Tosh Show - My Water Cremation Expert - Steve Pomerantz

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Daniel gets his affairs in order with Steve Pomerantz, founder of a water cremation company in Florida that offers a gentler, more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional flame cremation.�� Join our Patreon for exclusive content: http://patreon.com/toshshow Help Comfort Zone Camp https://comfortzonecamp.org/donate/

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 it right now and ask her if she'll sign off on this. Tosh. Tosh Show for show. Welcome to Tosh.

I'm Daniel Tosh. Eddie's over there. I'm in a foul mood. Oh, man. Let's hear it. 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 it. You know, you know, 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 as 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 right okay also pretty easy to not have road rage when uh the old ball and chain is next to me because she uh she's like knock it off okay we turn on to 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. road, how long did I say it was?

Half a mile. 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. 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 once you pass me. They aggressively fly around them. That person actually swerves over to prevent the pass, you know, and whatever. They get around them and they go to the stop sign, which is less than that. and 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. Right. Okay. I roll my window down and we arrive all of eight, ten seconds after they had pulled in. So that was the slower.

her speed that's what she made up yeah okay now you and now i spoil her lord it's a woman gets out of the car and flips us off geez 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 to something to that effect right i don't say anything different than that There's some version of that. There's a lot of kids around you. And she says, the speed limit's 25, okay? Obey the laws.

And I just, I say to her, you're a horrible person. And my wife doesn't even, doesn't even get, 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. Uh-oh. 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. But she also got out and threw the bird at you right away. Right away.

So, I mean, like, I feel like at that point you're able to say, tell her. Well, I was driving too slow. Exactly. Borable person. Okay, but she's dressed in, like, a very formal dress. but like not like a formal dress that you would first of all

nobody in Malibu ever dress is nice and she's dressed like like in like 50s attire. Okay. Like that type of dress. Mm-hmm.

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. People are cool with it. 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. Fuck.

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 going to make America great.

I don't see that. What I see is people feeling justified to be super dicks and super. 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. You're right. By comparison, you're so calm. 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, let's reason here. I'll put you on a leash. That's a wild thing to say. Now you say how to that person easily could have voted for Kamala. I don't think so. 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. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. You know how to greatly reduce those accidents? Get to where you're going quicker.

Ah. Less time in the road. You're right about that. 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. What if you did? This lady just rips you. I mean, that'd be kind of cool, too. That'd be cool. And also the kids horrified. 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. 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. He's the owner of a water cremation empire, and you guessed it, Florida. Please welcome Steve. Thanks for having me. Do you believe in ghosts?

No, but sometimes, you know, when it's dark and I hear a bump, I second guess that. Well, you get nervous. Yeah. You get scared. Yeah. You grew up in Florida and you moved to Boston after college. So my question is, how racist are you? I didn't move to Boston after college and I'm not racist.

Okay. Wait, you didn't move to Boston? No, I almost moved to Boston. Oh, I thought you went to Boston. Okay. Where did you go to school? 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, L.A., and I've been here ever since. And you just got to ask. You asked. They're like, you were about to be in Boston. You don't, you have no idea how many fights you avoided. Honestly. You're just going to be in fights every day. And now you're here. Did you major in aquatic cremation? I did not. I majored in philosophy. That's good. 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?

I mean, I worked for MRC studios. I mean, they were like behind the Bruno movie and what was the Kevin Spacey political one on Netflix? House of Cards? Yeah, House of Cards. They've done a lot of cool stuff. I loved House of Cards. Then he had to go and just grow up.

a couple young dudes, and then the show just went to shit. Right. You did that years before. Well, okay, whatever. 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 rowed at night in his basement in D.C.

All right, explain to me what water cremation is, because I've got a lot of questions about it. It's a big metal chamber. 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. How big of a metal chamber? Like person height plus a few feet and then... Could you put Shaq in there? You could put Shaq in there.

Will you put Shaq in there? If Shaq wants to come, we'll put Shaq in there. I mean, we've had people up to 350 pounds in there. And it fills, the entire thing fills. It's not just like you're floating in it. It's, right. Well, at various phases of the process, it's more and less full because, you know, the sprinkle comes in and eventually gets pretty full.

It takes four to six hours for this to happen? Yeah. What actually happens? 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 and 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. How long does that take? First cycle. Well, really, most of that four to six hours is getting the pressure up, getting the heat up, and then getting the water filled. What kind of heat are we getting to? Like 300 degrees, which is hot, but in a flame cremation, you're talking 1,600 to 2,000 degrees. By the way, do you guys peek in at four hours and go, oh, this one needs another two hours? You can't peek in. The door on the thing is, so it's manual, 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, it's the same door you'd find on a British nuclear sub. Does it have, what kind of thing? Oh, that's fun. It's neat. No, it doesn't have the thing, but it's got, it's got, like, it's round and it's got the bolts and it.

Yeah. Big hinges? Yeah. Is it heavy? Oh, my God, it's really, like, I need to put force to open it and close it. So your hands on, have you done this? I'm not a funeral director. I've been there for it.

I've helped a funeral director do it. But you know the equipment. All right. You've never shoved a body in there. Not myself. How do they put the body in? On a tray with rollers. Okay.

That makes more sense than what I was. What were you thinking? I was just thinking he's like, like, you know, weekend. Watch that documentary. Shaving them in. No. All right. How quickly when a body comes in, do they get into the dunk tank?

Well, they got to, okay. So they got to go through. Are you going to the dunk tank? We don't call it the dunk tank. Oh, that seems like a good name for it. You shouldn't use it, but it's, we should use it. I mean, if you allowed family members to, like, throw a ball at it with, like, a little circle next to it. He 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. The water squirt thing in the clown's mouth and kind of blow. There's a lot of things you could do with that's on the road. Stop taking me. This is serious stuff. All right, back to this question of how long from when they come in to them being in the tank. 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 medical examiner approval. Have you ever had one just in the freezer that's just that you just haven't gotten around to? No, eventually everyone gets gotten around to. Are people allowed much like, you know, dropping off a baby at a fire station, can, Can people just drop a body off out front?

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The breakdown, the body, what does the water look like at the end? Depends, you know, how clear it is, depends on the person. Kind of like beer. You put them in completely naked? They get a shroud that's like biodegradable for privacy. And yeah, they go in that shroud. I bought my father-in-law, these vanishing, it's a bathing suit that disappears when it gets into water. Probably okay.

It was a prank joke. And I put him in the jacuzzi. And we're all in the jacuzzi. 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 my my son was in there so funny 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 five or ten dollars from amazon anyway ten dollars maybe it was 15 i don't know it's a great 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 want to be buried in their ring? I think you could be, yeah, you could go in in a ring, but you'd want to retrieve that after. No. I'm not. Okay. I'm not taking that vow to the afterlife. Good point.

I'm a free man. Are you from a line of people that were in this business? How do you stumble into this world? I'm unusual being in this world and not being from a line of people who are in it. Because funeral record, all of them, they're just generational. They all do this stuff. 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. Okay. We rent out sleepaway camps when they're not in session. We do a Friday to a Sunday. 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 because to some this is going to feel like a more gentle treatment of the body. And from that you were like, oh, 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 built a few different companies. And I all of them huge successes. No. What's your rate? Oh, like one out of three. Okay. Hey. I mean, that seems pretty good. Incredible, too. Like moderate success.

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. Talk to them, got the story, and it just started to feel like the right choice. So it took like three months for us to actually say, all right, we're going to do this. How many locations?

You have one? 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, U.S., like all around. Could somebody in a state that doesn't have this service have their body shipped there? Yeah. Is that expensive to ship a body?

Like a thousand bucks. Just so you know where I'm at, okay? 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 do water. I don't care. I just recently flipped my parents who are on death store. They don't know it, but I mean, it's got to be.

And they're like, okay, you can have us cremated. So we're going to do it. And they're in Florida. Maybe I'll have them come visit the place. It's kind of nice to see where you're going to end up. We love giving tours. Do people actually want to see it before they sign up for it? Yeah, a lot of people do.

That's good stuff. And what's the benefit of this versus traditional flame cremation? Are we called? I don't think we should call the other one flame cremation. I think they just get cremated. We usually say traditional flame cremation, but you can say cremation, people know what you're talking about it. 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. What do I care? I'm dead. Exactly. So, well, if that's your attitude, it really doesn't matter and you should do, you know, the bargain basement thing. Is it more expensive? It's about the same as kind of a mid-to-higher-end cremation. We started about $3,000. Why are some cremations more? expensive than others. It's like buying a used car. It's like whosoever 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 $11,200.

That's what, okay, that's bargain basement cremation is about $1,200. And that answer is different in some states. Okay. I'm not holding you to that. That range. What's the cost to be buried in a box? Do you know this? Yeah. So, and again, varies widely. Of course. But if you want to be buried in a box with no services, so direct 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. I've always said cremation financially made the most sense, but I never actually even looked it up for one second. Now you know.

Okay. But usually the burial comes with the service, right? Like very few people get a direct burial. Wait, the service costs money too? Oh, the service costs a ton. The service is like usually more than the disposition is the term. I don't want that. Service?

Oh, good grief. Do you guys do a viewing before? You can. do you guys like you not everybody but it's an option okay it's not offer the option people want to say goodbye what do you put them in 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 it's the same box so for everybody it can be but it's cleaned out it's whatever linen I'm not implying that it's dirty but I'm saying it's that's our that's the casket that's

you're viewing casket yeah it's the viewing casket what's the machine cost sheen's expensive I know. I'm sure it's a bazillion dollars. I want to know. A little over $400,000. Yay. How much for the ingredients? 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 ingredients every so often. The shipment costs about $2,000. Is it dangerous handling it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a scary job then. 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. And all of this water just goes right back into the Everglades?

Okay. So there are a couple things that can happen 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. Okay. 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. 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? You can keep the water. We've had some families ask us for it and they put it in the garden. I'm back.

So we give them instructions, but. You can keep the water. Oh, I'm going to take a bath in my mom. That is her nightmare. Oh, she'll be so mad at me. We would advise against it. Well, sure you're going to advise against that, but you can't stop me. It's Florida.

I want to bathe in my mom. You're going to let me. How easy is it to clean this machine after each use? If the machine's working correctly, which it usually is, it's pretty easy. Does it get all gunked up at any point? Not when it's working correctly. There have been a few times where it got a little gunked up. And what do you do?

Bang the side of it a little hard? 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. Traditional cremation, is it true that they grind up the bones in like a big old blender at the end? Yeah. And we do too, in fairness.

So are you left with an intact skeleton or no? So it doesn't look like, you know, all the pieces aren't in place because they float around. They float around. They're not held together. Yeah, you can be like, yeah, that's a collarbone. That's a femur. You can't keep human remains, though, can you? Well, what do you mean by that?

Like if I want to keep my, oh, I want to keep my mom's skull. I think you could. Yeah, you could. In Florida? Man, Florida, you can do anything in Florida. I think you could. I don't want my mom's skull for the record. People could want the bones.

We'll give them the bones back, I think. Check with our lawyer, but, yeah. Also, the bone chunks are a little bigger than you're ready for. 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, white powder that's just pure calcium phosphate from the bone. Well, the grind into the bones, how come you're not getting it? Because they grind into the bones.

the bones and the flame cremation. Yeah. But they... They're not leaving it in those 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 pure and brittler. How large? How much ash?

Do we call it ash? You can call it ash. People in the profession get, would prefer that you call it cremated remains, but... Okay, remains. Yeah. How large are the remains at the end of your process? So it's like 20 to 3. 30% more than you'd get from a flame cremation.

Oh, nobody wants more here. We want less. Well, you can do different stuff with it. You can scatter it, and you don't have to take care of it. Oh, God. Do different stuff with it. All the things you have to do with the ashes are the remains. How big of it is this?

I want to know, I want to size. Is shoebox full? More. Yeah, like a little more. Well, it depends how big you are. If you're... How big my shoes are? Size dwell.

Like a U-sized person, maybe a big shoebox. A big shoebox full of remains. Yeah. Are you guys able to do multiple at the same time? No. Okay. Just why? Because the laws don't let them.

Laws. Yeah. But we can take their ashes and mix them together at the end. 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, but we, no. I mean, 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. No, I can't do it. What's the square footage of your, your business there. It's like 2,500 feet. And is it in like a regular area? Like it's in a strip mall?

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 got to be a pretty industrial area. So we're in the town of Mangonia Park, which is just north of West Palm Beach. Do you have like refrigerators there for bodies? There's a bit.

We call it a cooler. How many can you hold in there? If we really stacked them in, I think you could probably hold like. 40 or so. Well, how do you choose artwork for the front office? We actually debated this a lot. This is great. This would be my biggest concern.

We wanted it to be water themed, right? Oh, okay. No brainer. The company's called gentle water. So it's gentle water, and we wanted things that were gentle in water. Is it gentle? I mean, it seems like it's... Okay, 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 anything you do after death, it's going to be unpleasant. Even burial. Like if we went into the details of what happens to a body,

it gets pretty gross. 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, do a, you know, like a Neapolitan style. I'm going to do all three. Water, fire, land. Okay. Chop me up how you see fit. Might be the first person ever do that. That'd be cool. Well, 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 honor. Are you going to be cremated? Yeah. You sure? Pretty sure. Do you have you thought about it? Is it in writing anywhere? Actually, it's not in writing. You need to put it in writing. I'm going to be cremated for 100%. You? What are you doing, Ed? Stuffed. Ugh, Ed's going to be stuffed. That makes no sense, Ed. Talk about the red tape you encountered when you tried to start water cremation here in California. 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 this 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. And Florida's lawless. So was it easy going there? 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. I mean, you can just throw them in the Everglades, too. Some people do that. 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 and it was clear water in the Bahamas or somewhere out in South Florida and just watching

as the 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 Lobowski when the ashes blown his face? Yes it's so you know that's right the street at Leo Carrillo

I know. Oh, that's so good. 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 of my legs. Because it's like a fine dust, but yeah, it is. How many bodies a year are you liquefying? So we've been open two years. We just crossed 100.

How did you celebrate your 100th? We didn't do much to celebrate. Is this legal in all 50 states? No. It's legal in about 30 states. It's becoming legal state by state. 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? 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 make an arrangement 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. and trust, or you can buy an insurance policy that when you die, it pays out. 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. You're going here eventually. Uh-huh. And I'm going to pay for it. You're welcome.

So get back in the car now. By the, cemeteries, are people still buying plots for people in the cemeteries with human remains? That seems like the biggest waste of money. 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 U.S. are getting cremated. And it's going to go higher than that.

Steve, you're going to get me to, I'm going to get it to 90% before I'm done. Nice. 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 rest of it would throw ashes in some of his opponent's faces? I was more of a.

Is that what he did be? It was Paul Bearer. Paul Bearer. Oh, Paul Bearer. Paul Bearer. I was Ricky the Dragon Steenboat guy, but I don't like... Pete's our wrestling guru, but you're saying it wasn't the Undertaker. Paul Bear was his sidekick or something?

Yeah, yeah, his manager. His manager, and he would throw remains in people's faces. That's not good. That's a good manager. 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 I wanted to bring for you,

because I know that you just had a... a baby is I wanted to get rid of a lot of the, uh, the books that we have in our house. Do you like these books that always have the thing in them? We haven't gotten to those yet, but yeah, I'll take it. Oh, you're going to love them. No, you're going to, and we got a bunch of this. Uh, bonus D is we, all of our books are woke. So, you know, like, you know, global babies, um, you know, global boys.

They're just, it's, uh, what is this, the little scientist. You're going to love all these things. This is great. Look at this. I look up to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Look at a skin again. Oh my goodness. General relativity.

page turner. General Relatine. This is the household I live in, guys. Oh, ha, ha. Anyway, we got a bunch of books. We're going to give you these books. Now that... Oh, my God.

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. Thanks. Your daughter's too young for this, okay? But...

Oh, my God. Every girl... pink jeep now she's 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 that it's they screwed me and i fucking got mad i just ordered another one on the amazon but whatever i hate them but let me tell you something those things aren't bad uh 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. Anyway. Can she drive, like when she gets older, can she drive it herself? Yes, of course. That's terrifying and I'm very grateful. Thank you. Do you ever go to Airwan? Rarely.

Mm-hmm. It's expensive. Very. Okay. But the people that go there are so beautiful. It's fun to look at them. I get Airwan 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 two to five dollars. if you return them. Okay, but I don't live on the other side of the hill. See where this is going. You do. You do. Okay. So. This is so generous.

Here's the thing. I am, you say, well, why didn't you just get rid of them? Now, I can't. I know where I came from. I know that I'm fortunate now, but I don't, I won't bring these back in because I'll be too, I'm too like, oh, look, what if somebody recognized me? Like, oh, there's community dealing and talks, return.

I need somebody else to do it. I guess when you're famous, you need an Arawan returner guy. And I don't have one. I'm not famous enough to have one. I'm not, I'm just, I'm just, but I'm frugal enough to know that someone should cash this in because it's worth so much money. This is adding up. Don't you let them lowball you.

All right. Get that off my desk, please. No, no, you don't have to. Yeah, thanks. Oh, good, you do have a bag. Great. How good you do have a bag? We'll be right back.

You, uh, what, you brought something for me to look at? I brought some things. Okay, so you can choose your own adventure. I brought gifts for you and I brought show and tell. Show and tell. Show and tell. Okay. We like to call it Share Day at our house.

Mm-hmm. All right. So, so we talked about how the ashes, the cremated remains are different with what we do. Oh, gosh. That's an salt shaker. This is a bit of, of my business partner's mother-in-law, love joy. Are you serious? Yeah.

That's human remains? That's human remains. We've never had human remains on our table. It's illegal. And now we'll never leave. I mean, how are you not putting holes in the top of this and just putting on your table at home and just watching? Into any restaurant and just leave it.

Wait, now, okay, your business partner obviously is okay with you having these. Actually, her mother-in-law was okay with us having these. She wound up being our first case. So that's what they leave with. So, well, they leave with a lot more of it. 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. They're gray.

They're gray. This is white. So when people in our profession see this, they're like, wow, that's beautiful. And that this is actually something that sways a lot of people in the profession who are who are not sure about it. I mean, this is all I want. I don't want a shoebox full of this. I want this, but fine, I got this. What's remaining, like, as far as, like,

could you test for DNA? There's no DNA in that. So if somebody found that and tested it in a lab, would they know what it does? It's calcium phosphate. So, yeah. That wasn't the gift. Oh, thank goodness.

Here's an hourglass. No, you can't keep these. Oh, an hourglass. Have it people put them into it? You could do an hour. Eddie, good one. We should keep an hourglass in stock. Okay, so another thing about water cremation that's different from a flame cremation is,

and 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. Wow. And we're able to recycle things like this. This was a hip? This was a hip. I mean, at this point, this was in someone?

Uh-huh. Why was this hip so heavy? You'd think the hip would be like some, carbon, like something way like that's solid. That is bonkers that I'm holding it. I can't stop holding it though. All right, thank you.

Again, not a gift, but. By the way, so you had to come, that's your logo for general water. Yeah. Isn't that weird that you have to come up with all this stuff? Oh, yeah. And then you have bags made? Yeah.

What are the bags for, just for this stuff? Yeah. How many different sized bags do you have at your? Sometimes we'll go around to hospices and hospitals and, like, bring them goody bags and say thank you for the work that you do and, you know, here's some, like, candy. Are you trying to constantly lure people a business? Are you, well, it's a business. I know. I know. I'm saying at the hospital, are you trying to drum up business?

Yeah. That's bizarre. Well, yes, there are a lot of things about being in this business that are bizarre. But I mean, I like it, but I just know that I've always, you know, thought the other versions were stupid. So our biggest challenge is people don't know about this. We want people to know they have the option and so. I'm certainly not going to 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. Yeah, I don't think we were trying to get anyone to do it from a bag. You know.

What else? There anything else in there? Yeah, there are a couple other things. 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. So it's a pacemaker. That's a pacemaker? And sometimes they come out still beeping. What? This one's not beeping. How is a pacemaker surviving 300 degree water and... I mean, they're made to last inside a body for a long time, so they've got to be pretty durable.

Well, okay, but nobody's body's going to 300. So in a flame cremation, you're supposed to surgically remove pacemakers beforehand. Oh, that's got to be a cost. 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. Okay, but I... 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, get that pacemaker out. Yeah, I believe you could. 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. We've always had the rip and the tariff. Oh, God, I know that reference. We've always had licensed people do it. And then the last thing, you'll know what this is. Oh, this is a breast implant, huh? Yeah, of course I know that.

It's a stress reliever. And it comes out. So, yeah, it comes out. It comes out like that. What? That's crazy. It doesn't melt. It doesn't melt.

Was it a sea? I don't know what she was, it all depends on what she had before. 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 hernia is, but I don't think, I think the mesh gets destroyed, maybe.

No, the mesh, you can see the mesh. The mesh comes out on the, on the tray, and we just sort it out. This was all one person, huh? What a life she had. I don't, I don't think this was from Lovejoy. I think this was someone else. 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.

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 I know what it is So we had a few of these made by a local artist Oh no, did I? No, it's fine It's fine

This is a real urn? It's a real urn And how do you open it? The bottom thing slides out You got to pull kind of hard Yeah, there you got She's empty Yep

So is this going to be my urn? It could be it could also just store candy in it. 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 earn 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 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. You hold on to it. Well, look, I have another option for you. Oh, geez. Two options, two urns? So this one. This is the best. Because I know you like to, you know, you like to get out on the ocean.

And so this one actually is why it dissolves in the water. You float it in the water. Oh, okay. It's like my grandpa shorts. Yeah. That's where Greg goes. Shorts, what? What?

That's where Greg goes. That's Greg, Greg's a bathing suit. This dissolves in the water. I mean, I like the idea of dissolved. I'd probably like the dissolve. I might pop the flour off before I drop it. And then you also got this like, this, you know,

soup spoon for some reason? Yeah, miso spoon. I don't know. Why do I need this miso spoon? Maybe like if you want to shovel some out for some other things. I got it. This is so fun. This is real neat.

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

Oh, geez, there's more. There's one more thing. By there's, Eddie, you get whatever earn I'm not using. Okay. Just like that. 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. Uh-huh. So, you know, you, today you had, 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. Nice. It's from Comfort Zone Camp. Comfort Zone Camp.

That's nice. By the way, are some of these kids completely, like, displaced or no? What do you mean, completely displaced? Like, like, no longer parents in the picture at all. And, like, do you guys do stuff like, are they work with, finding new family, things like that through the camp or no? I'm kind of on the like the California committee that's trying to grow the camp. 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 because, 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. Do you become desensitized to death because of this?

And your social work. Let's be clear. It's all, you know, a lot. 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. 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 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 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 still in the back of my head every day where I'm like, hmm, this sunny day could just all be destroyed forever. It's constantly in my mind and more than I thought it would be before having my daughter. Right. Yeah.

Oh, good luck. Thanks. Yeah. Steve, thanks for being on the show. Thanks so much, Daniel. Okay. I want to thank Steve for being on the show and giving me some nice gifts to re-gift. Carl, I never asked you.

Do you want to be cremated or buried? You're not going to answer me. What do you want, Carl? Okay. You think about it. You'd think about it and 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. They'd be a whole really close to the house. Yep. Way too close. I mean, I remember one right, right? 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 dirtball. 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 slash toss show

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, who you come to the water park, Ed?

Yeah, I'm come. You will? I'll pack. You'll what? I'm going to pack for it. All right. Pete, you going to the water park with me? Yeah, I'll bring my trunks.

That a boy. My son's never been to a proper water park. That's great. So we're going to do it. Water parks are disgusting. I used to work at one. Did you? I was a cook at Splash Town, a San Antonio, Texas.

Splash town. That's weird because in San Antonio, you got Schlitterbond. Schlitterbonds north. Whatever. It's still fucking San Antonio. You give me credit for pulling that. Slitterbond. You ever been to Schlitterbond, anybody?

Schlitterbond is one of the best water parks in the world. Yeah, it's great. And when you talk about it, you've got to talk real quick. Schlitterbond. Nate Burgotsie, he wants to open up. an amusement park. Am I stealing his idea if I open a water park? No.

Well, I'm going to find out where he's going to open his amusement park and I'm going to open a water park just nearby. Yeah. But at my water park, there's going to be signs with profanity written all over it. You must be this fucking tall. Don't fucking run, dipshit.

Lose that fucking top. You piss. in my pool. I'll piss in your fucking car. Don't worry. We got chemicals for it. Fuck your mom. Shit away. Yeah. I mean, the reason I would do that is just so that our

markets... There's no crossover. Right, there's no crossover. They're not stealing from each other's business. There's a different clientele coming to my gross water park. It's actually goddamn politea. All right, what else is there? Toshoshostore.com?

Right. We should sell a shirt with Carl eyes closed. He's always falling asleep in here. You know he's got another podcast now? Carl does? Yeah. What is this? Him and Chris Hardwick.

Oh, okay. What are they talk about? What do they talk about? Yeah. I don't know. Game shows? How good things used to be. All right.

They hit the music. Chris and Carl. They love me, they love me not. Let's hear it, Ed. 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.

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. Some five-star reviews. Some five-star reviews. There's a lot of ways you could thank me enough.

Mm-hmm. Come to some live shows. Not every year. But once a decade would be nice. But yeah. Once a decade. Some dark. But what kind of dark?

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

Dark days. You get what I'm saying? Yep. 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 for my stable job? You talking like... Go to the Patreon for the rest of these.

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

They love you. No, I was a depressing. They love me, Ed. Well, you know. I can't wait to hear they love me not. This is from PD Fico. Wow, 45,000 views in 24 hours. Careful, you might break the internet.

You suck. I mean, I like the comment just because they wrote at the end, you suck. Yeah. You suck. You suck. I'm not trying to break the internet. 45,000 views in one hour. Is that what he said?

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