(light music playing)
John Wilson: Hey, New York.
The relationship that you have with your toilet
is unlike any other object in your home.
Much like a romantic partner,
it's the one thing in your life that's always there for you.
You've shared countless intimate moments together,
and you're familiar with all its beautiful curves.
It's a reason to come home.
And something to buy nice things for when you go away.
And you can't imagine it with anyone else
even though it may have had many partners before you.
But, when you leave the house,
you're ripped out of your comfort zone,
and you have to use whatever toilets are available.
You usually start by asking a local business,
but none of them wanna let you in.
John: Okay.
No? Alright.
And just when you start to consider
taking desperate measures to relieve your pain,
you start walking over the Queensboro Bridge
and notice a Porta-Potty balancing on some two-by-fours,
uh, over the guardrail.
So, you scale the bridge to see if it's open.
And even though you eventually found a place to go,
you wish that it didn't take so much effort.
You know that the city is full of toilets,
but they're always slightly out of reach,
uh, when you need one.
But, maybe if you did a little research,
you could finally crack the code
and hack into the, uh, Restroom Matrix,
and getting into any restroom in the city
will finally become easy.
So, instead of worrying about drinking too much water,
(clears throat) or getting too far from home,
take a seat, friend, and I'll show you
the best way to find a, a public restroom.
The city actually has a ton of public restrooms
that were open around the turn of the century.
You used to be able to go into any park or subway station,
uh, and, and use a bathroom whenever you wanted.
But then, in the 1970s,
most of them started to close
for budgetary reasons.
And the problem has only gotten worse since then.
There's about eight million residents in New York
and another 60 million tourists that come annually.
But, there's only around a thousand public restrooms
to accommodate everyone.
And only two of them are open 24-7.
There are somehow no public restrooms
in Times Square,
or Rockefeller Center,
and the Upper East Side
is actually one of the biggest public restroom deserts of all.
But maybe the city isn't opening more restrooms
because our sewer system is already overwhelmed.
So you take a visit to the, uh, waste treatment facility,
uh, to see if they can actually handle more.
(upbeat music playing)
Tour Guide: Here, we can oversee, uh,
basically everything going on in the plant.
John: Is a scum pit, like, a technical term,
or is that something that, like--
Tour Guide: No, we have a couple scum pits.
-John: What's "Special Tool number one?" -(Plant Worker laughs)
-That was a tool I developed yesterday to do a specific task. -John: Okay.
♪ ♪
-So what kind of material comes out of this hole? -(whirring)
Tour Guide: Wrappers, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes.
John: And is this stuff that goes in, like, to the sewer, too?
Yeah, anything that hits the sewer comes here.
John: What about, like, cat feces? Can you flush that?
-Kitty litter, no. -John: Hm.
♪ ♪
Could our sewage system, like, support more public restrooms
if we built them?
Oh, without doubt.
John: What would happen if all of the sewage facilities
were to stop operating in New York City?
We would have sewage backing up into people's homes,
restaurants...
Essentially, everything would probably collapse.
♪ ♪
John: What, you just had a baby shower?
Uh, no, that was just left on my desk today
from, uh, somebody that didn't leave their name on there,
so I have to find out who, who dropped it off.
-John: Oh, could we see what's in it? -Sure.
-John: Okay. -It is a nice little outfit.
John: Oh, that's beautiful.
My granddaughter is going to be so happy
-when she wears this. Oh, my goodness! -John: Oh, wow.
It must be a "Star Wars" person because--
-John: Oh, a little Yoda. -A little Yoda.
♪ ♪
John: Because there aren't many public toilets open anymore,
a lot of places have temporary solutions
that sometimes stay up for years.
The handful of bathrooms that are still open
are in pitiful shape.
The city usually takes the doors off the stalls
to discourage people from do-doing bad stuff in there.
So, you might need to bring a blanket with you
to give yourself a little privacy, uh, in the bathroom.
There's usually also not any toilet paper
because it seems like the city has other, uh, uses for it.
There's one public restroom in Brighton Beach
that's actually really nice,
and that's because the people that work there
take really good care of it,
and, and, uh, decorate it with stuff.
So, this is like the Christmas tree stuff with the popcorn--
No, but I changed it to-- I can't pronounce it.
-The Jewish "par-oom. Per-im." -John: Oh, Purim. Purim.
-Yeah, I think. -I went from that,
-and then I went to the next holiday, to "Per-oom." -John: Oh.
I learned from the Jewish people that come in here.
-I got Maya Angelou. See? Maya Angelou. -John: Oh, nice.
Get my doggies. "Happy New Year.
Please don't drink and drive." I added "Pray."
Maybe three years ago, a lady came from Manhattan.
-She was gonna go jump off the Verrazzano Bridge. -John: Oh, really?
But then, she read one of these sign-- signs,
and she just started hysterical crying.
-John: So you saved a woman from potential suicide? -Yes.
John: What would it take for other New York restrooms
to, to look like this?
-Well, first of all, I'm not supposed to brag. -(toilet flushes)
We, me and Sebesta, we use our own funds, our own money.
-Everything in here, we use our money, so... -John: Really?
Yes. Everything in here, we use our own money.
-John: Oh, okay. -Yes, honey?
Oh, okay.
♪ ♪
John: The city's only effort to solve the restroom problem
was in 2008, when they installed
five self-cleaning restrooms, uh,
to service the whole, all five boroughs.
It cost 25 cents to get in,
and there's a 15-minute time limit.
(door whirs)
John: You're curious how it cleans itself,
and you-you realize the floor
is actually a button,
and if you sit on the sink,
you can trick the bathroom into thinking that you're gone.
-(machinery groaning) -(clanging)
(surprised shout)
(majestic music playing)
-John: Wow! -(clanging)
-(hissing) -(music stops)
(door whirs)
(ambient street noise)
John: Because there aren't many public options,
most bathroom activity just ends up happening outside.
So many people urinate on certain areas of New York
that every morning, the shop owners
will cover the sidewalk in bleach
in order to eliminate the odor.
They also started screwing down the toilet lids,
uh, in the showroom at IKEA,
to prevent people from using them.
But as you were checking them out,
the only one that wasn't secure
was actually filled with pee.
You could smell it.
And every few blocks in New York,
you'll usually see one of these bottles,
which are typically filled with urine
from someone who couldn't find a bathroom in time.
Hey. How's it going?
-Good. -John: Uh, do you have a second?
For the day drivers,
it's harder for the people in the daytime to use the bathroom,
so they use a bottle.
And I see the bottles of piss all over the floor sometimes.
John: Everyone has different ways of holding it in
when they can't find a bathroom.
But if you have enough money,
you actually might not need to worry about that.
So, there is a condition, um,
that I dubbed "Hampton's bladder,"
which is a condition,
um, based on the idea that a drive
from New York City to the Hamptons
takes anywhere from three to six hours.
Injecting the bladder with Botox
relaxes the muscle of your bladder.
That should be able to get you out to the Hamptons
without you having to stop.
John: How has Hampton's bladder affected your life?
Yeah, you know, I think I've lost a couple of friends
just by having difficulty finding bathrooms and--
-John: Wait, like they died? -No, not that they died.
-Just that they-- -John: Oh.
You know, they wanted to be, um...
uh, they wanted me to find a bathroom where,
you know, none existed.
The interesting thing is, uh, one of, uh--
Peter the Great, in Russia,
actually died of urinary retention in his 50s.
You know, back in the 16th century
-or whenever that happened. -John: Wow.
Did you guys know that?
I wasn't aware of it, no.
♪ ♪
John: According to the official city website,
they actually recommend going into private businesses
to relieve yourself.
But, you often need to buy something, so
you can always just get a receipt from the trash outside, uh,
(clears throat) with the bathroom code on it
and just go in afterwards
like a normal customer.
(handle clicks)
John: You went to go visit Hudson Yards recently,
which is a new development on the west side of Manhattan.
You really had to pee,
but when you asked where the restroom was,
it turns out you have to walk through a mall
filled with security guards in tuxedos,
then up an escalator,
and, and down a long hallway,
then another hallway,
and then right before you collapse in front of Muji,
the bathrooms should be on your left.
And when you're finally done in there,
you can go check out their new attraction,
which is a shiny staircase to nowhere
that you have to pay to climb.
But it was actually closed, uh,
because they couldn't stop people
from killing themselves on it.
It seems like you're also not allowed to film this thing,
so you might be approached
by the cops after a while.
I'm done. I'm gonna walk away. You'll never see me again.
(police officer 1 speaking)
John: I'm not gonna give you my ID.
There's no reason for that.
(police officer 2 speaking)
John: I completely understand.
This place was already inhospitable enough, and I'll never return.
John: It's getting harder to tell in New York
where public spaces end
and private spaces begin.
Businesses often have weird rules
that try to keep certain people out.
And you can't always tell if you're doing something wrong.
Employee 1: Can you call the police, please?
Employee 2: Well, this is a private space,
and we don't know what you're filming,
and you're not telling us what you're filming.
John: I'm just trying to find a bathroom.
-Employee 1: Can you just go? -John: Okay, I'll go.
Maybe one day, the only public place left
will be the sidewalk.
But, who knows for how long?
There's one neighborhood in New York called The Hole
that you usually pass, um,
on, on the way to get to JFK.
It's actually below sea level,
so it's not connected to the city's sewage system.
So, a lot of the sewage just ends up in the street.
This water here, if it touched you,
you could get cooties.
Those are cootie waters.
Right there, the shit come out of.
-John: Oh, th-that's where it comes out of? -Local: Yeah, right there.
Filthy fuckin' sewage water.
I'm not polluting this motherfucker with no shit water.
I'm living in that grid there.
When I want to use the bathroom,
I gotta use the bathroom inside of my place,
wrap up my stuff, and carry it one block away.
-Look, see? -John: Yeah.
And every Thursday, the guy come with the truck
and he pick them up, and he take them with him.
I've been in this neighborhood eight years,
but I've been living on the side of the road here
for three years now.
Yeah, we got bed, we got TV, everything.
John: What are you watching here?
Local: I'm watching "Ice Road Truckers."
John: Oh, okay.
What is all this stuff on your bed?
-Local: That's some condoms. -John: Those are condoms?
-Local: The girl gave me those. -John (laughing): Oh.
Local: She gave me a whole bag of condoms.
I don't use them, though,
'cause I ain't got no girlfriend now.
John: Oh, okay. That's a lot of condoms.
Local: Yeah, she gave me, like, a thousand condoms.
-John: Okay. -(Local laughs)
People who living off the grid,
it's, it's, it's much harder to live off the grid.
Oh, big time. You know that.
Local: But, it's like a preparation
in case the place is in a disarray.
I will be the one who gonna have to help the people,
them who don't know about this type of living.
You know what they're talking about now, right? What if...
New York were to go through
a nuclear explosion?
And I was just saying to myself--
-Local: We living outside already. -Yeah.
I was saying to myself, if we were to decide to hook up
our trailers to our trucks and head for the hills?
-We would live! -Local: We will make it.
-We would make it! -Yeah.
But you take somebody from one of those buildings up there,
-to try to come-- They wouldn't survive. -Local: I know.
-'Cause they don't know how to survive. -Local: Right.
-Water, light, gas. -All this stuff.
-You know, those essentials... -(truck rumbling)
...are, like, the basic things that you need,
-you know, to, to, to survive. -Exactly.
But you take those three things away,
-they wouldn't know what to do! -They're in total disarray.
-They wouldn't know what to do. -Total disarray.
-Makes you very resourceful, living off the grid. -Oh, yeah.
John: Recently, these strange "Ghostbusters"-themed posters
started to pop up all over New York,
telling residents to prepare for something bad
that's about to happen.
And around the same time, the city released a weird PSA
asking you to prepare
for some other unspecified disaster.
John: If the big one were to come,
you would be totally vulnerable
and wouldn't have anything you'd need to survive.
You'd only have enough blue cheese
for about a day and a half.
You'd have to make your own milk somehow.
♪ ♪
But when you walk outside,
you don't really see any immediate signs of Armageddon.
Uh, but, but,
you go to the store and buy a pocket knife
and a gallon of water just in case.
And then at the worst possible time,
your toilet breaks.
So, you call the plumber, and he says
there's something really dense causing the blockage.
You said you didn't have the faintest idea
of what it could be.
No idea.
He said they would need a few days
to get into the walls and replace something.
So, until it's fixed, you're just gonna have to
become more resourceful
and find bathrooms in places
you hadn't really considered before.
Very nice.
-How long has this been on the market? -Realtor: About a week.
(doorknob clicking)
♪ ♪
-(rattling) -John: Oh, shit.
(quiet chatter)
John: Hey, what are you guys doing?
Is this-- Is this a-- Is this a party bus?
-Yeah. Kind of looks like it. -(group chattering)
We're getting ready for the show.
-John: So, where's the show? -Uh, Forest Hills, New York.
Going to see Odesza.
Some of these guys six times, so...
John: Oh, really? Can I come?
(muffled music playing)
-(party bus chatter) -(electronic music blasting)
(chatter, music continue)
John (yelling): How much longer until we, uh...
20 minutes? Okay.
How old are you turning?
-H-How old are you turning? -I'm turning 28!
John: Oh, really? That's a good year!
Partygoer: We are three minutes away!
-John: Are we here? Okay! -Yeah!
(music becomes quieter)
John: Alright. Well, have fun at the concert, guys.
♪ ♪
It was definitely taking a lot more effort this way.
But looking for a bathroom
opened doors you-you may have never entered before.
McNally Employee: Lou Reed was here once.
Mason: And of course, in the center, you'll find a, uh,...
an altar, um, with,
sorry to disappoint, no blood stains.
(laughs)
(John laughs weakly)
John: And this is the men's room?
Mason: Oh, it's just a men's room. Yeah.
John: Finding the rarest bathroom
became an exciting pursuit,
and you became determined to see how far you could take it.
Camper: You have to have water, and then you have to have a pump,
-so... -John: Okay.
So what do you-- So where are you going with this?
-I'm going to Burning Man. -John: Cool.
-(rips tape) -Uh...
can I come? (laughs)
(laughs) I mean...
♪ ♪
-John: Do people try to sneak into Burning Man? -Camper: Of course.
People try to sneak in in RVs.
It's really difficult these days
'cause they're kinda on to the whole experience.
But, like, you could run in.
John: What's the bathroom situation like in there?
Camper: There is...
a plethora of porta-potties.
Like, you can find a bathroom everywhere.
-So that's nice. Yeah. -John: Oh, awesome.
She said it was a place that encouraged free expression,
a society of people who give each other gifts
and build big sculptures everywhere.
-Are you waiting for ice? -Yeah. She's pumping--
-She's making the bags for me. -John: Oh.
You actually did manage to, uh, get a last-minute ticket
and spent an entire week filming there.
It was the hardest thing you've ever done,
and you were really proud of what you shot,
but you were eventually told that you couldn't use
any of the footage because another documentary crew
negotiated for exclusive rights
to film that year.
It turns out, some of the film crew,
uh, were actually former NXIVM members
who made that TV show "The Vow."
You sat in a hotel room for two days
trying to negotiate,
but they still refused
to let you use what you shot.
♪ ♪
You were crushed.
It was the most creatively constipated you've ever felt
and you resented the whole Burning Man organization
for being such hypocrites.
So, you finally just threw in the towel
and gave up.
(curtain rattling)
John: You didn't want your trip out west to be a net loss,
so you set up an interview on the way back
with someone you thought, uh, might be good for the episode.
I'm Steve Savage, otherwise known as Stinky Steve,
and, uh, I'm in the septic business
here in central West Texas.
John: How's business here?
Steve Savage: I mean, I've got some repeat customers just south of Abilene.
That's where a lot of the subdivisions
are kinda being built.
-John: Oh, there's a dog in your bathroom. -Steve: Yeah, that's Lola.
-John: Oh, wow. -Steve: Lola!
John: Do you have a septic tank here?
-At this house? I do not, but I do at the silo. Yeah. -John: Yeah.
-At the silo? -Yeah, the, the silo, the silo has a septic.
I don't have it functioning yet as far as that goes, uh,
because I don't have the pump, the pump installed yet
in the silo to pump the sewage to the deal.
But, I, I don't even have the bathroom hooked up in there yet.
-John: What's the silo? -Huh?
-John: What's the silo? -The missile silo.
-So, this part right here, like where that missile is... -John: Uh-huh.
...the, that structure that's underground
is where I'm building my house,
or my future residence, to live in that.
-John: Oh, really? -And, and so that has--
-that actually has a septic tank on the property. -John: What?
Right here is the entry to an Atlas-F missile silo,
the launch control center.
It was designed as a retaliation weapon,
like an insurance policy against the Soviet Union
to kinda prevent World War III.
We are probably about a hundred...
and fifty to 160 foot
above the bottom of this.
John: So, I could fall 18 stories down there?
Steve: And hang on to that rail.
Just make sure you're always holding on to something.
If you fall down, there's no way of getting you out of there.
This is gonna be the master bedroom
with the master bath right there.
So, somewhere a bed will end up in here.
But, in the meantime, I had that air mattress.
John: You got MREs here.
Steve: Yeah, you know, I did that for shits and grins.
You're gonna love this. This is my fun room.
John: What? (laughs)
Steve: This is where they launched the missile from,
and right now, it's just kind of a temporary game room.
♪ ♪
There was a point where I was out here working on it so much,
trying to get it all done, um, that it did--
it put a little bit of a strain on the marriage,
it caused us some conflict.
We were split up for about six months, so...
John: So, you were, you were living down here
for six months by yourself?
Steve: Yeah, about six months. Yeah.
These, these guys are with HBO.
They're makin' a, a little short documentary.
-I'ma be on HBO. -Oh.
-John: Yeah. -Now, you might be.
So, I don't know.
I mean, with the silo...
I mean, sometimes I wonder if we will move out there,
you know? I just don't know. Um...
We did hit a rough patch.
Me and Steve did hit a rough patch, um, this past year,
but we are working on it, you know, to move past it.
And so some of the things we're working on is,
you know, him spending more time with us.
-John: Hm. -And, um, you know,
he's not pushing us to go out there so much.
'Cause it's pretty quiet down there.
You don't really know even the weather,
what's going on with the weather.
Steve: You can hear thunder.
-I, I can hear it. -That's, that's the one thing I will miss.
You know, if we do move in there,
it's just not being able to hear the rain.
-John: Hm. -Um...
just look out and see if the snow, you know,
did it snow the one time of year that it snows here?
Or, you know, what it looks like outside.
Steve: Well, you just put cameras out there.
John: Seems like even if you are prepared for a disaster,
the reality of your new environment
would take some getting used to.
And if the big one were to come,
it's unclear who, who else would still be around.
You asked if there were any other places like this,
and he told you about another bunker he knew about.
It, it was underneath a hotel near Washington DC
that was built as a secure place for Congress
in, in the event of a nuclear attack.
Employee: The Cameo Ballroom is where you would find large parties,
wonderful dances, balls,
beautiful crystal chandelier.
Brad Paisley was here this summer.
Alfonso Ribeiro was here a couple summers ago
with his family.
So during the Cold War, in case of a nuclear disaster,
this is where our House and Senate would have relocated to,
to continue doing their job.
John: Wow. How heavy is this door?
-Employee: This door is actually 18 tons. -John: Wow.
So, this is the start
of the decontamination process.
They're going to have to take everything off,
and everything would be immediately incinerated.
This was a dormitory with 60 to 65 beds.
And there would also be riot gear.
John: The riot gear is to protect the people in here
-from each other? -From each other.
So, they had to make sure
that they survived and that our government
would continue running our country.
John: Like, is there any kind of world
that you would not want to reenter?
Like, if, if there were such... fallout?
Well, if we have complete devastation,
and there's no vegetation, there's no animals left,
um, I don't want to be a part of that world
to try to figure out how to sustain life.
So, yes, I would not want to be here
in that situation.
(beep, door clicks)
-John: Oh, wow. -This is the briefing room,
and this is where our representatives
would have addressed their constituents from.
-John: And that would be the background for the broadcast? -Correct.
If you have a photo of, of devastation and destruction,
you're going to be scared.
You're going to want to flee.
And this is going to help calm everyone down.
John: Like, wouldn't it just be, like, an illusion
that the White House was intact, even if it wasn't?
It would, but it would be an illusion that we would need.
Us having this
would really calm everyone down and say,
"Hey, just hold on a minute. We can get through this.
They're tryin' to find a solution for us."
♪ ♪
John: So, this is the bathroom Congress would have used?
Employee: Yes. (laughs) Help yourself.
(clicking)
(toilet flushes)
John: So, it's good to know that
if anything really bad does happen,
everything will still be able to run the same way.
And even if these old relics don't function
the way they should anymore,
at least they provide us with images
that make us hopeful
that things will get better tomorrow.
(water spraying)
John: And if you can't film at Burning Man,
you can always just make do with what you have at home.
Because if all our public spaces
are eventually gonna become private,
then we should all get used to seeing our private stuff
in public.
This is John Wilson.
Thanks for watching.
(jaunty country jingle playing)
♪ If your toilet quits a-flushin' ♪
♪ There ain't no point in fussin' ♪
♪ Pick up the telephone and call Stinky Steve's ♪
♪ If your septic tank is smellin' ♪
♪ And your spouse just started yellin' ♪
♪ Pick up the telephone and call Stinky Steve's ♪
♪ They're number one with the number two ♪
♪ You are sure to see ♪
♪ Pick up the telephone and call Stinky Steve's ♪
(jingle ends)
(majestic music playing)
(music fades)