(gentle music playing)
John Wilson: Hey, New York.
One of the nicest things about living in a city
is walking to the store to get something you need.
You find the thing you want,
pay for it, uh,
and take it straight home in your hand,
usually, uh, without incident.
-(horn honks) -John: Sorry. Sorry!
This should be the way you get
almost everything in a big city,
but there's something that feels special
-about ordering things off the internet. -(electronic music playing)
You enter the search terms for what you want
and you're rewarded with a bunch of different options
to choose from.
You can spend all afternoon
searching for that perfect object.
Sometimes, it's practical stuff.
Other times, it's for business.
Or could just be for fun.
They also recommend other stuff you might like,
and you can end up learning things
about your subconscious desires
while you surf.
And when you finally find what you're looking for,
it's only a click away.
And this sets in motion
a, a, a complex series of interactions
-that you never have to see. -(mouse clicks)
John: You like checking your computer
and looking at the progress.
And while you're waiting,
time seems to take on a different quality.
♪ ♪
Even the most mundane activity becomes exciting
because your meaningless existence
has now been given shape,
knowing that your delivery day will arrive at one point soon.
(exciting music playing)
Oh, wow. This thing is huge.
And when you get it inside and open it up,
for a brief moment, you feel complete.
As if you finally have everything you need.
(choir vocalizing)
-Jesus. -(wallet snaps)
John: But, once you put it next to everything else you own,
the object quickly loses that power.
(choir humming solemnly)
John: And you're still not sure what's missing.
So you get back on the computer
and begin the whole process again.
(solemn humming continues)
John: You've started ordering ceramic figurines
of, uh, ET recently,
and you wanted to, uh, expand your collection.
You found an interesting poster that, uh,
seems like it might look nice behind them,
so you placed an order and waited for it to arrive.
You got a notification saying it had been delivered,
but when you got home, it just wasn't there.
(melancholy music playing)
And it didn't show up the next day either.
♪ ♪
So, you go over to the, uh, shipping center
in Maspeth,
but they didn't really know
anything about it.
(John speaking)
Attendant: No, no, no, no, no.
-John: Okay. -Attendant: Yeah, buddy.
John: Thank you.
So, you go to someone else
that might be a bit more helpful.
Well, it shows that there's a lot of negativity
surrounding this situation and, as you can see here,
-you have the death card. -John: What is...?
Wait, you really pulled the death card
-when you, you started to think about the package? -Psychic: Yeah.
And you have, uh, the devil, which represents evil.
-John: Wait, r-really? -Psychic: It means that whatever was in
-the contents of the package was very negative. -John: Okay.
The person that you are destined to be with
is very much ready for a--
I'm gonna say...
-a commitment. -John: Mm.
And it says that you have commitment issues.
John: Oh, wow.
Psychic: I'm not gonna say that you're a loner,
but it's kind of like you have some commitment issues.
-John: Yeah... -The cards actually show you have a lot of commitment issues.
-John: O-- (laughs) Okay. -(psychic scoffs)
John: You also saw that the eBay seller,
uh, lived within driving distance of you,
and when you, when you went to meet up with him,
he told you that it might have been stolen
because of how valuable it was.
The Michael Jackson memorabilia market
is hotter than ever,
um, whether it's eBay or Facebook groups.
You know, the shoes, it looks just, you know,
like he's doing his little dance moves.
-John: Wow. -Seller: Oops!
John: What is a 3D screamer?
Seller: So, these are actually, these are actually extremely rare.
-I forgot to mention these. These are actually very rare. -(knocking)
Is that someone knocking?
-Oh, um, oh, I just got some... -John: Oh...
-It-- -John: Oh, that just came right now?
Just came in. J-Just delivered, hot off the press.
John: Oh, is that why the doorbell rang?
Yes, that was the doorbell. (giggles)
John: Losing something important to you
is one of the worst feelings you can have.
Because even if you know it's, it's gone forever,
you'll never really stop looking for it.
♪ ♪
But, if you know how to keep
a close eye on your, your shipment,
you may never lose track of it ever again.
So, instead of wondering where all your stuff went
or feeling like your package is never gonna come,
stick with me and I'll show you how to finally figure out
the right way to just
keep track of all your packages.
Now, when you're growing up, the first package you order
is usually a package of pizza,
which reliably makes it into your home,
uh, without incident.
And there has to be a reason it, it works so well.
Has a pizza ever been stolen during its, uh, delivery?
Um... Not through--
Not when my guys are delivering it.
You gotta know how to dispatch.
Owner: This is what we call a round robin.
Pizza Employee: Bleecker, Central, and Covert right now.
Want the driver to get back as fast as possible.
We want the food to get there as fast as possible.
And hot.
-John: Can I tag along? -No problem, man.
So now, I'm gonna have to go back to the fridge
and grab some sodas.
(pizza employee speaking)
(delivery driver speaking)
This is our biggest enemy right here.
John: Oh, shit. You got a ticket.
Delivery Driver: Yeah, a little Joe and John's road trip.
♪ ♪
So all they ordered was a small pie.
I'm just gonna bring it in, collect the money,
-and then we're on our way to the next one. -John: Oh, okay.
-How are you, sir? It's gonna be $11. -John: Hey...
♪ ♪
-(doorbell dinging) -John: We're making a...
Delivery Driver: Thank you so much, man.
And we're back on to the next one. That easy. -John: Alright. That was--
-That was really quick. -Yeah, nice and simple.
John: It seems like handing a package
directly to the recipient
is the most foolproof way to deliver anything.
You guys having a party?
-Huh? -John: You guys having a party?
-Yeah, I have some friends over. (laughs) -John: Okay, cool.
-(dog barking) -John: Have fun.
I try to keep my guard up at all times,
but it's a pretty calm neighborhood, you know?
It's nice to see people interacting with one another.
John: Yeah...
(bag crinkling)
Alright, and, uh, it's just right in here.
-Resident: (indistinct) -How are you, man?
-Thank you. -John: Hey, you got a second?
Delivery Driver: Appreciate it.
John: So, y-you order from Joe and John's a lot?
Every so often.
-At least once a month type of thing. -John: Oh, cool.
(resident speaking)
John: Oh, yeah?
Is it, is it stressful with a newborn?
Yeah. She was born prematurely,
-so we don't have time to cook. -John: Oh, I'm sorry.
Uh, on our way back home,
we always talk to each other like,
"What are we gonna eat today?"
And we decided to go with Joe and John's.
This is her, her section of the fridge.
-We've always got bags and bags of milk. -John: Oh, okay.
-That's all the breast milk. -And bottles of milk.
I grew up without a father figure
in my life throughout my whole life.
So, I've always been scared to have a child.
So, I have no reference
on what is a good dad or a bad dad.
But, I'm here now, and I'm acknowledging that
you know, it is what it is,
and I just have to be there for her,
provide for her, and just my life is for her now.
John: I think all that, all that energy you put out
-comes back to you in a good way, you know? -Definitely.
Especially with cooking. And I feel like, again,
going back to Joe and John's,
I feel like that's with their input as well.
The ingredients and everything is just always,
always done the way it was done the first time you tried it.
-John: Yeah, well-- -I feel like consistency is key,
definitely, when it comes to food.
John: In a perfect world,
every package would be treated like a pizza.
But unfortunately,
that's still not the case.
Supposedly, there are roughly 90,000 packages
that go missing every single day
in New York City.
Whenever you get a, a package delivered,
the mail person may not have a way
of getting into your building,
and a crucial link in the delivery process is broken.
At that point, the mail carrier will make a judgment call
about where the most discreet place is for the package to go.
They usually put it in the stairwell
so, uh, people can't see it from the street,
or use some other exterior feature to camouflage it.
People also install these strange boxes for packages
that have the same technology, uh, that campers use
to keep food away from bears.
But, if there isn't a safe space,
New Yorkers will post messages to delivery people
on their doors to make sure
their packages aren't left outside.
Other people use security cameras
to try to dissuade thieves
by printing out photos of the bandit to shame them.
But you feel like if these signs actually worked,
you wouldn't see as many of them as you do.
And if you keep your camera on for long enough,
you might discover something even more terrifying
than package theft.
Kevin: My neighbors had some, uh, flowers
stolen off of their porch,
so they asked me to check my doorbell camera.
In the process, I come across these two women
who, uh, take notice of my open windows.
(indistinct chatter)
(Woman 1 speaking)
(Woman 2 speaking)
(Woman 1 speaking)
(Woman 2 speaking)
(Woman 1 speaking)
(Woman 2 speaking)
I was doing a lotta renovations. I was kicking up a lotta dust.
(Woman 2 speaking)
Can't be dusting it every day.
(Woman 2 speaking)
-John: Uh, do you have photos of the way it used to look like? -Kevin: Yeah.
John: Okay, so that's... Yeah, I could see.
Kevin: They had a point.
John: Were you in a relationship when you did this?
Kevin: (laughs) No, I wasn't.
You got to commit sometimes,
even if it's, uh, the wrong decision.
John: Yeah.
So this is where we have our packages dragged in.
-So normally, there's, like, a big pile of them right here. -John: Uh-huh.
And then that's the camera that we installed.
-You know. -John: Oh, okay.
So, they're supposed to leave them right there.
Resident: Oh! Here's my keto cereal! (laughs)
John: Oh, cool.
On more than one occasion,
I've walked into the unlocked door
to find someone actively stealing our packages,
which is always, like, very nerve-wracking.
Um, and then, one time,
my super that we were paying to bring our packages in
actually was stealing our packages for quite a while.
He calls me "Whole Foods,"
because he says that I look like a bitch
-who would shop at Whole Foods. -(both laugh)
-I need to get a knife. -John: Okay.
Resident: It does make me really nervous.
I don't know if this is like a shareable story,
but I recently was freezing my eggs,
and had to have, like,
very expensive medications dropped off here.
-John: Uh-huh. -Um, and it was, like, absolutely terrifying.
Like, I sat outside waiting for them
because I was so nervous
that they were gonna just be taken and discarded.
-So, it doesn't seem like they care, quite frankly. -John: Wait.
So, where are they kept? I guess...
Um. that's actually a good question. I don't know.
I froze them at a clinic in Hoboken,
and, I-- they have--
I'm assuming they have them somewhere,
-like a warehouse somewhere. -John: Really?
(laughs) I don't know, a warehouse somewhere.
I don't know where they keep them,
which is maybe something I should look into.
John: It seems like biological material
requires the most care when shipping it.
It needs to be transported very quickly
with almost no room for error.
You never really checked that box on your license
to, uh, make an anatomical gift,
but maybe if we studied organ transport a bit more closely,
we could have a better idea
of how to secure, uh, other package deliveries.
So, you asked your team to set up an interview
with an organ shipping company.
Unfortunately, something got lost in translation,
uh, but you decided to
go through with the interview anyway.
So, who are you-- Uh...
Like, what are some of the--
Like, can it be dangerous to ship an organ?
Well,
we haven't had any problems with our shippers at all.
John: Was this organ, uh, donated?
No. No.
(playing lively tune)
And they used to call me-- They call me "Vince the Prince."
-John: Oh, yeah? -Yeah, that's my nickname.
-John: Oh, cool. -Hang on one second.
Say, "Hey, I heard they call you Vince the Prince.
-Where did that come from?" -John: Okay.
-Or you could say, I-- -(organ motor whirring)
-John: So, why do they call you Vince the Prince? -Stop.
-Not ready to answer yet. -John: Oh, okay.
I heard your nickname in the music industry
is Vince the Prince? Why do they call you that?
I guess, you know, it, it rhymes.
Vince the Prince, and, uh, it's...
-it's been with me for over 20 years. -John: Okay.
(John speaking)
Vince: Yeah.
John: The first thing you do to ship an organ
is, uh, just make sure that everything's on tight.
(clears throat) And then,
you carefully assemble a shipping crate around it.
Does it-- Can you play it?
-I really don't play. -John: Oh, really?
-Are you a "Star Trek" fan? -Bill: Kinda, yes.
I mean, going to other planets...
in other, uh, solar systems, that's...
that's quite a task to do.
I do hope to see the day w-when they land people on Mars.
-John: Mm. -I hope to see that before I leave this earth.
John: Yeah, that would be cool. Me, too.
(mellow music playing)
And then, they load it carefully into a, a box truck.
(lift motor whirring)
John: And make sure it's secure
for its long drive to Arizona.
John: Then you spend the next three days
driving across the country,
where you might see some other people,
uh, shipping organs in their own way.
On the organ trail.
Driving the organ trail.
When it finally gets there,
they unload it in front of the, the organ store
and, uh, and roll it inside.
(crate rattling)
-And put it up against the back wall. -John: Okay.
-It'll be the safest that, that way. -John: Okay.
I, I still don't understand the concept of the film.
-John: It's kind of like-- -Is it, is it just...
-weird, weird organ stuff or is it-- -John: No. It's--
It's not really about organs.
And after you're done with that,
you can go over to Organ Stop Pizza,
which actually has one of the biggest organs
in-in the whole country.
Wow.
-Have you been here before? -Oh, yeah.
-John: Yeah? You like it? -Yeah.
John: I came from New York.
Customer: Oh, I'm from Lake Erie.
-John: What brought you here? -A woman.
-John: Oh, her? -No.
-John: Oh. -A different one.
-John: Oh, okay. -But I ended up marrying her.
(laughs)
John: Are you, are you an organ donor at all?
-No. -John: Alright.
Are you an organ donor at all?
Am I an organ donor? No.
Well, you see, I...
I, I'm with Alcor. You know what that is?
-John: No, I'm not from here. -You don't-- Oh, you don't know anything about that.
John: Well, w-what is Alcor?
(laughs)
What is Alcor? Well,
it's a company that...
that people make arrangements with who want to do this.
They wanna get their,
their remains put in liquid nitrogen after death,
after legal death, okay?
Because they're, they're keeping them that way
in hopes that someday, they will find some technology
that can revive them.
-Okay? -John: (laughs) So, like--
Wow. So...
-(elaborate organ playing) -John: Well, here, maybe we can
sit down for a second here.
Would-- Do you wanna...?
(loud, lively organ playing)
John: Oh, my goodness.
So, where is Alcor's headquarters?
It's in Scottsdale.
It's near the airport in Scottsdale.
(organ continues playing)
John: You'd heard about people freezing themselves
in, in movies and stuff before,
but you never met anyone who,
who was actually signed up for it.
(organ continues loudly)
John: Do you wanna go somewhere quieter?
-So, is this like... -Mike: It's a medic alert bracelet.
"Do CPR while cooling with ice.
No embalming. No autopsy." That's what it says.
John: A-And medics know what to do when they see this?
Mike: I hope they would.
John: You really wanted some more details,
so after some tense negotiation,
he agreed to let you come back to his house.
You want to go to my house? Is that what you're saying?
-John: Yeah. Is that okay? -That's okay.
(gentle music playing)
-I like this skylight. -Mike: Yeah.
-(light clicks) -Lots of books and tapes.
-John: Oh, my God. What are all these tapes? -Mike: Well,
-something I never deal with. -John: Wow.
So, do you, like, do you work for Alcor?
I, uh, monitor the...
the dewars that hold the, the people that are frozen.
Every day, I check on those,
and, uh, I make sure that there's liquid nitrogen.
John: Do you, like, do you freeze the whole body or just the brain?
It depends on the type of arrangement you have with Alcor.
You can arrange it either way.
John: W-What are the arrangements that you have with Alcor?
I have head only.
John: You-- Oh, so only your head
-is going to be preserved? -That's right.
John: Ever see the movie "Vanilla Sky" with, like, Tom Cruise and--
It's about cryopreservation.
Okay, is that the one that has the matrix in it?
-John: No, I think that's "The Matrix." -Okay.
John: He told you that the 50th anniversary event
was happening soon,
but it wasn't gonna be for another week.
So you had to kill a few days in Scottsdale,
uh, until it began.
Crowd (singing): ♪ Sweet Caroline ♪
♪ Bah, bah, bah ♪
♪ Good times never seemed so good ♪
(singing bowl singing)
-(tone fading out) -John: And what, and what do you do that for?
So we use these for meditation
-or to balance out your chakras. -John: Oh, okay, cool.
It was finally time for Alcor's 50th anniversary party...
♪ ♪
which was taking place at a resort down the street
from their main headquarters.
And when you walked in,
it seemed like everything was already in full swing.
This is a chicken potato croquette
with a smoked tomato aioli. Please enjoy.
(crowd chattering)
John: There are a lot more people there than you expected,
and you wanted to know what motivated them to,
to get themselves frozen.
If you see the future as something good,
-you wanna have, uh, you wanna be there. -John: Yeah.
-You're signed up? -Member 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-He takes care of my dad. -John: Oh, your dad's already in?
-Yeah. Yep. -John: Oh, really?
-Yep. -John: Wow.
Of course, you would wanna resurrect your parents
if they were dead, and you had the ability to do that,
and that would go all the way back
to the first humans. So...
But there are reasons to resurrect any-- somebody.
-It's not-- You didn't have any offspring at all. -Yeah.
-Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's just-- Yeah. -It's like--
-You wanna resurrect everybody. -It's the Good Samaritan--
-Yeah, the Good Samaritan. Yep. -Ar-argument.
Yeah. Exactly.
-Are you doing head or body? Or both? -Both.
-Me, too... Same. -I want my body. (laughs)
I actually agree with the philosophy of, uh,
"First one in, last one out."
John: And what does that mean?
So, the last person to get cryopreserved
will have the most perfect cryopreservation,
so it's easiest to bring back the last person
that got cryopreserved, while the ones that were done
in the '60s and '70s would have sustained more damage
during the cryopreservation process.
John: Do you have kids or are you ever planning on having them?
Uh, they're two and four, but my son is very much on board
with, uh, having us frozen because, uh, my father died,
and he, he doesn't, uh, he doesn't accept that,
and I don't accept that either, so...
Even if you come back, something could happen to your body,
and one body is not enough.
I think we need alternative bodies...
switch bodies, have a replacement body.
Um...
Very much like a wardrobe of bodies.
Further, we won't be just existing in this biosphere,
as lovely as it is.
We'll also be in cybersphere,
and, um, outer space.
So we'll need different bodies
functioning in different environments.
John: Are you looking to get in?
-Member 2: Oh, he's not a cryonicist. -John: Oh, okay, okay.
What, um, what brought you here in-individually, I guess?
John: Oh! (laughs) Okay. Sorry. I didn't know.
Can I see the facility?
Um, when legal death is declared,
we move the patient from the hospital bed into the ice bath.
(ice rattling)
Cover them with ice. Uh, I think the record
from the time when legal death was declared
to moving the patient, putting ice on them,
starting circulation, respiration,
giving the medications, and driving them back to Alcor,
was done in about 35 minutes.
John: Wow. It's like as fast as getting a pizza delivered.
Yeah. Yeah.
So this whole unit is secure.
We have metal plates in the walls,
uh, in case someone tries to drive a vehicle into the wall or something.
Who knows what will happen over the years?
-(loud bang) -We can't get in there.
In each one of these Bigfoot dewars,
we can get four whole-body patients
basically around the outside,
and then in the center column, we can get five neuro patients.
And here, you can see the containers
that neuro patients are secured in.
-John: Those are heads? -Max More: Yeah.
-John: Wow. Can we go in at all? -No. (chuckles)
John: The Alcor facility was buzzing with activity.
John: They also had a wall of notable members
who were currently frozen there.
Alcor Employee 1: She is the youngest cryo patient.
John: She's three?
Yeah, two or three.
John: And they're also currently in the process
of signing new people up.
Alcor Employee 2: We need two witnesses to sign these to show
that the person who's becoming a member
gives their consent and willingly knowing
that their body is given to Alcor.
John: Well, when did you sign up?
Alcor Employee 1: I'm actually not registered yet.
I'm, like so many people, a cryo-crastinator.
I had actually learned about cryonics when I was 12,
when Ted Williams,
the baseball player, was suspended.
And, of course, I'd seen Han Solo in carbonite.
But, until Ted Williams, I don't think I knew
that cryonics was a real practice.
John: And in the afternoon,
they had a bunch of different speakers lined up
to touch on different aspects
of the cryopreservation process.
It seems like they've gotten really good at freezing people,
but as you kept watching, it became clear
that they didn't actually know how to unfreeze anyone yet.
So, most of the presentations were based on
really elaborate hypothetical scenarios.
(on microphone) So, basically, assuming cryonics works,
is it possible for you to be revived and wealthy?
John: The way you can pay for cryopreservation
is by taking out a life insurance policy
and, uh, making Alcor the beneficiary,
uh, when you die.
Which, ostensibly, will pay for your storage
and maintenance, uh, indefinitely.
Hear me loud and clear.
You do not have to be rich to do cryonics.
You do not have to be rich to do a cryonics trust.
God, I got, personally, 11 policies
with over three million bucks of life insurance.
A guy, this gentleman over here was asking, "Is that legal?"
I said, "Yeah, it is."
John: And because they didn't know how long it would take
for the science to evolve,
they couldn't predict what sort of culture shock
they would experience.
The people, your friends and family
that you are comfortable with,
that you know and love,
are gone in the blink of an eye.
If you all will look to your right and your left
and the people in front of you and behind you,
this is gonna be your community.
And we're gonna need to rely and lean on each other.
Yesterday, Max referenced "The Matrix,"
in which Neo says, "I know kung fu."
And that's what I always think about
when, uh, I think about rehabilitation,
rapid acquisition of knowledge,
and possibly rapidly updating your, uh, psychology.
So maybe rehabilitation could be much easier than we think.
Speaker (on microphone): Was there a question there or is that a...?
Alcor Employee 1: Oh, it's just a comment.
John: It's scary to think how advanced technology
would become by, by the time you were reanimated.
And even though they planned to spend hundreds of years
in a refrigerator, some people still didn't seem
fully prepared for, for that either.
Okay. Alright.
I've had people complain it's too warm.
Okay, but we have--
Yes.
Huh. Okay.
John: The thought of life extension sounded interesting,
but you still weren't sure what you would do
with all that extra time.
Would the people of the future have fun stuff for us to do?
Or would we just be a burden to them?
All these people seem so confident that they'd be able
to fill an eternity with activities,
but you barely have enough ideas
to keep yourself busy as it is.
And maybe the cryonicists have more productive ways
to pass the time they have now.
So, you went up to an Alcor member's hotel room,
uh, to check out a project they've been working on.
Chad: This is a "Bachelor" spreadsheet, actually,
for season 22 that I've been going through.
All the players, every play that they made
during the, the season.
John: Wow. How many hours do you think
you've spent watching "The Bachelor" in total?
Oh, God. I mean, when we were doing the hyper-binge,
it was 10 hours a day, every day,
with maybe we'd take a day off every other week,
uh, for, like, two and a half, almost three months.
We've got thousands of pages of, of typed notes
that are meticulous records of everything that's ever happened
in almost every frame of the show.
The first impression rose, which we call the "FIMP,"
you take the numerical value of each rose
they had over the course of the season,
and you divide it,
and that average number is their rose quotient.
Week five, we had a one-on-one that Lauren Burnham got.
There was, uh, one kiss, an awkward edit,
she played walls,
Arie played a PTC, that his ex had a miscarriage.
-John: What, what's a P-- Uh, what's a PTC? -Chad: Oh, sorry.
PTC is "personal tragedy card,"
is when a player discusses some past trauma or tragedy,
and then that very usually will get them a rose
if they're on a one-on date or a group date.
Uh, IFI is "injury, fear, or illness."
Tierra LiCausi is probably the most well-known
IFI player of all time. She fell down the stairs,
causing Sean Lowe to spend an extra amount of time with her
instead of taking AshLee Frazier on the date.
-At least momentarily. -John: Think I remember that.
Chad: Yeah, there's always that idea of, like,
why am I devoting so much time and effort toward this thing
that I actually think is bad, you know?
♪ ♪
John: Maybe it's dangerous to have a lot of extra time
if you're not even sure how to spend it now.
And maybe it would be better to devote your time
to someone else's life
instead of worrying about your own.
But, there's still a part of you
that isn't really sure about that either.
As the convention was winding down,
they had a couple final presentations
and sent everyone off with a, a cover of
a popular Beatles song.
(singing) ♪ Last night I told my wife ♪
♪ When I'm dead ♪
(instrumental music of "Please Please Me" by The Beatles playing)
♪ Please bury me except for my head ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Come on, come on ♪
-♪ Come on! Come on! ♪ -Audience: Come on!
♪ Please freeze me, oh yeah ♪
♪ And I'll freeze you ♪
♪ Oh yeah, and I'll freeze you ♪
-(song ends) -(applause, cheering)
Performer (on microphone): Alright! Thank you!
John: After everything you saw that weekend,
you still weren't sure how to feel.
If you honestly believed cryopreservation
was gonna work, then it might genuinely make you
a happier person while you're alive,
because you'll get a second chance
to do everything over one day.
But, if the science never really gets to that point,
then all your expectations
will just disappear,
and you'll have spent your whole life
just preparing for another one.
You're about to head back to New York,
but you went back to Mike's house before you left
because you still had
one or two things on your mind.
Do you, do you think it's selfish
-to, to not have children? -Say that again?
John: Like, to choose to not start a family?
You could look at it that way. I don't.
But I've been told it's selfish to,
try to be a cryonicist,
-to want more life-- -John: Hm.
Like we want, you know?
John: I feel like some people's way of life extension
is, is through children.
Well, I'm 75 years old,
and, you know, I'm not gonna have a family.
But actually, I, I was just never much oriented
toward that, really.
I just wanted to live a, a celibate life,
and pretty much felt that way
ever since early adolescence, and...
-Uh, you know, what can I say? -John: So...
Like, what happened in your adolescence?
(Mike laughs)
Alright. Well, you could consider it
to be acts of self-surgery.
And, admittedly, that was very peculiar.
But I felt like I just wanted to be--
You know, the sex drive was a bothersome thing.
It was a-- It was a real burden for me,
and I wanted to do something,
cut it down or whatever.
So, I found that after self-castration
that really I still had a lot of sexuality
that I didn't want, and I thought,
well, if I could just cut some nerves in the penis,
maybe that would relieve that.
And I tried doing that and I'll have to say this,
that I don't know just exactly what side effect that had,
but it was really like a kick in the head.
It was much worse, really, than the other thing.
From, uh, from 1966 to '69,
those were the years that I mainly did this thing.
-And, uh... -John: You were removing your testicles in secret?
Right.
John: Why did you feel like you needed to keep it a secret?
It just-- People just think that's crazy, you know?
They just do.
Just talk to anybody on the street and say,
"Hey, I know a guy
"that cut off his own testicles with a razor blade.
What do you think of that?"
"It's crazy!"
John: Would you like to have genitals on your body
-when you're reanimated? -No, I wouldn't.
Actually, I wrote something many years ago, saying,
"Don't put it on." (laughs)
"Don't, don't put those things back on me, okay?"
-John: Hm. -I think that's still in my paperwork.
I'm an avid genealogist.
I've, I've researched my ancestry,
and it's a weird feeling, 'cause I think those people struggled
so hard to have a family,
and look at what I did.
What would they think if they knew about me?
But, I, I think, well...
you know, I hope you--
I hope we-- I-- We can get you guys back someday.
(gentle music playing)
John: Your time in Arizona had finally come to an end.
But, it's nice to know that if you ever wanted to come back,
you could always stay for a lot longer.
♪ ♪
When you got back to New York,
you went to go visit your parents' house,
and they had just received an interesting piece of mail.
(clears throat)
It was a vacation postcard from my aunt
who had died 20 years ago.
It must've gotten lost behind
one of the sorting machines for decades.
And although the post office
didn't know if the recipients would still be here,
they just decided to send it anyway.
And even though you know your aunt is gone,
it kinda made it feel like she was still around.
So, even if you're not sure
when your trip is gonna end,
you're just gonna have to trust that you're in good hands
along the way.
And hope that the children of tomorrow
will still want you around.
(soft brass music playing)
So, maybe it's okay if your package takes a while
to get where it's going,
because it's better than not having any package at all.
And if you're lucky enough to wake up in New York
in a few thousand years,
it's nice to know that some things will never change.
Your neighbor will always be too loud.
The bathroom will always be closed.
You'll never be sure who you can trust.
And New York will never know when to stop growing.
(band crescendos)
Because, at the end of the day,
the city is a reflection of who we are,
and it will always be both our healer and oppressor.
But, as long as the first one in
is always the last one out,
you might just have enough time here
-to, to learn a thing or two. -(band stops)
(triumphant brass band resumes)
(band plays dramatic finish)
This is John Wilson.
Thank you so much for watching my movies.
("Goodbye" by Labi Siffre playing)
♪ Goodbye ♪
♪ Good... ♪
♪ Bye... ♪
(song fades out)