JEFF GOLDBLUM: Hello, my name is Jeff Goldblum.
By now, you may know me as a man of adventure.
I pop, I chop...
Come on, you.
...I surprise, I improvise...
I sometimes enjoy getting a little, a little gussied up.
But I'm not gonna need many clothes for my next mission.
Uh-oh.
Swimming pools. Swimming pools. Let's talk about swimming pools,
cement ponds, and all things water.
What a life aquatic it is. Let's take a deep, deep dive.
(HUMMING)
JEFF: These days, you can find swimming pools
in almost every country and climate in the world.
Over the past few decades, we've started building them bigger...
and better...
and more thrilling than ever before.
I guess we're just head-over-heels in love with pools.
But here's the question.
Why? Pourquoi? How come?
Follow me, little fishies.
This is Raging Waters.
Uh, I think Robert De Niro was in that.
No, I'm thinking of Ethel Waters.
Sorry, uh, Raging Waters. It's California's largest water park
and part of an industry, the water park industry,
that's worth a staggering five billion dollars a year
to the US economy.
Maybe here, in this fantasy land, we can gather our first few clues
about why we have
-this strange affinity with H2O. -(GIRL SCREAMING)
JEFF: Let's go!
When I was a kid,
we were the first to have swimming pools in our neighborhood.
So, we built one. I remember when we built one,
but even before then...
I remember having a blow-up inflatable pool when I was...
You know, these are my first memories. And we have home movies,
those old '50s-styles home movies, of me in that.
You know, but even before that, I loved running through the sprinkler.
And you couldn't, like a lot of kids, you couldn't get me out of the water.
And then in my adult life...
I didn't go in the pool much, you know.
JEFF: So, let's dip our toes in
and start to glean why folks are flocking to places like this one.
I myself have never been.
Wow, I'm really getting waves now.
We are definitely water babies. We love swimming, the pools, relaxing.
It's refreshing, there's no...
-Sharks. -(WOMAN LAUGHS)
-There's no sharks . -Well, yeah.
Why is it calming?
It's like, you're just sitting in the pool, and then,
like, the water's kinda cold, and you just can relax,
and you don't have anything else to do except try to float.
-JEFF: I... -It feels like you're flying
-when you swim. -JEFF: It's like
-you're flying when you swim. -It's like zero gravity.
-GIRL 1: It's fun.
-It's like flying. -GIRL 1: Yeah.
And it's a quick way to cool off when it's hot.
JEFF: Somebody who thinks that he can reconnect me with my inner water baby
is a water park super-fan by the name of Marcus Dorsey.
He has spent a whole lot of time in the last five years
visiting water parks all over the globe. Golly.
-(MARCUS CHUCKLES) -Water parks?
-Yes. -You are an eighth-degree
black belt master.
Supposedly.
How many water parks are there in the world?
-In the United States alone... -Yeah.
...there is 1300 water parks.
The water park is spinning at this point for me.
Hold on, hold on. Thirteen hundred? I had no idea.
(WATER LAPPING)
There's a few types of people that enjoy water parks,
which is what makes them great.
Okay, four types of people. Tell me.
The first one are the adventurers,
the people who dive into the unknown.
-Well... Oh, my God. Holy cats. -(MAN YELLS)
JEFF: Is this the first time you've done this?
-Yeah, this one here, yes. -(WHIP CRACKS)
That might be me, that might be me.
At least, there's part of me that's an adventurer.
Second one is the dreamer.
This one's the person who's imaginative.
They'll pretend they're on a pirate fortress, you know,
taking on other pirates and then going down the slides to escape.
JEFF: Yes, yes!
(SINGING)
Yes! I like it. Okay.
Third one is a challenger. These people push the limits a little bit.
Sometimes, they'll go out to a wave pool
and they'll try out something that's like a surf simulator.
They like challenging themselves, you know?
Yeah, that's me. Okay. And fourth, maybe...
If we hit, like, four cherries on this machine,
I'm telling you, I'm moving in.
The fourth and last one are the socializers.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm a people person.
(WOMEN LAUGHING)
JEFF: Give me the description.
The people who like shared experiences.
-That's like you. -That's me all over.
I never realized it.
JEFF: Well, the time has come to quit with the socializing
and face my fears as the adventurer.
(JEFF HUMMING INDIANA JONES THEME MUSIC)
What's everybody screaming about?
That bodes ill.
Hmm.
All right, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
-What do you hold on to, like this? -MALE VOICE: Yes.
Let me see, hang on.
JEFF: Hello. Wow, wow. Oh.
Hello! (GRUNTS)
Oh, wow!
JEFF:
(LAUGHS)
That was actually really good,
that got me much more soaked than I expected. (CHUCKLES)
Yeah. I thought we were going over!
My whole life flashed before my eyes.
JEFF: Oh, man, I guess I've been, I've been missing out.
But is there more to pools than just
dare-devilment and jejune frivolity?
What I want to now pursue is...
in history, what did they do?
How was the unique stamp put on pool life, swimming pool life
in other cultures, in other times?
I will pursue it now.
JEFF: As far back as 5000 years ago,
the ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphic symbols
for the words "swimming" and "pools,"
but it took Roman engineering for the construction
of the first pools that were meant for swimming.
They were, by the way, heated. And then, during the next few millennia,
pools were used in gardens and in temples
to heal the sick, to make fishponds.
But it wasn't until 1868 that, in the United States,
you know what opened?
Public baths.
And they weren't intended for any swimming,
just for getting clean.
Oh, yeah, since many of us didn't have a bathroom,
city officials decided that we should all get into a bit of hot water.
After that, we just went water-crazy, en masse.
If you lined up all the 10.6 million pools in the United States end to end,
you could swim around the world nearly two and a half times.
Hey, you ever see that movie, The Swimmer, with Burt Lancaster?
It's a good one. Anyway,
now we have pools not just for recreation,
but for a whole bunch of other things, including the quest for inner peace.
Nama-stay a while and enjoy this next sequence.
That's a horrible joke, that's terrible.
(JEFF MUTTERING INDISTINCTLY)
Ah, there you are.
There you are. This must be the place.
I guess we have to... I feel that sensitivity demands
that we start to hush ourselves up
and center ourselves, because this is a place...
As it says here on the welcoming mat,
"float spa for the body, mind, and spirit."
You know... (CHUCKLES) ..."spa"!
-I'm not exactly a spa fella. -(CAR ALARM BLARING)
And now, don't you know you're in front of the spa?
So, who has their car alarm on? Shut up! Shut up!
These are not extras, these are actual other people.
I hope I'm not disturbing anybody.
Are you waiting for your floatation... You are? Appointment?
You too?
Jeff, my name's Michael Ruskow,
I'm the owner and founder here at Just Float.
-It's a pleasure to meet you. -You know, I did not know that.
This is like some spy movie where, you know...
"Mr. Bond, I'm Felix Lighter, I'm your contact."
(MICHAEL SPEAKING HYPNOTICALLY)
Already I'm falling into the deep pools of your floating eyeballs.
Well, thank you.
-Thank you. -MICHAEL: Yes.
-JEFF: Avert your eyes immediately. -RICARDO: There you go, there you go.
-I'll get into this float ch... Whoa! -RICARDO: All right.
-How's it feel? The water's good? -JEFF: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Ooh, you're getting in? -RICARDO: We're... Yeah.
-JEFF: Oh, okay. -I tell you, we're gonna get
-cozy and personal. -Oh, my golly.
-JEFF: All right. -I'm gonna put this on your forehead.
It's called a brain station. So, it's reading your brainwaves,
so, when your neurons firing, right, when you think about something,
they create this electromagnetic field on your scalp.
JEFF: Dr. Gil da Costa is a pioneering neuroscientist
whose cutting-edge gadgets read peoples' brain waves.
(JEFF SIGHS)
What if they find out that I'm Abby Normal?
(JEFF CHUCKLES)
So, Jeff, one thing that you can do for your first few floats
is put this under your head.
-What do you do? You just do, like... -Just put it like this. Exactly.
-JEFF: Just like that? -RICARDO: Just like that.
-JEFF: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. -RICARDO: And you'll see that...
-Hey, I am floating, that's fun. -RICARDO: Yeah.
-RICARDO: Perfect. Just like that. -JEFF: Ready?
RICARDO: Just like that.
-JEFF: Okay. -All right?
-JEFF: That good? -Have fun. Enjoy your float, my friend.
-I'll see you on the other side. -Oh, yeah.
Oh yeah.
JEFF: Okay, let me read a bit from the information here.
Some evidence shows that floatation can calm down the mentality
by regulating the stress hormone called cortisol. Wow.
It can also help treat anxiety and alleviate negative emotions
and boost our sense of well-being.
Regular floaters report feelings of deep inner peace and spiritual insight,
but a note of caution...
in some cases, sensory deprivation can lead to...
hallucinations.
Wait a minute. I don't want to be William Hurt in Altered States.
Hi, Bill. Hmm. Hmm.
-(RICARDO WHISPERING) -JEFF: Hmm? Hmm.
Good, good.
JEFF: (CHUCKLES) I feel kind of spacey.
But I never opened my eyes that whole time.
Was that 45 minutes that I was there?
Oh, that's interesting.
-JEFF: Well, give me the bad news. -RICARDO: So, how are you feeling?
You know, I'm feeling rather good right now.
I feel energized, clear, fresh...
-I feel good. -Perfect.
So, we'll look at your data. We'll look at your brain data.
-JEFF: Yes, sir. -It's interesting. So...
-"Interesting"? Uh-oh. -RICARDO: ...I'm gonna...
My dad used to say... He was a doctor, my dad said...
"Heaven forbid you should be an interesting case."
(CHUCKLES) You were meditating, correct?
Well, yes, at the beginning, I started to do something,
and then I, kind of, went into a dream state.
The interesting thing, which we don't see a lot,
we see it in expert meditators, is you're doing this
very quick aural assessment of the brain
that is associated with creating this mindfulness experience.
So, we see it in Tibetan monks, for instance.
So, I'm actually envious. I don't get to that point.
-You don't? -Not yet.
JEFF: Jeez, the mindfulness of a Tibetan monk?
Well, that's another feather in my cap, I guess.
In any case, if pools can take us to the inner space of our minds,
where else could they possibly take us?
(SINGING)
(JEFF CHUCKLES)
This can't be the end of our journey.
What would I now be interested in?
Hey, I'm just thinking now
that there are people, literally, who are involved with pools and water
who literally go out of this world.
I won't say what I'm thinking, I'll tell my producers, we'll confer,
and then maybe we'll take you there next.
(SPACESHIP STATIC)
JEFF: My, oh, my.
Hey, can you imagine what it's like to really be in outer space?
Well, it turns out that if you want to find out...
you can do it right here on Earth in a pool.
You want to know where we are?
Well, I'm pointing to the name on the building.
If it were a snake, it would bite you.
Take a gander at this. It's one of the biggest,
most unbelievable pools in the world.
It's 200 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 40 feet deep.
It holds 6.2 million gallons of water,
and submerged within it is a full-scale replica
of the International Space Station.
Don't say I never take you anywhere.
We're in Houston, Texas, and we're in...
I have never in my life been inside a NASA facility.
This is the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
And look, I'm gabbing so much. Behind me...
is a craft of some kind.
FEMALE VOICE:
Wait a second,
-are we for sure going back to the moon? -FEMALE VOICE:
JEFF: But before any astronauts go there,
they got to train right here,
floating in water instead of floating in space,
and scrutinized by mission control exactly as if it was the real McCoy.
Well, here we are.
Who do you think is the astronaut in this group here?
-How are you? Good to see you. -Sir, good to see you.
-Have you been up in space? -I have been in space.
-JEFF: Where'd you go in space? -Around the Earth once every 90 minutes
for five and a half months.
-You've got to be kidding. -I'm not kidding.
JEFF: My amazing guide, Col. Mark Vande Hei,
has spent 168 days in space and performed four spacewalks.
Kudos to the colonel.
There are a couple of astronaut candidates getting suited up to get in the water.
Yes, Kayla and Loral.
MARK: Is it okay if we just say hi?
-KAYLA: Yeah. Hello. -Oh, my gosh.
-MARK: Okay. -My name is Jeff.
-You're on camera, I hope that's okay. -KAYLA: That's okay.
You want to be an astronaut.
-Yes. -You're going to be an astronaut.
-Yes, I hope so. -I feel very strongly.
And what are you doing today?
Well, today we're training in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
It's a really large pool,
large enough that we have a model of the space station inside of it.
It's the biggest pool I've ever seen.
-This is Loral. -Hi. I'm Loral.
-I'm Jeff. -Nice to meet you.
-How long you been training? -LORAL: Two years.
-Two years. -Yeah.
-JEFF: Two years? -Almost exactly.
-Uh-oh. -They gotta go. Go all the way through.
(JEFF SINGING "SPEAK LOW")
Oh, it's time for Kayla and Loral
to start the long process of suiting up.
They're learning to spacewalk submerged 40 feet down.
When they do it for real, they're gonna be 240 miles up.
(SIGHS) This is the high point of my life, I tell you.
-Okay. Oh, unbelievable. -So, you can see, it's...
JEFF: Let's look at that. I can't believe it.
That suit is actually exactly like the suit we would do
-in space, with a couple exceptions. -JEFF: Okay.
The backpack is a simulation
-of the life support system. -JEFF: Uh-huh.
Because she needs to get used to being able to maneuver
with that same volume on her back,
but the life support system that she'll have today
is provided by an umbilical, which she won't have in space.
-JEFF: How long's she gonna be in there? -MARK: Six hours.
-JEFF: Six hours? -Yes.
-Whoa. Did she have a good meal before? -I hope she did.
Did she go to the bathroom?
MARK: She did, but she'll probably have to go again.
-And what happens... -MARK: Not everybody has to go again.
What happens in the pool when you gotta go to the bathroom?
We're all wearing diapers. Space is a very sexy job.
(LAUGHS) I like that.
There she goes! Look, look, look, look, look!
They're gonna lower her in!
-She's waving to me, she's waving to me! -(MARK LAUGHS)
(ANNOUNCEMENT OVER P.A.)
I'll see you there. I'm gonna come down... I'm coming down and swimming.
FEMALE VOICE: We're go for test on EV1 and EV2.
MALE OPERATOR: EV1 and EV2, this is comm operator. How do you copy?
-LORAL: EV1 copies. -KAYLA: EV2 copies.
EV2 is at the bottom.
MALE VOICE: Copy that, EV2 is on the bottom.
JEFF: This may look like just a few steps to you,
but this is one giant leap for a very virile man.
INSTRUCTOR: I would just go in deep enough to be able to sit down comfortably,
and that'll allow you to get your fins on.
-Oh, I like this temperature. -And then...
Okay, I'm putting on the fins.
JEFF: Only a handful of Average Joes like me
have ever been allowed to go diving in this pool,
so, right now,
I'm just the luckiest boy on the face of the Earth.
Now, by using special floats and weights, the divers are carefully adjusting
how much Kayla and Loral rise or sink in the water,
and when both are equal,
the astronauts will be at what's called
-"neutral buoyancy..." -KAYLA: There we go.
JEFF: ...which is the watery equivalent of zero gravity.
And that's the closest thing that we've got to outer space
here on our planet's surface.
KAYLA: Should be good to go.
JEFF: It's space training made possible by the power of the pool.
The magical feeling of being weightless in water
is one of our primal sensations.
Just as all life began in the seas, so, too, each and every one of us
began in the near-weightless environment of a pool inside mother.
The womb, the womb!
But gravity drags us down.
As we get older, we get shorter,
wider, less flexible.
Regular exercise in water can counteract this
by reducing blood pressure and muscle tension,
and it rehabilitates injuries
and releases endorphins, giving us a natural high.
And for some, being in water can even turn back time.
(SINGING "IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME")
JEFF: Ladies and gentlemen.
the world-famous Aquadettes. Yay!
Oh, look. (CHUCKLES)
I think they've espied me. They're waiting for me.
They've seen me, I've been spotted, I've been spotted!
Don't let me interrupt... What are you doing? You're practicing?
Okay, okay, they're right in the middle of practicing.
Synchronized swimming, or whatever it's called,
sends you into a transcendental, intoxicated dream state.
It does me... (STUTTERS, LAUGHS) Oh boy.
Hi Jeff. Nice meeting you. Oh, my God.
Sydney! (SMOOCHES)
Nice to meet you, Laura.
-Hi Jeff. -Hello.
-What's your name? -Marilyn.
-Marilyn? -Nice to meet you.
You have such soft kisses, Marilyn.
-JEFF: I want to be on this team. -SYDNEY: Try it!
It's strictly gender-exclusive, though, isn't it?
-Not in... Not today, not today. -FEMALE VOICE: No, not anymore.
-How so? -We have special...
-FEMALE VOICE: Aquadudes. -...a special day for Aquadudes, yes.
-JEFF: For Aquadudes? -Uh-huh.
And, you know, since you're here. (LAUGHS)
You are going to be our Aquadude.
That's what I was saying. I want to be part of this.
I don't want to be left out of this whole team.
-JEFF: Water. It's very healing, isn't it? -LADIES: Yes. It is.
A lot of us here are 80, or above 80,
-or almost 80, and... -JEFF: You don't look it,
-you look much younger. -Yeah, we're all
-around that age, and... -You look much younger.
-Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. -That's amazing. Amazing.
All of us have different problems in our body.
You know, shoulders, knees, back surgeries, heart surgeries.
-Everything you can imagine. -Heart surgeries?
-Yeah, yeah. -And
you get in the water, and it's just like
-no gravity, no pain, no nothing. -JEFF: Right. Right.
-Everything goes away. -FEMALE VOICE: Nothing hurts.
-You know? Nothing hurts anymore. Yeah. -And nothing hurts.
I really think the water is healing.
-That... Oh, my gosh. -There you go.
Hey.
-That is sexy. -Yeah, yeah.
-JEFF: Is that good? -Yeah, that's good.
So, we're gonna go one...
-Yeah? -...and two, and three,
and then we go come around on four,
-and five is kinda like a little present. -Present.
-INSTRUCTOR: Five, and six... -Five, and six...
-...and seven... -She's laughing at me or with me,
-I don't know. -...and eight.
And you're gonna pull it in. We're gonna do what's called
a porpoise. It's a stunt.
-JEFF: A porpoise? -A porpoise.
It's kinda like another breaststroke at a 45-degree angle.
-INSTRUCTOR: Three... -JEFF: Oh, I like that.
-...and four. -JEFF: Yeah, okay.
-Lift both your legs on five. -I gotcha.
And then we're gonna go down. Six...
-Okay. -...and seven and eight.
Then we're gonna come around,
-we're gonna turn around. -FEMALE VOICE: Turn around.
-And now we're gonna go that way. -JEFF: Okay.
What music am I imagining?
It's the "Waltz on the Blue Danube."
JEFF: How's that go?
(ALL HUMMING "BLUE DANUBE WALTZ")
JEFF: Okay, here we go.
Follow us if you dare. This is gonna be great.
Or just leave us alone.
Maybe you should all just amuse yourselves
while me and the Aquadettes work on our routines.
INSTRUCTOR: Five and six and seven and eight.
("BLUE DANUBE WALTZ" PLAYING)
FEMALE VOICE: Yeah!
(AQUADETTES CHEERING AND APPLAUDING)
JEFF: My watery excursion is at an end, and, jeez, what have we learned?
Well, we've seen that
whether you're a water park adventurer or socializer,
it's just plain fun to be in the water, even when you're a grown-up Goldblum.
And we've learned that when we're floating in a tank
or in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab,
we can slip the surly bonds of Earth and liberate our minds and our bodies.
And we've also seen how pools might just be the Fountain of Youth.
But one more... one more thing.
Water...
is...
life.
Every living cell in your body has some water in it.
In fact, you might even say that all of us sapiens...
are made up of...
a collection of tiny...
little bitty pools.
You know, maybe that's why, when you jump in them,
you feel so, so...
at home.
(SINGING "HOME")
(CHUCKLES) Sorry, bye-bye.
(HUMMING)