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00:00Hi!
00:01I have seen the future, and it works.
00:04Hello.
00:06It is I, Billy Connolly.
00:08Ladies and gentlemen.
00:09Speaking to you, not from the grave.
00:11The dead guy.
00:13But from your very own telly.
00:15As you can see, reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.
00:19This is so wrong.
00:21And now, I have come to explore the only certainty in your and my life.
00:26Death.
00:27We're all gonna die.
00:28It's just a matter of when.
00:31I'm getting quite sad.
00:33Nobody's dead.
00:36You cannot do nothing about death.
00:39But you can do a lot about life.
00:41I'm fascinated by death.
00:43How we deal with it, fear it, and hopefully come to terms with it.
00:47So do you know where he'll die?
00:49I'm gonna go out in style with a smile.
00:52You're right here.
00:53He's ready to go.
00:54It's a lovely, lovely thing to see.
00:56I'm gonna strip away the taboos.
00:58It's funny.
00:59You sell death stuff exactly the same as you sell live stuff.
01:02To reveal that far from the gloom and doom that you may expect.
01:08The world of death.
01:09Would you like to try it?
01:11No.
01:12It's full of wonderful people.
01:13And some dead guys.
01:15Doing extraordinary things.
01:17You'll give me your head.
01:18We'll freeze it.
01:20And then you can be cremated.
01:21And nobody will know the difference.
01:23Never.
01:24Oh, it's hard to party.
01:26So, come on.
01:27Join me on the other side.
01:29I'll be tickled to death to go.
01:32Goodbye.
01:33It must be good.
01:34Don't sigh.
01:36There's a silver lining in the dark.
01:39Bonsoir.
01:41All thing.
01:41Cheerio.
01:42Chin chin.
01:43Now poo.
01:44Toodle-oo.
01:45Goodbye.
01:45Bye.
01:50It was a funny week.
01:51I had...
01:52Funny.
01:54I...
01:54On the Monday, I got hearing aids.
01:58On the Tuesday, I got pills for heartburn, which I have to take all the time.
02:09And on the Wednesday, I got news that I had prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease.
02:26They told me on the phone.
02:29He said, look, we've had the result and it's cancer.
02:32And I said, oh, nobody's ever said that to me before.
02:36And Pamela was standing behind me and gave me a bit of a cuddle.
02:39But I...
02:40I wasn't unduly worried.
02:46Amazing grace.
02:47How sweet.
02:48The Parkinson's was strange.
02:51Because the...
02:52It was a man in a hotel.
02:53Spotted it.
02:54And he said, excuse me, Billy.
02:57He said, I'm a big fan and I don't want to depress you or anything.
02:59But I'm a surgeon from Tasmania.
03:02He said, and I...
03:03I think the way you walk...
03:05You know, he said, your gait would suggest that you have early onset Parkinson's disease.
03:11See your doctor.
03:12And he was right.
03:17The funny thing is, I never felt close to dying at any point.
03:22And even the first thing the doctor said to me was, you're not going to die.
03:27And it was news to me that I might die, you know.
03:30So doing this, I'm sure the audience will think, I'm doing this because I was sick.
03:35But it's not...
03:36The idea came a long time before that.
03:41It made me sick.
03:46It's the oddest thing.
03:47Most of us spend so much time skirting around a subject to death
03:51that it's only when you take a good look around you realise it's bloody everywhere.
03:56You're born to die.
03:58You're not born to live.
03:59I really could...
04:00I could let it go if I had to.
04:02I want to go out with a bang.
04:03Yeah.
04:03I want people to laugh.
04:04Oh, I'm not going to die.
04:06I'm immortal.
04:07I've lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years.
04:10And in the States, death is more than an inevitability.
04:13It's a huge $21 billion a year industry.
04:16And that's what I want to explore.
04:19How grief and money mix.
04:21And what can a people make a living from dying?
04:25So I've come to Austin, Texas to the National Funeral Directors Association convention.
04:30Sounds good, doesn't it?
04:33How are you doing?
04:34How are you?
04:34Because you're not being well.
04:36No, I'm not being well.
04:37I'm looking at the stuff just in case.
04:38Oh, come on.
04:39You don't want to do it.
04:40You can't be too careful.
04:42Well, you're planning ahead.
04:43Who knows?
04:45With almost 7,000 attendees and over 300 exhibitors from all across the globe, this place is a
04:50veritable festival of undertakers.
04:59Oh, now we're talking Beverly Hillbillies.
05:03There are many people that just want to be buried in a pine box.
05:05Now, how many times have you heard that?
05:07That really appeals to me.
05:08Well, a lot of people it appeals to.
05:09It has a Clint Eastwood feel to it.
05:12Well, there you have it.
05:13Could you tell me how much it would be?
05:15$4.45.
05:16$4.45.
05:17Yeah.
05:18That's not bad.
05:19Not bad at all.
05:20And I'll even throw the lid in on it.
05:22You can buy it while you're still alive and use it as furniture until you're dead.
05:25You can do anything you want with it.
05:26You can make it to your bed and sleep in it every night just so you can have it all
05:30just
05:30carved out just to fit perfectly.
05:36First things first, funerals ain't cheap.
05:39The average American funeral costs $10,000, almost twice as much as in Britain and a lot
05:44of that is in the box you're buried in.
05:48Run your hand across it.
05:49It feels like something you've probably never felt in a coffin.
05:56And it's super light, so you can pick it up with one finger.
06:02In case you've got no friends to carry your coffin.
06:08How we doing?
06:09This picks up on carpets as well as floors.
06:13I'm sure it does.
06:14What are you doing at a funeral show?
06:18Funeral homes have carpeting.
06:19Carpeting needs to be cleaned, right?
06:22I'm sure we've all wondered at some point, how many ways can I make money out of dead people?
06:28Well, if you put your mind to it, like the good folks of the Funeral Directors Association, you would be
06:34amazed.
06:36After the bare essentials, like embalming fluid party packs and special shampoos for dry, lifeless hair, you've got the domestic
06:44soft furnishings.
06:45These are blankets that we have at a funeral, and then they can take them home after to help comfort
06:51them through the dark hours.
06:52We have one widow that actually takes a nap every day at the same time.
06:56So she takes it and lies it in the bed with her.
06:58And one lady just said, you know, my husband and I used to have a drink every day at five
07:01o'clock.
07:01We'd have a cocktail.
07:02So she sets her throw over in his little chair and has a drink, and they still have their cocktail
07:07to get for every year.
07:08And she drinks his as well?
07:09And she drinks his too.
07:10And the hard sell doesn't end there.
07:13You've got zombie-proof steel coffins, hot rod hearses, and for the adventurous, rockets to the moon for your ashes.
07:24But the thing that everyone's getting excited about is this eco-death suit, threaded with mushroom spores.
07:31The fungi feed on your decomposing body, sending you back to Mother Earth as human compost.
07:38I don't actually know how I feel about a mushroom eating me.
07:42I've nothing against it, but it's never crossed my mind before.
07:47And you know, there's a theory that mushrooms come from space, that they're not earthly creatures.
07:54I would say, distance yourself from this.
08:00With the exception of the alien mushrooms, this shopping channel approach to death is strangely comforting.
08:08In the end, I guess it's all about perception.
08:10For example, I know a man who's obsessed with death, in a good way.
08:19Always look on the bright side of life
08:23My old LA pal, Eric Idle, he's always using death as a source of inspiration.
08:28And you could argue he's made quite a decent living out of it.
08:33I spent three and a half years writing a musical.
08:35About death?
08:36I'm afraid so.
08:37What happened to it? It died.
08:39It died, exactly.
08:41It died the death of a thousand cuts.
08:42Oh, this fucking great idea.
08:44Let's write a musical.
08:45And it was going to be called Death the Musical.
08:48First comes denial, then anger and bile, then bargaining, then we're depressed for a while.
08:57Last stage, acceptance of your final breath.
09:04All together now, first comes denial, then anger and bile, then bargaining, then you're depressed for a while.
09:14Last stage, acceptance of your final breath.
09:18And these are the five steps, these are the five steps, these are the five steps of death.
09:28That's brilliant.
09:29Mike Nichols would come for the radio and he'd say, and people would laugh, and we'd go,
09:32well, yes, we've got it now, we've got it working, and they'd say, it's still shit.
09:37Never.
09:38But several people thought, oh, that's a great idea.
09:40Just the idea of treating death as a subject for a Broadway musical.
09:43Yeah.
09:44It's nicely ironic, I always thought.
09:46Did you write One Foot in the Grave?
09:48I did, and sang it.
09:50In fact, somebody told me almost all my songs are either about death or penises.
09:59Hands up, death or penises.
10:01Penis for me, please.
10:02Penis, please.
10:03Can I take death?
10:04Oh, no, penis, sorry.
10:06I found a little poem by my daughter, Scarlett, many years ago, just when we lived round the corner from
10:11here.
10:12And it's just a scrap of paper on a desk, it said,
10:16If you die, I'll cry and cry and I won't come out of my room.
10:19Oh, that's beautiful.
10:21Isn't that lovely?
10:22That's really beautiful.
10:22What started her thinking of that?
10:24Were you sick?
10:25I don't know, I think children go through a death phase.
10:28Yes, they do.
10:28Well, that's what pets are for, aren't they?
10:30Yeah.
10:31So you learn to let things go.
10:34I was thinking and explaining death to them like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
10:41That's where it's at.
10:49In death, as in life, there's the haves and have-nots.
10:56Not that long ago, Buddhist monks in Bangkok collected, stacked and cremated the remains of 21,000 homeless people.
11:08And if you think that's something that only happens on the other side of the world, though, think again.
11:1440,000 people won't be able to afford a funeral in Britain next year.
11:18And at that point, the state will step in and those poor souls will then be cremated or buried in
11:23unmarked graves,
11:25reduced to nothing more than a number on a piece of paper.
11:29It's a shaking thought that those figures are rising again of penniless deaths paid for by the council.
11:37Apparently, the numbers have increased by 50% in Edinburgh and 10% in Glasgow.
11:42It shows you the economy today, the way it's changing.
11:46But the dead have always been susceptible to the economics of the living.
11:55When real estate is a premium, the first people to feel the squeeze are the deceased.
12:00And that's what's brought me to California, to explore a city purpose-built for the dead.
12:08This is a city of coma outside San Francisco.
12:11It's a pretty weird place. Let me tell you why.
12:14At the beginning of the last century, San Francisco was running out of land.
12:19So they forbid the burying of anybody else in there.
12:22They stopped all the graveyard work, lifted all the bodies and brought them here.
12:27So now you've got a town here with one and a half thousand of a living population
12:32and one and a half million of a dead population.
12:35They don't have a vote, so it doesn't bother anybody very much.
12:38They even took nine holes of the golf course to bury people in.
12:43And then, unsatisfied with that, they came back and took a wee bit of the nine hole course to bury
12:50pets.
12:53I'm sorry I find it funny.
13:02It's an extraordinary figure.
13:05One and a half million dead people.
13:07But the real mindbender is that the busiest cemetery in the entire city
13:11is the one reserved for San Francisco's furry friends.
13:17Skipper Ferguson. I love it when they get a second name.
13:22Macy Chapman. San Francisco Police Department.
13:26Best bomb dog we ever had. We'll miss you, Bob.
13:29Isn't that extraordinary?
13:32Riff Raff. Riff Raff's a wonderful name for a dog.
13:36There are over 14,000 dogs, cats, goldfish, monkeys, goats and sea lions
13:41buried in Pets Rest Cemetery.
13:44All religious denominations are welcome, as are all political persuasions.
13:48There's a Doberman Pinscher here.
13:51If you just look down the list of names.
13:54Wilhelm.
13:56Sweet Potato Gretchen.
13:58Then we come to...
13:59Ava Byrne.
14:01Wasn't she married to Hitler?
14:03I've always been deeply suspicious of people who have cats called
14:07Dramar Tabutin Singali the Third of Siam.
14:10I think Fluffy wins every time.
14:13But there's a great one, in loving memory of our Max.
14:17That's nice. That's the way to do it.
14:20See, they must have spent an awful lot of money on these.
14:24To bury a guinea pig like Gosha here will cost you $550 for the plot,
14:30$350 for the coffin and another $1000 for an illustrious marble headstone.
14:37Look at this.
14:38It's funny, the smaller the dog, the bigger the monument, it seems.
14:43So if you want this kind of love lavished on you,
14:47when your partner comes home, run to the door with your tongue hanging out and lick them all over.
14:53That's my advice to you.
14:58The graveyard says more about living people than it does about dead people,
15:02because they're the ones who spent the money and designed those monuments and all that.
15:07And I think that's where it's at.
15:08You spend the amount that makes you feel better.
15:12You know, because I remember when my father died,
15:15going to organise the coffin,
15:17and the guy talked me into an oak one, which was quite a lot of money,
15:21and I thought, well, I can afford it quite easily,
15:24but I wonder if this happens to wee wifeys
15:27who go to get their husband a coffin if they push them towards the oak.
15:31And I think there's a way of talking them and just saying,
15:34he would have loved this.
15:35You know, I think if you really love him, this is the thing to do.
15:40And I think there's a lot of conning goes on.
15:45To be fair, most people in the death business
15:48is they're not trying to fleece widows out of their life savings.
15:52Grief is kind of like a great big doorway,
15:55and it's so high that you can't go over it,
15:58and it's so wide that you can't go around it,
16:02and it's so deep that you can't go under it.
16:05To get to the other side, you have to go through it.
16:08Jack Jensen has been living and working as an undertaker in coma for 20 years.
16:13When it comes to dying, he's a passionate advocate for tradition
16:17and a perfect guide to coma the city built for and by the funeral industry.
16:23Every nation and religion is catered for here,
16:26but the clientele all funeral parlours are chasing is the Chinese.
16:30They're big spenders, and there's lots of them.
16:33That's why there have been two Chinese-specific cemeteries
16:36opened in the city in the last 10 years alone.
16:39What we have here is many things that are very typical
16:42of a traditional Chinese funeral,
16:44starting with something called a hell banknote.
16:49Western tradition says you can't take it with you.
16:52Chinese tradition says more fool you.
16:55Let's burn some cash to be in the safe side.
16:58And who am I, a simple welder, to argue with a nation of a billion?
17:02Vast quantities of this are burned by the family,
17:05paying off the devils, the bad spirits.
17:09And it's not just spiritual cash.
17:12There's a pile of Spirit World travellers' checks
17:14and a Spirit World passport all being burnt
17:16in some kind of afterlife insurance scheme.
17:21And I have to say, it's no stranger, really,
17:23than thinking that when we die, we all got wings and harps.
17:27Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.
17:34You know, there are those who might look at traditions like this
17:37and think, how silly.
17:39Why...
17:40But you know, these are the things that bind cultures together.
17:46And I think at the time when you've lost someone you love,
17:49having something to do is valuable.
17:51It really is.
17:54The service climaxes with a hop and a skip over a large joystick.
17:59The smoke and incense are to stop evil spirits following me.
18:04I'm getting quite sad and nobody's dead.
18:10That's part of the reason I'm doing this.
18:15It's my friend.
18:17His father's funeral was the following day
18:19and we were sitting in the pub and he said,
18:21do you want to come with me?
18:21And I said, sure.
18:22What I remember most about the funeral was
18:25his father was lowered into the grave and I was crying.
18:29I'd never set eyes on his father in my life
18:32and it's puzzled me ever since.
18:35I was in a terrible state.
18:36It was just carried along by the emotions of everybody else.
18:42It's kind of weird, isn't it?
18:46These feelings that come over you.
18:53And it's not just Eastern religions that embrace death.
18:57A little bit African and a little bit Catholic,
19:00voodoo walks hand in hand with the idea of communing with the dead.
19:04Which brings us to New Orleans.
19:06This place is steeped in the stuff.
19:12Everyone in this room thinks the dead are always walking by our side.
19:15And with enough rum, drums and dancing,
19:18they can cross over to the world of the living.
19:23Like an orgy, one should always consider carefully
19:26if you're really up for a night of voodoo.
19:28Because if you ain't playing, there's a lot of sitting around.
19:34Well, at first I was a wee bit bored with the whole thing.
19:37I wanted it to be more chicken's blood and all that.
19:41But when that girl got possessed
19:44and she came over to me and she said,
19:46You're not well, are you?
19:49It absolutely took my breath away,
19:51because I'm not very well.
19:53What if it's extraordinary experience?
19:58It's good to dabble in the unknown.
20:00You never know what you'll find out.
20:02Like, if you get comfortable,
20:04if you treat death as part of the everyday,
20:06you stop worrying about it.
20:08I think we cynics could learn a thing or two from that.
20:14Judy Dench told me a lovely one once.
20:16She was going down the street with Finty, her daughter,
20:18when she was very, very small.
20:20And a funeral came along the street,
20:23just typical with the hearse with the coffin in the back with the flowers.
20:28And Finty said to Judy,
20:30What's that?
20:31And she didn't want to go into all the explanation about death.
20:34She said, It's a wedding.
20:38And Finty said, Why are they taking the wardrobe with them?
20:46None of us want to talk about the end with our kids.
20:49But take my advice, do.
20:51Let them know your plans.
20:53Isn't that lovely?
20:56And buy your funeral now.
20:58Because just like your house, your six-by-three resting place has money in the bank.
21:04How weird to have a speed bump in a cemetery.
21:07You'd think no one would be going that fast, but you'd be surprised.
21:11People are in a hurry.
21:15Hillside Memorial Park is LA's premier Jewish cemetery.
21:19Home to the dead Max Factor family and the dead Al Jolson.
21:25A Jewish funeral is a simple affair,
21:27where even flowers are shunned for pebbles as a graveside mark of the pect.
21:32But this is LA where, even if you're dead,
21:35having the best seat in the house still counts.
21:38Welcome to the world of dead real estate.
21:41Is it a different price to be here, there?
21:45Oh yeah. Over here.
21:47The ground space, especially for us, is more expensive than our crib spaces.
21:52Because there's less ground space.
21:53We can always go up.
21:55Of course.
21:55But we can only go down so far.
21:58So here's how real estate pricing works in a mausoleum.
22:02Eyeline is premium.
22:03The higher or lower the resting place, the cheaper the plot.
22:07Here, the cheap seats really are in the gods.
22:10When this section was built, the mausoleum over here,
22:14we actually had people disinterring their loved ones,
22:17buying family groups in the mausoleum.
22:20So you actually, so that they can have everyone together.
22:23This is one of these areas that, you know, people disinter to move, so...
22:28It just makes me smile.
22:31Yeah. Well, they all want an upgrade.
22:33Is there such a thing as people being buried here and then doing economically better
22:38and having them move to a better bit?
22:40Um, yes. They do it.
22:43Economically, in these times, some people are disinterring having the remains cremated.
22:49Yes.
22:50And then reselling the property.
22:52Oh, really?
22:53Yeah, we don't buy back property unless they're upgrading somewhere here in the park.
22:58Yeah.
22:58But there are cemetery brokers out there that sell...
23:02Never!
23:02Oh, yeah! Real estate agents.
23:05Yeah, cemetery brokers.
23:07Do you know there are theatrical agents for dead people?
23:09All their customers are dead. All their clients are dead, people.
23:12There's a lot of money in...
23:13That's huge money!
23:15Yeah.
23:16So this area is one of our premier properties.
23:21Yeah, it's pretty expensive up here.
23:22A family estate here, I believe, sold over a million dollars.
23:27What?
23:28Yep.
23:30Oh, my goodness me. That's a lot of dosh, isn't it?
23:32That's a lot of money.
23:34Cold, hard numbers and investing in the future.
23:37It's all quite practical.
23:39And you could be forgiven for thinking that it's a cold way of doing business.
23:43Of doing death, even.
23:45Oh, look at this!
23:46But then you read the small typeface.
23:52It's in memory of Sophie Kravitz.
23:55This is the nicest one I've seen in ages.
23:57I met my wife at a travel agency.
24:00She was looking for a vacation and I was the last resort.
24:03Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
24:07That's lovely.
24:08I'm so glad I saw this.
24:27We arrive in this world crying, wailing into the arms of our mothers, and we leave quietly and ultimately alone.
24:35Death, I'm afraid, is a lonely affair.
24:39I'm on a boat in San Francisco Bay, and this isn't a tourist journey.
24:44I'm a guest of the Neptune Society, who take it upon themselves to disperse the ashes of people who have
24:50been cremated and whose last wishes were to be scattered under the Golden Gate Bridge, which is right behind me
24:56here.
24:56Kind of sad wee journey, really.
24:59There's no relatives or lovers or friends here.
25:04And that's because these people have all chosen to go alone into the brine.
25:09It's their choice.
25:10We now commit the bodies of these friends and loved ones to the keeping of Mother Earth, which bears us
25:16all.
25:17Earth to Earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
25:21You and I may wonder why, but the answer is not ours to know.
25:25We leave them now in peace, and with respect, we bid them farewell.
25:56Well, that was it.
25:58Three people.
26:01Dismissed.
26:02But the most moving bit for me was the flowers floating underwater.
26:07Actually, my lip went. I was trying to control myself.
26:11And if I thought I was to be dispensed with like that, I would be really happy.
26:20One of the strangest things about this whole procedure is I felt a great sadness and sympathy for the dead
26:28people, but I had no idea who they were.
26:30I don't even know if they were men or women, what their names were.
26:34Did they accomplish a lot in their lives, or did they just come and go and nobody noticed they were
26:39there?
26:41It's a great lesson to be learned there.
26:45Make the best of it while you're here. You're a long time gone.
26:53While some choose to go alone, others of a cast of thousands thrust upon them, there is nothing like a
26:59famous death to gauge the state of a nation.
27:06There were some 30-odd years between the frankly awe-inspiring silence that accompanied Churchill's state funeral to the cellophane
27:14-wrapped mass of grief that we all witnessed when Princess Diana died.
27:19I've never seen anything remotely like that, and the big mountains of flowers and toys that were left, and teddy
27:26bears and all that.
27:29The stiff upper lip was never the working class way.
27:33The working class are much more sentimental than the stiff upper lip upper classes.
27:39And I think there's something deeply unnatural about not demonstrating being demonstrative at all.
27:45You know, not crying or not wailing or not showing your grief.
27:49I think there's something really quite extraordinarily wrong about that.
27:56Of course, public displays of emotion can go too far.
28:00This isn't one direction coming to town. This is state-funded grief, North Korean style, as observed at the funeral
28:07of dead despot Kim Jong-il.
28:11Ah, you've got to give it to dictatorships. They know how to put on a spectacle, even if it is
28:16under the threat of death.
28:18And this one was a biblical extravaganza, right down to the Snow White-like glass coffin.
28:25Good news for you, however, as lying in state is no longer the preserve of tyrants and princesses.
28:32Because it is now possible, in where else but LA, to put your embalmed remains on public display in a
28:39drive-through funeral parlour.
28:40Welcome to sunny Compton.
28:44If you look around you, you'll find it's a very pleasant place.
28:48But in the 80s, it was fraught with violence and gang violence in particular.
28:53And this man here, Robert Lee Adams, who's dead since, as you probably guessed, had a great idea to build
29:01a drive-through funeral parlour.
29:07The woman in charge here is Peggy Scott Adams, who was married to Robert Lee Adams.
29:15Hello.
29:15Hi. How are you? Good to meet you. I hope you don't mind me being a hugger. I'm a hugger.
29:19I'm a hugger, too.
29:20Okay, great.
29:22Are you going to show me around?
29:23Absolutely.
29:24This is what's so infamous. This is what sets us apart.
29:28It's because we have drive-through viewing.
29:30We put the book outside the register where they can let the family know that they have been and pay
29:35their respects.
29:36And they just drive-through.
29:37As a matter of fact, we have someone out there now.
29:40And they never have to get out of their car.
29:44There's nothing strange about it. It's just...
29:47You would think it would be, wouldn't it? But once you come and see, you know, it's serene, really.
29:51It has a serene effect.
29:54What's rather marvellous about the drive-through is how no one around here thinks it's unusual.
29:59Putting granny out in her Sunday best for the world to see is the norm in Compton.
30:04Who's that picture of up on the wall?
30:06Oh, that is my late husband. He's the founder.
30:09Is that him?
30:09He's a hunk, I tell you. He was a hunk. How else do you think he got me, Billy?
30:15I feel kind of strange laughing beside this poor dead lady.
30:18No, no, no, no. Not here. You know, death is a part of life.
30:22And this is a celebration, you know, especially...
30:24I have problems sometimes.
30:27Like, for instance, this morning we had, earlier today, we had a service of a young lady, 20 years old.
30:33Oh.
30:33That took her a life. That was very emotional for me.
30:37Yeah.
30:37You know, but when people have lived a good and full life, like this mother here and so forth, you
30:42know, it's okay.
30:43When we're doing chapel service, we display the remains here.
30:47Is that the young lady?
30:48Yes, she's 20 years old, and fortunately, like I said, you know, she, uh, took her own life and she's
30:55going to be cremated.
30:56It's almost sad when somebody takes their own life, isn't it?
30:58Yes, yes. Nothing feels worse than the feeling of hopelessness.
31:01Yes.
31:02You know, you're there, you know, your loved ones are suffering. You can't do anything about it but pray.
31:06Yeah.
31:06You know, so, yeah.
31:09Ah, okay. We don't get so serious. Okay. But it is serious, you know. This is a, like I said,
31:14this is a serious business.
31:15It's gratifying to be able to, to help people.
31:22How do you stop it, all this, um, all this death stuff overwhelming you?
31:26There's a thing about going to work that stops you thinking about stuff.
31:30If you have time off, you keep thinking about, oh, what was that? Oh, my God.
31:35I'm shaking.
31:38You can't do that to yourself. You have to go to work.
31:40And, and, plus, you begin to think, rightly or wrongly, that what you do is what you were born to
31:47do.
31:48And this goes for window cleaners as well, you know.
31:51Or people who race bicycles, you know, they just, you think, well, I was born to do this.
31:57I'm good at it and that's what I should be doing with myself.
32:00And that's eventually what not only makes you happy, it makes you calm.
32:05So that's what I found solace in.
32:15I don't want to set the world on fire.
32:22Attitudes to cremation, like food and fashion, change nation to nation and religion to religion.
32:29In Japan, there's almost 100% cremation rate and it is mandated in the Hindu religion.
32:35But for Muslims and Orthodox Jews, it's very much a no-no.
32:39In America, it's more a question of economics.
32:42When the country's doing well, people want a plot of land.
32:45And when times are tight, things get hot.
32:49But scattering ashes to the four winds isn't for everyone.
32:52And that's brought me to San Francisco's stunning columbarium.
33:01And today's word, boys and girls, is columbarium.
33:06Columbarium.
33:10This is a columbarium.
33:15Columbarium is a repository for human ashes.
33:19It isn't a goofy little box under the bed somewhere.
33:22It's an enormous, beautiful place.
33:27It's an audacious structure, built over 100 years ago for a non-denominational clientele.
33:33In a society that still regarded non-believers and cremation with suspicion,
33:38it really does reflect all that's great and independent about this city.
33:44See, what you do is you reserve yourself one of these.
33:47There's a reserve place.
33:49Empty.
33:50And then when your time comes, they put your urn and your ashes,
33:54your little columbarium in there.
33:57And you can put what you like in.
33:59You can put charms or things that have meant something to you in your life.
34:05This is the one I really brought you in to see, because it says so much about San Francisco.
34:11This man was a scientist.
34:14He liked Lord of the Rings.
34:16There he is with his partner, looking all healthy and happy.
34:20And then AIDS struck.
34:22And the descent into really terrible health has shown up there.
34:29And there's a rabbit cookie jar with his ashes in it.
34:32Just the whole story's in that wee box.
34:37Sometimes business has no place in death.
34:40Sometimes it is our collective responsibility to step up.
34:44But when the AIDS epidemic struck San Francisco, nearly everyone failed.
34:49Government, families, even the funeral industry.
34:52And it was left to hospice volunteers like Paula Finn to walk a foot taller than the rest of us.
34:57It was called the gay men's disease.
35:00You know, because at that time, gay men were the only one that got AIDS.
35:06The funeral homes weren't taking the people who had passed away from AIDS because they feared being infected.
35:15The medical examiners weren't showing up because they were afraid of contamination.
35:21I was told not to come home.
35:25To see my baby nieces and nephews for fear that it would infect them was something that I might have
35:32gotten from taking care of my friends who died from AIDS.
35:36It was so hard and it was just such an ugly, unfair disease.
35:45The legacy of the thousands of AIDS related deaths in San Francisco is evident all around the columbarium.
35:51But that's only a small part of the tapestry that makes this place so special.
35:56This is a resting place for gay, straight, young and old.
35:59They make up a thousand dioramas, but they all say the same thing.
36:03I love and I miss you.
36:05There's a great atmosphere of rejoicing in life in here rather than sort of wallowing in the darkness of death.
36:20There's a visitor's book.
36:23I must leave a message.
36:31We all have different beliefs and thoughts about death, but the one thing I'm sure we can all agree on,
36:37agnostic or faithful, is dignity counts.
36:41Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar
36:50When a Muslim dies there's no waiting around, no embalming, makeup or Sunday best.
36:55The family is encouraged to wash, wrap and lay the body in the ground to face Mecca.
37:01The requirement in Islam is that when a person dies, we wash the body in the washroom and then we
37:08bring it here for the viewing.
37:10I like the idea of the family washing the body. I think that's a great idea.
37:14Exactly. What happened in Islam is the family have the control.
37:22This is Garden Grove Mosque in Orange County, home to mortician Gulad Farah.
37:27And his attitude to death, his sheer disregard for financial flamboyance is hugely appealing.
37:33With the sheets we use, it's simple sheets. Whether you are rich or poor, you're going to use the same
37:40sheets.
37:41Yes. Simplicity is the order of the day. It doesn't matter how you lived. To Gulad, in death, we are
37:47all humble.
37:48The way I look at it is that that is an equalizer.
37:51Yes.
37:52Nobody can escape. You cannot pick a time and date.
37:55Absolutely.
37:56Yeah.
37:57So this is carried in this?
37:59This will be carried and then we take it to the van.
38:02Did you say van?
38:03Yes.
38:06Simple van. A little bit modified.
38:08Everybody into the van.
38:10Exactly.
38:11There's no hearse.
38:12What we're looking at it is that to make it lowest cost for the family.
38:17And if the family don't have money, the mosque will cover the funeral.
38:21So this is the way you go to meet your maker?
38:23Exactly.
38:24Well, if I convert to Islam, I want to go in that van.
38:27Yeah, it's simple. I mean, I have people who buy 20,000, 30,000 casket.
38:33Yes.
38:34And I always look at it and I say, how many people can benefit that if they could have given
38:39to the needy people?
38:40Yeah.
38:40That's $30,000.
38:42It's a terrible waste, isn't it?
38:43It's a terrible waste, exactly.
38:44Let me show you the mosque.
38:45Oh, great.
38:46Yeah.
38:52It never ceases to give me joy when I meet people like Gulad.
38:56For him, it isn't a job, it's a vocation.
38:58And it's not just about religion, it's about community.
39:02A lot of people, they believe the person died, that's it, it's just a piece of flesh.
39:08For us as a Muslim, it's not anymore, it's more than that.
39:13So you only deal with Islam, do you do anything else?
39:15Actually, I deal with the Jewish community also.
39:18You do?
39:19Yeah.
39:22We are the same, right?
39:24Yeah.
39:24We do the same, the speed of burial.
39:27All of us are the children of God, we are the same.
39:30Well, that pleases me greatly to hear that.
39:33I think I might be a Muslim.
39:35And if the person don't have the money, then it's free again.
39:40You go back pure.
39:41In no pockets.
39:42In no pockets.
39:44There's no buying your way into paradise.
39:46Exactly.
39:48What do you think about yourself, the death, and what do you believe about?
39:54I'm not much of a believer.
39:56I'm kind of confused at the moment.
39:58Mm-hmm.
39:59I, uh, spiritually I don't know where I stand at all.
40:06I'm in the middle looking around.
40:08It's not something to be worried about, death.
40:11The way I look at it is that if you are a good person and you've done everything right in
40:18life, then that's what counts, right?
40:21Absolutely.
40:22That's what counts.
40:24I think that's what worries me most.
40:31That's why I'm scared of spiritual things they're watching.
40:36You think I'll be okay?
40:38We're all gonna be okay.
40:41As long as the van's okay.
40:42A van is always gonna be there.
40:58What we've noticed is that people are choosing individual ways.
41:02They're getting tired of the old top hat with the black ribbons and being told what to do, but they're
41:07boring men.
41:08I'm paying for fireworks for mine because I know they're very popular.
41:13Which means that you have to have an evening gig, you know.
41:16I'm paying for drugs for mine.
41:18They're very popular too.
41:19Yeah, very popular.
41:20And a sort of an element of dressing up, I think, so sort of a Halloween evening look into the
41:26whole event.
41:27I also had this idea, I don't think they'd do it, I wanted to put a cash point in my
41:32tombstone so you could get cash.
41:36It's gotta be a useful visit.
41:38I need some cash.
41:39Well I was gonna have a, oh Jesus Christ is at the time already, but in tiny little letters about
41:46an eighth of an inch high.
41:48So to see them you had to step onto the grave where I would have placed under the turf those
41:54sensitive pads that you get for people who are breaking into your house.
41:58Excellent.
41:58And it would activate a sound system and it would say, you're standing in my balls!
42:05How does it feel to have the most popular funeral song?
42:09I think it's only number three.
42:11I mean, it varies.
42:12It's been in the top ten at funeral songs for at least 20 years.
42:16And people tweet me a lot, say I just bury my dad and we did always look on the bright
42:20side and everybody laughed and cried.
42:23And it's because it does both, you know.
42:25I think one should play something terribly long and boring.
42:28It would make the people just wait.
42:31That would be a very good idea to go to the English Folk Dance and Song Society and say I
42:36want a 50 verse ballad, a child ballad.
42:39Performed by Morris dancers.
42:40Then he came to the top of the hill, oh he's always looking down.
42:45Then he looked to the bottom of the hill, he's looking down again.
42:50Would you have a choice for your own funeral?
42:54You know they're going to play bright side no matter what I ask for.
42:57They've got to play it because it says just remember that the last laugh is on you.
43:01Oh, absolutely.
43:02You know, so they'll definitely play that one.
43:07Some things in life are bad.
43:09Take them really much.
43:10Other things just make you swear and curse.
43:13When you're chewing on life's whistle, that grumble, give a whistle.
43:17And this'll help things turn out for the best.
43:21Hide.
43:22Always look on the bright side of life.
43:29Always look on the light side of life.
43:37If life is quite absurd and death's the final word,
43:41you must always face the curtain with a bow.
43:45Forget about your sin.
43:47Give the audience a grin.
43:49Enjoy it.
43:50It's your last chance anyhow.
43:53So always look on the bright side of death.
44:01Just before you draw your terminal breath.
44:09For life's a piece of shit when you look at it.
44:13Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
44:17You'll see it's all a show.
44:19Keep them laughing as you go.
44:21Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
44:24And always look on the bright side of life.
44:33Always look on the bright side of life.
44:41Always look on the bright side of life.
44:51I love coming to see you.
44:52I love coming to see you.