about.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[C]

Okay. So when I first heard about it, I thought, okay, this is an environmental thing, which it is. It's 90% less carbon footprint. It's a lot better for the environment than a cremation.

[A]

What do I care? I'm dead.

[C]

Exactly. So. Well, if that's your attitude, it really doesn't matter. And you should. Do you know the bargain basement thing?

[A]

Is it more expensive?

[C]

It's about the same as kind of a mid to higher end cremation. We started about $3,000.

[A]

Why are some cremations more expensive than others?

[C]

It's like buying a used car. It's like whoever door you walk into, you can find what's called a direct cremation for under $1,000. By the time you get out the door, maybe it's 11, $1200.

[A]

That's what. Okay, that's bargain basement cremation is about $1,000 to $1,200.

[C]

And that answer is different in some states.

[A]

Okay, yeah, I'm not holding you to that.

[C]

That range.

[A]

What's it cost to be buried in a box? Do you know this?

[C]

Yeah. So. And again, varies widely, of course, but if you want to be buried in a box with no services, so direct burial, it's probably a couple thousand more than a cremation. You can probably find it for 3,000, $4,000, depending on where you are.

[A]

I've always said cremation financially made the most sense, but I never actually even looked it up for one second.

[B]

Now you know.

[C]

Okay, but usually the burial comes with the service, right? Like, very few people get a direct burial.

[A]

The service costs money too.

[C]

Oh, the service costs a ton. The service is like usually more than the disposition.

[A]

Is the term service. Oh, good grief. Do you guys do a viewing before you can? Do you guys like you?

[C]

Not everybody, but it's an option.

[A]

Okay? It's an option.

[C]

You got to offer the option. People want to say goodbye.

[A]

What do you put them in?

[C]

You put them in kind of a thing that looks kind of like a casket. And you, you dress it up. You put like some linen in there to make it nice and make it presentable.

[A]

Is this the same box, though, for everybody?

[C]

It can be, but it's cleaned out. It's whatever. Linen.

[A]

I'm not implying that it's dirty linen, but I'm saying that's the casket that you're viewing. Casket?

[C]

Yeah, it's the viewing casket.

[A]

What's the machine cost?

[C]

Machine's expensive.

[A]

I know. I'm sure it's a bazillion dollars. I want to know.

[C]

A little over $400,000.

[A]

Yay. How much for the ingredients?

[C]

The ingredients aren't too bad. It winds up costing us a few hundred dollars. But that includes the energy cost and everything. I mean, we get the so we get shipments of the. Of the ingredients. Every so often, the shipment costs about 2000 bucks.

[A]

Is it dangerous handling it?

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Oh, this is a scary job then.

[C]

But we make sure we have people who are, you know, who know how to handle it. And then we have these holding tanks for it that they get pumped into. And once it's in the holding tank, it never comes into contact with anyone,

[A]

you know, and all of this water just goes right back into the Everglades.

[C]

Okay, so there are a couple things that can happen with. With the. We call it effluent. With the water that is left after it can be treated like any household water but before we send it to the municipal water system. And that's not something you end up drinking or, you know, it gets treated like other wastewater. Before that, we neutralize it. So, you know, on the PH scale, we wind up with a really high ph, and then we bring it back down by using another additive that brings the PH back down. So then we release it. The thing that we're really working toward is it turns out the effluent makes a great fertilizer.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So again, not going to put in the food supply, but for other uses, we really want to be able to tell our families that that's, you know, that's where that's going.

[A]

Here's what I want to do. I want to take a bath in my mom at the end. How's that? How's that for her final wish? I'll call her right now and ask her if she'll sign off on this. Can we keep the water?

[C]

You can keep the water. We've had some families ask us for it. They put it in the garden out back. So we give them instructions.

[A]

But you can keep the water. Oh, I'm gonna take a bath in my mom. That is her nightmare. Oh, she'll be so mad at me.

[C]

We would advise against it.

[A]

Well, sure, you're gonna advise against that, but you can't stop me. It's Florida. I wanna bathe in my mom. You're gonna let me. How easy is it to clean this machine? After each use, if the machine's working

[C]

correctly, which it usually is, it's pretty easy.

[A]

Does it get all gunked up at any point?

[C]

Not when it's working correctly. There have been a few times where it got a little gunked up.

[A]

And what do you do, bang the side of your car?

[C]

There's like. You spray it with a hose. You spray it because it's stainless steel inside, so it's like that's one of the nice things about it compared to flame cremation, where there's, you know, a lot of remnants left in from whoever was in there before. With ours, it's totally cleaned out in between cycles.

[A]

Traditional cremation, is it true that they grind up the bones in like a big old blender at the end?

[C]

Yeah, and we do too, in fairness.

[A]

So are you left with an intact skeleton or. No.

[C]

So it doesn't look like, you know, all the pieces aren't in place. Cause they float around.

[A]

They float around. They're not held together.

[C]

Yeah, they can be like. Yeah, that's a collarbone. That's a femur.

[A]

You can't keep human remains though, can you?

[C]

Well, what do you mean by that?

[A]

Like, if I want to keep my. Oh, I want to keep my mom's skull.

[C]

I think you could. Yeah, you could.

[A]

Florida, man. Florida. You can do anything in Florida.

[C]

I think you could.

[A]

I don't want my mom's skull.

[C]

For the record, you could want the bones. We'll give them the bones back. I think check with our lawyer. But yeah.

[A]

Also, the bone chunks are a little bigger than you're ready for.

[C]

Right. And that's a big difference between what we do and flame cremation because you don't get any bone chunks. It's all fine white powder. That's just pure calcium phosphate from the bone.

[A]

Well, the grinding of the bones. How come you're not. Because they grind the bones in the flame cremation.

[C]

Uh, yeah, but they, they're not leaving them as long what they're left with. There's still some other remnants of other things, and what we're left with is just kind of purer and brittler.

[A]

How large? How much. How much ash do we call it? Ash?

[C]

You can call it ash. People in the profession get would prefer that you call it cremated remains, but.

[A]

Okay, remains.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

How. How large are the remains at the end of your process?

[C]

So it's like 20 to 30% more than you'd get from a flame cremation.

[A]

Oh, nobody wants more here. We want less.

[C]

Well, you can do different stuff with it if you can scatter it and you don't have to take care of it.

[A]

Oh, God. All the things you have to do with the ashes or the remains. How big of it is this? I want to know. I want to size a shoebox full more.

[C]

Yeah, like a little more. Well, it depends how big you are.

[A]

If you're how big. My shoes are size 12.

[C]

Like. Like a you size person. Maybe A big shoebox.

[A]

A big, big shoebox full of remains? Yeah. Are you guys able to do multiple at the same time?

[C]

No.

[A]

Okay, just. Why? Because laws. The laws don't let them.

[B]

Laws.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But we can take their ashes and mix them together at the end.

[C]

Sure. With the one exception of. And this gets really sad. But, like, if it were, you know, a mother and infant daughter or something, there's a form you can fill out for that as a process for it.

[A]

But we know you had to make it horribly sad. Like, what about like, you know, two old people laying in bed together holding hands? You can't.

[C]

No, I can't do it.

[A]

What's the square footage of your business there?

[C]

It's like 2,500ft.

[A]

And is it in, like, a regular area? Like, is it in a strip mall?

[C]

Where is this location? Well, again, zoning is important, so. Because when they wrote the regulations for us, even in Florida, we're regulated the same as a flame crematory. So that limits where we can be. It's gotta be a pretty industrial area. So we're in the town of Mangonia park, which is just north of West Palm Beach.

[A]

Do you have, like, refrigerators there for bodies?

[C]

There's a bit. We call it a cooler.

[A]

How many can you hold in there?

[C]

If we really stacked them in, I think you could probably hold like 40 or so.

[A]

Well, how do you choose artwork for the front office?

[C]

We actually debated this a lot.

[B]

This is great.

[A]

This would be my biggest concern.

[C]

We wanted it to be water themed, right?

[A]

So it's like, okay, no brainer.

[C]

The company's called Gentle Water, so it's gentle water, and we wanted things that were gentle in water.

[A]

Is it gentle? I mean, it seems like it's okay.

[C]

Look, if you go in it, it's not too gentle. But compared to other methods of disposition, a lot of people perceive it as being more gentle. And if you think about what happens to a body in any. Anything you do after death, it's gonna be unpleasant. Even burial. Like, if we went into the details of what happens to a body, it gets pretty gross.

[A]

Well, now, if you're giving me the options of do you want to be buried in dirt or burned or water? Water's the no brainer. Just on the optics. I want to do a, you know, like a Neapolitan style. I'm gonna do all three. Water, fire, land.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Chop me up how you see fit.

[C]

Might be the first person to ever do that. That'd be cool.

[A]

But first, I want a weekend with the necrophiliacs why not a weekend? Those are my wishes. What's that? I said, those are my wishes. It's in writing. You must. Are you gonna be cremated? Yeah. Are you sure?

[C]

Pretty sure.

[A]

Have you thought about it? Is it in writing anywhere?

[C]

Actually, it's not in writing. You need to put it in writing.

[A]

I'm gonna be cremated for 100%. You. What are you doing, Ed?

[B]

Stuffed.

[A]

Ed's gonna be stuffed. That makes no sense. Ed, talk about the red tape you encountered when you tried to start water cremation here in California.

[C]

California passed the law making water cremation legal in 2017. It went into effect in 2020. But in 2020, and I was trying to get this started back then, we sort of said, okay, we're going to set up shop. We start contacting the various state bureaucracies that we have to. And they're like, okay, well, I see that the state wrote the law, but we've never heard of you. So this is like the Department of Public Health and the Air Quality Commission, and it just made it really hard for us to try and open here. Add that on top of the cost of real estate here, and especially because for what we're doing, it was zoned very specifically, so there were only a few places where we could do it. It just made it really, really undesirable to keep trying here. And I grew up in Florida. I understood the Florida market. I also thought this would do well in Florida. So we just decided to move it to Florida.

[A]

And Florida's lawless, so was it easy going there?

[C]

So, okay, this is shocking. Florida was the first state in the union to have water cremation, to have a retail operation doing this. There was a cemetery and funeral home that started doing it in, like, 2011. I think they had already cleared the way for us, but they got bought by a big company that wanted them not for the water cremation, but for their crematory and their cemetery. So they got rid of water cremation. So nobody was doing it in the state, but the state was ready for it, and they understood how to, you know, file all the paperwork and it got received. Right.

[A]

So, I mean, you can just throw them in the Everglades, too.

[C]

Some people do that.

[A]

Yeah. I want to say that one of the most beautiful funerals that I was a part of was a cremation. And it was in a ceramic of some sort. And they took the top off, they threw it in. It was clear water in the Bahamas or somewhere out in South Florida. And just. Just Watching as the vase went down and the ashes were spiling. It was actually beautiful. And I really remember it. I'm like, oh, that's not the worst way. Do you love the scene in the Big Lebowski when the ashes blow in his face?

[C]

Yes, it's so good.

[A]

You know that's right up the street at Leo Carrillo.

[C]

I know.

[A]

Oh, it's so good.

[C]

When my grandfather passed away like 15 years ago, we went to spread his ashes. And I learned that you shouldn't stand upwind of doing that and got some

[A]

on my legs, but because it's like fine dust. But yeah, it is. How many bodies a year are you liquefying?

[C]

So We've been open two years. We just crossed 100.

[A]

How did you celebrate your hundredth?

[C]

We didn't do much to celebrate.

[A]

Is this legal in all 50 states?

[C]

No, it's legal in about 30 states. It's becoming legal state by state.

[A]

Are you planning to expand beyond Florida? Yeah, I think this is a no brainer, guys. I'm like, this makes all the sense in the world to me. Is insurance cover any of this?

[C]

So there are two ways you can buy disposition services. You can do at need and you can do pre need. So pre need is coming in and making arrangements so you know your loved ones don't have to think about it after you're gone. And there are two ways you can do pre need. You can do it with insurance or with a trust. So you can put the money in trust or you can buy an insurance policy that when you die, it pays out.

[A]

That's what I should do for my kids instead of buying them college, just take them here and say, listen, this is where it ends.

[C]

You're going here eventually.

[A]

Uh huh. And I'm gonna pay for it. You're welcome. It's all get back in the car now. By the way, cemeteries are people still buying plots for people in cemeteries with human remains that are, that seems like the biggest waste of money.

[C]

A lot fewer than they used to. I think it was like 15 years ago, it was 80, 20 burial to cremation. Now it's 63% of people in the US are getting cremated. And it's, it's going to go higher than that, Steve.

[A]

You're going to get me to. I'm going to get it to 90% before I'm done. Before I'm done for sure. It's just so dumb. Who wants to be. Who wants to put a body in the ground? Did you like it when the undertaker the wrestler would Throw ashes in some of his opponents faces.

[C]

I was more.

[A]

It was Paul Bearer who would do that.

[B]

Paul Bearer.

[A]

Oh, Paul Bearer.

[C]

Paul Bearer. I was Ricky the Dragon. Steamboat Guy. But I don't. I don't like.

[A]

Pete's our wrestling guru. But you're. You're saying it was. It wasn't the Undertaker. It. Paul Bear was his sidekick or something. His manager. His manager. And he would throw remains in people's faces. That's not good.

[B]

That's a good manager.

[A]

Yeah. Did what he had to. Everybody that's on the show gets gifts. It's just stuff that I found around my house. Just junk. Some of the stuff that, That I wanted to bring for you because I know that you just had a baby is I wanted to get rid of a lot of the books that we have in our house. Do you like these books that always have the thing in them?

[C]

We haven't gotten to those yet, but yeah, I'll take them.

[A]

Oh, you're going to love them. No, you're going to. And we got a bunch of this. Look at this bonus, Diaz. All of our books are woke so, you know, like, you know, global babies, you know, global boys. They're just. What is this little scientist. You're going to love all these things.

[C]

This is great.

[A]

Look at this. I look up to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Look at a skin again. Oh, my goodness. General relativity. That's a page turner.

[B]

General relativity.

[A]

This is the household I live in, guys. Oh. Anyway, we got a bunch of books. We're going to give you these books now that.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Well, you just need these. I usually just show my kid, bring a trailer. And we look at cars and I'm like, all right, you're ready for bed. Here, let's see. Put.

[C]

Thanks.

[A]

Your daughter's too young for this. Okay. But.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Every girl needs a pink Jeep now.

[B]

She's.

[A]

She's too young for a Jeep now, but she's going to need one eventually. And this one's brand new because the company Garvey that. That they screwed me and I got mad and I just ordered another one on Amazon. But whatever. I hate them. But let me tell you something. Those things aren't bad. When you have the remote control, you kind of just go for walks with them and you feel like you're just driving a remote control car. It's kind of enjoyable. Yeah.

[C]

Anyway, can she drive, like, when she gets older, can she drive it herself?

[A]

Yes, of course.

[C]

That's terrifying. And I'm very grateful. Thank you.

[A]

Do you Ever go to Erewhon?

[C]

Rarely.

[A]

It's expensive.

[C]

Very.

[A]

Okay. But the people that go there are so beautiful. It's fun to look at them. I get Erewhon delivered a lot of times, and my wife, I don't know if you know, but they comes in the glass jars, a lot of the stuff, and they give you $2 to $5 if you return them. Okay. But I don't live on the other side of the hill.

[C]

See where this is going?

[A]

You do. Okay, so.

[C]

This is so generous.

[A]

Here's the thing. I am. You say, well, why don't you just get rid of them? No, I can't. I can't. I. I know where I came from. I know that I'm in a. I'm fortunate now, but I don't. I won't. I won't bring these back in because I'll be too. I'm too, like, oh, look, what if somebody recognizes me? Like, oh, there's community deal on Taj. I need somebody else to do it.

[C]

I guess when you're famous, you need an erawan returner guy, and I don't have one.

[A]

I'm not famous. I don't have one. I'm not. I'm just. I'm just. But I'm frugal enough to know that some, Someone should cash this in because it's worth so much money.

[C]

This is adding up.

[A]

Don't you let them lowball you. All right. Get that off my desktop. $. No, no, you don't have to.

[C]

Yeah, thanks.

[B]

Oh, good.

[C]

You do have a bag. Great.

[B]

How could you do it back?

[A]

We'll be right back. Pa. Show you what? What? You brought something for me?

[C]

I brought something. Okay. So you can choose your own adventure. I brought gifts for you and I brought show and tell.

[A]

Show and tell.

[C]

Show and tell. Okay.

[A]

We all. We like to call it share day at our house.

[C]

All right, so. So we talked about how the ashes, the cremated remains are different. Gosh. That's what we do.

[A]

Salt shaker.

[C]

This is a bit of. Of my business partner's mother in law, Lovejoy, and.

[A]

Are you serious? Yeah. That's human remains.

[C]

That's human remains.

[A]

We've never had human remains on our table.

[B]

It's illegal.

[A]

And now they'll never leave. I mean, how am I not. How are you not putting holes in the top of this and just putting it on your table at home and

[B]

just watching any restaurant and just leave it?

[A]

Wait, now. Okay, your business partner obviously is okay with you having these.

[C]

Actually, her mother in law was okay with with us having these, she. She wound up being our first case.

[B]

So that's what they leave with, so.

[C]

Well, they leave with a lot more of it. But. But it's. If you compare this to anyone who's seen cremated remains from a flame cremation knows that they're gray. They're singed, they're chunky.

[A]

They're gray. They're gray. This is white.

[C]

So when people in our profession see this, they. They're like, wow, that's beautiful. And that. This is actually something that sways a lot of people in the profession who. Who are. Who are not sure about it.

[A]

I mean, this is all I want. I don't want a shoebox full of this. I want this. But fine, I got this.

[B]

What's remaining? Like, as far as. Like, could you test for DNA?

[C]

There's no DNA in that.

[B]

So if somebody found that and tested in a lab, would they know what it does?

[C]

It's calcium phosphate.

[A]

So, yeah, that wasn't the gift. Oh, thank goodness.

[B]

Here's an hourglass.

[C]

No, you can't keep these.

[A]

Oh, an hourglass. Have people put them in.

[C]

You could do an hourglass, Eddie.

[A]

Good one.

[C]

We should keep an hourglass in stock. Okay. So another thing about water cremation that's different from a flame cremation is at a flame cremation, stuff melts because it's such high temperature. With us, if you have implants and things, they come out polished. So this is a hip.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

And we're able to recycle things like this.

[A]

This was a hip.

[C]

This was a hip.

[A]

I mean, at this point, this was in someone. Why was this hip so heavy? You think the hip would be like some car? Like something way less solid. That is bonkers that I'm holding it. I can't stop holding it, though. All right, thank you. Thanks for watching again.

[C]

Not a gift, but by the way,

[A]

so you had to come. That's your logo for Channel one.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Like, isn't that weird? They have to come up with all this stuff.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Then you have bags made.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What are the bags for? Just for this stuff? Yeah. How many different size bags do you have at your home?

[C]

Sometimes we'll go around to hospices and hospitals and bring them goodie bags and say thank you for the work that you do. And here's the sanity.

[A]

Are you trying to constantly lure people business? Are you.

[C]

Well, it's a business and you want people to know about it.

[A]

So I'm saying, at the hospital, are you trying to drum up business?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That's bizarre.

[C]

Well, yes, there are a lot of things about being in this business that are bizarre.

[A]

But, I mean, I like it, but I just know that I've always thought the other versions were stupid.

[C]

So our biggest challenge is people don't know about this. We want people to know they have the option.

[A]

And so I'm certainly not gonna look at that bag and go, oh, gentle water. That looks like a place to get a candle, not to fucking have grandma's hip come floating out.

[C]

Yeah, I don't think we were trying to get anyone to do it from a bag.

[A]

You know what else? Is there anything else in there?

[C]

Yeah, there are a couple other things, so.

[A]

Oh, this is good. This is good. Show and tell. I like show, by the way. I love show and tell. That should be what guests do. I don't need the gifts.

[C]

That's a pacemaker.

[A]

That's a pacemaker.

[C]

Sometimes they come out still beeping.

[A]

What?

[C]

This one's not beeping.

[A]

How is a pacemaker surviving 300 degree water?

[C]

I mean, they're made to last inside a body for a long time, so they gotta be pretty durable.

[A]

Well, okay, but nobody's body's going to 300.

[C]

So in a flame cremation, you're supposed to surgically remove pacemakers beforehand.

[A]

No, that's gonna be a cost.

[C]

The battery would explode. It doesn't always explode, but it can explode in the. They call it a retort, but it's the oven.

[A]

Okay, but I. If. Now, if you're telling me I get to be a surgeon, I don't feel like there's a lot of credentials to be a surgeon for dead people that I could pull off. You're telling me, hey, get that pacemaker out.

[B]

Yeah, I believe you could.

[A]

I could do that. I mean, I was just thinking about, in general, you say surgery. It's not really surgery. You're just cutting and ripping at this point.

[C]

We've always had the ripping, the tear. Oh, God. I know that reference. We've always had licensed people do it and then. Last thing, you'll know what this is.

[A]

Oh, this is a breast implant. Huh? Yeah, of course. I know that as a stress reliever.

[B]

And it comes out.

[C]

So. Yeah, it comes out. It comes out like that.

[A]

What? That. How does that not melt?

[C]

It doesn't melt.

[A]

Was that a c. I don't know what she was. It all depends on what she had before.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

Or he. Remember that one guy that got those boobs for a year? That gambler just to be funny in Vegas? Well, that's pretty neat. I don't know what would come out of me. I got a lot of mesh in my body from some surgeries of hernias, but I don't think. I think the mesh gets destroyed, maybe.

[C]

No, the mesh. You can see the mesh. The mesh comes out on the tray.

[A]

And we just sorted out this was all one person. Huh. What a life she had.

[C]

Yeah, I don't. I don't think this was from Lovejoy. I think this was someone else.

[A]

By the way, get. Get. Get this. These bodies. Parts off my desk. Holy cow. I've never had so many crazy things on this desk.

[C]

So I know you like to surf, so here's an urn that we. That we had made with, you know, it kind of looks like water.

[A]

Yeah, I know what it is.

[C]

So we had a few of these made by a local artist.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Jeez. Oh, no. Did I.

[A]

No, but it's fine. This is a real urn.

[C]

It's a real urn.

[A]

And how do you open it?

[C]

The bottom thing slides out. You got to pull kind of hard. Yeah.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

She's empty.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Just making sure. So is this gonna be my urn?

[C]

It could be. It could also just store candy in it.

[A]

No, no, no, no. You're not going to believe this, but I've always said, and I mean by always, I mean for at least 20 years, that I was going to buy my urn and just have it in the house just so that I could always walk by. Like, one day I'm going to be inside of that thing. Because you always. You always do things like, oh, one day my kids are going to be old, and then, boom, they're old. So to know that I'll one day be inside is. I don't know. That's a strong commitment. I mean, I like it. It seems so big.

[B]

Let me hold on to it.

[C]

Well, look, I have another option for you.

[A]

Oh, geez. Two options. Two urns.

[C]

So this one.

[A]

This is the best because I know

[C]

you like to, you know, you like to get out on the ocean. And so this one actually is. It dissolves in the water. You float it in the water.

[A]

Hey, it's like my grandpa shorts.

[C]

Yeah, that's where Greg goes.

[B]

Shorts.

[A]

What? What? That's where Greg goes. That's Greg's bathing suit. This dissolves in the water. I mean, I like the idea of dissolved. I'd probably like the. I might pop the flour off before I drop it.

[C]

And then you also got this, like,

[A]

this soup spoon for the miso spoon.

[C]

Yeah, miso spoon. I don't know.

[A]

Why do I need this miso spoon? Maybe like, if you want to shovel some out for some other things. I got it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This is so fun. This is real neat. I got real death stuff here, just twisted. I don't know which I'm gonna go with. There's 100% chance, no matter what I want to do, it's not gonna be what actually happens. Truthfully, I don't care what happens. But I like, this is a fun thing to come home.

[C]

Okay. And then last thing.

[A]

Oh, geez, there's more. There's one more thing by the Eddie. You get whatever urn I'm not using.

[B]

Okay. Just like that.

[C]

Okay. So at Comfort Zone camp, when kids do something that's like taking a safe risk, we have this thing where we, where other kids or big buddies will present them with a pin. We call it a pin worthy moment. So, you know, you. Today you had me on the show and talked about a subject that's not always comfortable for people. So I want to present you with this pin.

[A]

Nice.

[C]

It's from Comfort Zone Camp.

[A]

Comfort Zone camp. That's nice. By the way, is, are some of these kids completely, like, displaced or no?

[C]

What do you mean completely displaced?

[A]

Like, no longer parents in the, in the picture at all. And like, like, do you guys do stuff like that they work with finding new family things like that through the camp or not?

[C]

So I'm, I'm kind of on the, like the California committee that's trying to grow the camp. So. So we're doing a lot of outreach with all kinds of service organizations and with therapists and school districts to find families that could need it. Cause, you know, we give kids, kids who. At school, you're the kid whose mom or brother, sister, father died, and that's how people know you at camp. You come, you're like any other kid. You get language for dealing with things that are going on. You get good coping mechanisms and it's a beautiful place.

[A]

So do you become desensitized to death because of this and your social work? Let's be clear, it's all, you know, a lot.

[C]

I'd just say, like, spending, at least for me, spending time around it and doing the volunteer work makes me appreciate things in my life more. I think I just. A lot of the things that I took for granted before or that I would just not think as much about, I just take time to appreciate the people I love and the relationships I have with them. Because at camp you hear about kids Going through some terrible stuff. All kinds of different terrible stuff. And so it just makes you think about how lucky you are.

[A]

I've always been very comfortable talking about death, and it's because my mother worked in the ER and she was just morbid as all get out. To this day, still very much. But I used to say to my wife, before we had children, I would say, like, well, I don't know if I want to have kids, because what if something horrific happened? And I said, I to. To accept that that's the worst thing you could go through as a human. I don't know if I want to even roll the dice on even knowing that it's. It's. It's such a long shot. And she's like, that's absurd that this is your take on why or why not. Now, granted, I lost the war there, and we have children, and I love it, but I know it's. It's still in the back of my head every day where I'm like, this sunny day could just all be destroyed forever.

[C]

It's constantly in my mind and more than I thought it would be before having my daughter.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, good luck.

[C]

Thanks.

[A]

Yeah. Steve, thanks for being on the show.

[C]

Thanks so much, Daniel.

[A]

Okay, Paw show. I want to thank Steve for being on the show and giving me some nice gifts to regift. Carl, I never asked you, do you want to be cremated or buried? You're not gonna answer me? What do you want, Carl? Okay, you think about it. You think about it. You get back to me. You're in great health and you're young. We used to bury dogs as a kid. My parents, they'd bury them in our backyard, dig a hole really close to the house. Yep, way too close. I mean, I remember one, right? Like, I'm pretty sure the basketball goal, which, by the way, multiple homes that I've lived at as a child had basketball goals over yard. Just like Hickory, Indiana playing dirt ball. You can't learn to break people's ankles when you have grass. All right, let's go. Let's do these plugs. Patreon.com tosshow for your unedited, completely raw Tosh takes my first farewell tour. Guys, Eddie and I are heading up to the northeast in June. And when I say that I'm excited about getting to Hershey, Pennsylvania, to take my son to the water park. Woo. You coming to the water park, Ed?

[B]

Yeah, I'm coming.

[A]

You will?

[B]

I'll pack.

[A]

Your what?

[B]

I'm gonna pack for it.

[A]

All right, Pete, you going to the water park with me?

[C]

Yeah, I'll bring my trunks.

[A]

Atta boy. My son's never been to a proper water park.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

So we're gonna. We're gonna do it. Water parks are disgusting.

[B]

I used to work at one.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

I was a cook at Splash Town in San Antonio, Texas.

[A]

Splashdown. That's weird, because in San Antonio you got Schlitterbahn.

[B]

Schlitterbund's north whatever.

[A]

It's still San Antonio. No, you give me credit for.

[B]

But you're very close.

[A]

Schlitterbahn. You ever been to Schlitterbahn? Anybody? Never. Schlitterbahn is one of the best water parks in the world.

[B]

Yeah, it's great.

[A]

And when you talk about. You gotta talk real quick. Nate Bergazzi, he's. He's wants to open up an amusement park. Am I stealing his idea if I open a water park?

[B]

No.

[A]

Well, I just want. I'm gonna find out where he's gonna open his amusement park, and I'm gonna open a water park just nearby.

[B]

Yeah, but.

[A]

But at my water park, there's gonna be signs with profanity written all over it. Must be this tall. Don't run, dipshits.

[B]

Lose that top.

[A]

You piss in my pool, I'll piss in your car.

[B]

Don't worry. We got chemicals for it. Your mom away?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I. The reason I would do that is just so that our. Our markets.

[B]

There's no crossover, right?

[A]

There's no crossover taken from each other. You're not stealing from each other's business. Yeah, there's a different clientele coming to my gross water park.

[B]

It's actually goddamn polite of you.

[A]

All right, what else is there? Tossshowstore.com Right. We should sell a shirt with Carl's eyes closed. He's always falling asleep in here. You know he's got another podcast now. Carl does? Yeah.

[B]

What is this?

[A]

Him and Chris Hardwick.

[B]

Oh, okay. What they talk about?

[A]

What do they talk about? Yeah, I don't know. Game shows, how good things used to be. All right, let's hit the music. Chris and Carl, they love me. They love me not. Let's hear it, Ed.

[B]

This is from Matt Dog. All right, Daniel, thank you for the great entertainment. Your podcast has helped me through some very dark days. Can't thank you enough.

[A]

Oh, well, I mean, you can thank me. There's more things you could do, you know, make sure you get you and all your friends and family to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Patreon's not going to pay for Itself, Right.

[B]

Some five star reviews.

[A]

Some five star reviews. There's a lot of ways you could thank me enough. Come to some live shows. Not every year, but once a decade would be nice. But, yeah, once a decade. Some dark. What kind of dark times are we talking about? You talking about, like, the depths of despair or just like, oh, I got a case of the Mondays. Yeah, we're talking about, like, I'm fully addicted to heroin and I'm sucking off my wife's brother, and then he put the podcast on.

[B]

He's better, right?

[A]

Or you talking about, like, oh, I, you know, don't like my job. Yeah, it's a big, dark days. It's hard to interpret that. You talking about, like, you got, like, cancer and the doctor says three to six months max? Or are you saying, oh, you lost your taste buds for a week when you had Covid fucking five years ago?

[B]

Dark days.

[A]

You get what I'm saying?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

You know, you went to your niece's birthday party and three kids drown. Or are you talking just, you know, run of the mill, you got a flat tire. On my way home from my stable job. You talking, like, go to the Patreon

[B]

for the rest of these.

[A]

Let me tell you something. Keep going. Oh, my goodness. I. I was. I feel like I was channeling deleted scenes from a Robin Williams movie. All right, that's. Was that it? Was that a love. That was on the. They love me.

[B]

They love you.

[A]

No, I was a depressing. They love me, Ed. Well, you know, I can't wait to hear they love me not.

[B]

This is from PDFICO. Wow, 45,000 views in 24 hours. Careful, you might break the Internet. You suck.

[A]

I mean, I like the comment. Just because they wrote at the end, you suck. Yeah, you suck.

[B]

You suck.

[A]

I'm not trying to break the Internet. 45,000 views in one hour. Is that what he said?

[B]

24 hours.

[A]

In 24 hours. Oh, not even one hour. Yeah, well, listen, you suck, John. See you next week.