This episode was written and produced by me, Maren Larsen:, and edited by Michael Roberts. Okay. I was just in Sonora, Mexico, looking at plants. Then there are people who got sucked in because of one of those viral videos. by Joey Santore, a self-taught botanist and producer of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't YouTube channel, which he describes as "a low-brow, crass approach to plant ecology as muttered by a misanthropic Chicago Italian.". Santore: I've been breaking relatively unimpactful laws my whole life. But also, I grew up knowing guys like that, you know? He admits to being borderline contemptuous of maples and rosebushes. Will: Every academic botanist that I talked to was super stoked on his work. Hard to mistake the voice-overs blue-collar, lunch-bucket bawl for Sir David Attenborough when the speaker declares that planting treesgivers of oxygen, creators of atmospheremakes the turd of lifeeasier to swallow.. Per the sponsoring organization, a rendering of the Swedish teen as big as Washingtons face on Mount Rushmore is an effective way to honor and amplify a message of environmental stewardship for a warming planet. Maren Larsen (host): From Outside magazine, this is the Outside podcast. According to Jesse Will, Joey's subscribers don't fit any kind of mold. Okay. Larsen: Joey's video from South Texas has some 50,000 views and counting. Los Angeles Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa wasn't happy with the officials on Saturday night. I don't know why you're taking that kind of stance with me. I went out and bought some of these books that you recommended and I'm learning so much. That's what really makes it worth it gettingpeople excited about learning and the natural world, which is the antidote to all the ugliness and stress and anxiety of the human world. You're ob-, obviously a NorPac. And maybe you have a better likelihood of accepting. So maybe it'll be okay. But the truth is that Joey has this sense of raw and unbridled enthusiasm thats elusive to a lot of professionals, says Michael Eason, who runs the Rare Plant Conservation Department at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. I just been planting trees, sometimes with permission, mostly without, uh, because the city I live in kind of dropped the ball so hard on their, uh, uh, public beautification efforts. Just imagining the possibilities of like planting something that would get bigger or, you know, dwarf your lifetime and your physical size. You have to reach almost a critical mass, like a minimum number of coyote pups of similar age in a rehab situation to rear so that way theyre positioned for success when you release. While some scientists bristle at Joey's swearing or his abrasive politics, most professional plant lovers recognize that his approach is having an important impact. At the time, I was like, "Whatever, shit happens, animals die." Did some redneck shoot your parents whats going on? The Landscape Architecture Podcast. Possibilities opened up. The way my mind works, I just obsessed on fix that on something I probably got fucking add or some sort of neurological disorder, you know, that at one point served our species of evolutionary benefit. and see what grows around you and then just start learning plants by family and genus, which is how they're all grouped together. Larsen: And so, an ex-punk, former-train-hopper-turned-engineer who doesn't have a college degree is getting hundreds of thousands of people excited about botany using just a camera and his voice. I called them and they said they could take her and everything, but she had already passed away in the night. His videos may be popular with kids who are budding botanists. A lot of folks think that coyotes in particular are purely nocturnal or even crepuscular, which is like dawn, dusk, night. Larsen: I first learned about Joey a few years ago, in a video titled "Guide to Illegal Tree Planting," which was sent my way by a friend familiar with my affinity for both botany and what's known as "guerilla gardening." Here's Joey pointing out a colony of the quarter-sized gray-green buttons in the video he made about the day. Larsen: Which is to say: sometimes what it takes to get us to give a shit about the natural world is a foul-mouthed amateur scientist. Consider this your heads-up that there are going to be quite a few curse words in this episode. So they kind of enter this wormhole that's talking about a whole universe, of natural life. You got a fuzzy stem, you got a fuzzy stem. He's gonna, I'm sure he'll return it once he's done. The 23-minute videoreleased the week before the murals revealis the work of a tattooed, foulmouthed Chicago transplant who for the past few years has been quietly greening up Oakland. Will: Well, hopefully people will hear this and, you know, chase down this stuff. It's botany 101, mashed up with expletive-laced tirades about consumerist, car-based American culture. You can read Jesse's story on Outside Online. But is now just kind of leftover. But Joey's influence goes beyond just getting laypeople to care about the things growing in their neighborhoods. This episode is brought to you by Visit Mississippi, a wonderland for outdoor lovers. Whether its oaks or Oaklanders, theres a lack of suitable habitat for many. Get access to more than 30 brands, premium video, exclusive content, events, mapping, and more. Makes the turd of, uh, uh, life in modern society easier through a swallow, helps it go down easier. He has lots of tattoos and no college degree and is. and the majority of the day, we're looking for this rare milkweed Asclepias prostrata. Unfortunately, it seems this particular coyote pup may have already had something wrong with it when Santore stumbled upon it. Thats not true. When Joey Santore went searching for a biological "origin story" of sorts, he stumbled into the world of botany. You can see the full 3 minute video (which includes some post-flea bath footage) on the Caters Clips YouTube Channel, which posted it July 5. It's botany 101, mashed up with expletive-laced tirades about consumerist, car-based American culture. First he delved into various sciences and then focused, increasingly, on botany. Santore is a self-taught botanist and former freight train driver in Oakland, California who believes the natural world can be a balm for modern anxieties caused by climate change and Capitalism. First he delved into various sciences and then focused, increasingly, on botany. This rekindled his love for the sciences, but it wasn't until he found a used astronomy textbook that he really started to get obsessed. Right. It's totally fascinating stuff, man. It's doing pretty good. With Joey Santore. Outsides longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life inaudio with features that will both entertain and inform listeners. Refreshingly Funny Ice Cream Man's Prank Video Is a Delicious Summer Treat. Joey was interested in science and growing things from an early age: he recalls trips to the Field Museum and propagating elm trees in his backyard. Guerrilla gardener Joey Santore has planted more than 300 trees, encouraging a new appreciation of our habitatand one another. Larsen: But Joey's influence goes beyond just getting laypeople to care about the things growing in their neighborhoods. What he's talking about, if he's speaking directly to you. I saw it (the coyote) running across the road, it looked grossly malnourished. Larsen: As it happens, the particular species of milkweed that Joey wants to find here in South Texas is especially rare. All right. Which is to say: sometimes what it takes to get us to give a shit about the natural world is a foul-mouthed amateur scientist. I believe Northern Pacific rattlesnake. Just to get more voices into the fold to invite more people to care about this stuff, because any interest that they get is, is a good thing. (He also produces a podcast of the same name.) Will: It's a real weird cross section of people that are watching this stuff, it's like people that are propagating weed and they got like maybe a little bit more interested in plants than just weed, you know, they want to know more about it. But also,[coyotes] are heavily persecuted. The animal appears sickly and unwell and the man tries to determine if he can catch it and bring it to a rescue center. Might just be cooking up carbs, storing it in that tuber and then going dormant for a while. She was really sick, I could tell. (Joey Santore). In his videos, he crosses citizen science with vigilante environmentalism. He exposes the secrets of these botanical misfits to us in his own gleefully peculiar style, and we simply cannot get enough! Member Since November 2014. This rekindled his love for the sciences, but it wasn't until he found a used astronomy textbook that he really started to get obsessed. Add to that the threat of invasive buffelgrass, which is fast outcompeting this important little weed. And then theyll release you back to the wild and you can go eat some feral cats and squirrels and stuff like that, ya know?. Santore, who also goes by Joe Blowe and Tony Santoro online (none are his real name, for privacy reasons), grew up in La Grange and lived there until he went to college in California. Behind the camera, the 39-year-old doesn't dress the part of your typical field scientist, instead opting for Oxfords, carpenter jeans, and a baseball cap. Sorry. It makes the nausea a little bit easier to deal with. It's kind of funny. All right, not that quietly. Larsen: Joey made "Guide to Illegal Tree Planting" when he was living in Oakland, California, where a project to enhance the extra-wide median of parkway left him a bit uninspired. 2018-21; 2010-17; 1999-2009; 1990-99; 1983-90; 1978-83; 1974-77; 1972-1973; Drawings. Shh, its ok. Im not gonna f with you. Last fall, two very different approaches to addressing climate change unfolded in the Bay Area. He keeps a stash of 40 to 50 saplings in his backyard and at a friends nursery, awaiting the next chance to sneak a tree onto a median or into another opportune location. He's shooting the shit. There's another one just coming up right in the middle of the road, it's a goddamned big prostrata. Something about that old school Chicago accent conjuring the late, great Dennis Farina combined with his attempt to help an ailing animal seems to be key to the videos popularity. S1E10 - Doing What You Love Without Making It Your Job, with Joey Santore The Joy of Challenge 374 subscribers Subscribe 1.6K Share 31K views 1 year ago Joey Santore, from "Crime Pays but. But is now just kind of leftover. Yesterday. Let's see. don't you dare rattle that fucking thing at me. Guy with a thick Chicago accent helps coyote pup, Newest rescued sea otter pups make their fuzzy debuts at Shedd, Photos: Baby animals from around the world, Terrier survives coyote attack caught on camera in Northfield, WTTW Channel 11 profiled him (using the name Joey Santore, I wrote about the Chicago accent and its near total disappearance from TV and film, Microsoft cuts 10,000 jobs, about 5% of global workforce, Seth Jones rallies Chicago Blackhawks past the Buffalo Sabres 4-3 in overtime to close out 4-3-0 homestand, Kevin Warren and Justin Fields, once divided in the Big Ten during the pandemic, are now united with the Chicago Bears, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Hes not afraid to mix the sacred, mundane, and lewd. Joey Santore is a photographer, presenter, botanist, known for Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't (2019). Listen to me. But you also get the feeling that botany gave him a way to make sense of the world, and of humans' place within it. The first steps to learning more is realizing your own ignorance, and then being willing to work beyond that. and he says that accent as a joke, like it just makes him laugh. I ended up bringing it to the house I was staying at about 15 miles away and called around for wildlife rescue and the nearest one was about a 2 hour drive south. countries. Kind of a bummer! And this is a problem. Santore: And then I realized, I didn't know anything about the country I lived in and it was a big ass country, so why not travel? He's going to take that opportunity to, uh, go drive the vroom vroom around and what the shit, you know, let's keep going. So maybe it'll be okay. I mean, on some level it looks, it looks like a weed. Many of those unauthorized trees now are more than 30 feet tall. He's shooting the shit. And despite his cynical-seeming exterior, Joey finds beauty in all of this, too. I thought you was a gopher snake at first. And maybe they'll look at the plants in their backyard in a different way, or maybe they'll yank out some of those plants and replant something. He undoubtedly spurred people who'd never heard about milkweed to give a damn about the plant. But then Monday when I woke up and was about to head back down south and take her to the wildlife rehab, she had already passed that night., Santore says that although the coyotes death wasnt entirely unexpected, it still hit him hard. Even if it gets really ugly, it's still gonna be okay. Absolutely. As it happens, the particular species of milkweed that Joey wants to find here in South Texas is especially rare. He adds that if he had known how sick the coyote was, he wouldve tried to get it to a wildlife rehabilitation center sooner. It's the oldest psychedelic substance known to man. It was about 2 p.m. and hot out and coyotes, I rarely see them out during the day. I thought, "Oh, shit!" Perhaps our favorite botanist to watch and learn from, Joey Santore offers us a bit of a different spin on the world of botany with his informative and hilarious (often PG-13) YouTube channel. A knowledge of the relationships between living things and how we have all evolved to survive over time is a coping mechanism and a glimmer of hope in the age of increasingly dire predictions about the progress and effects of climate change. I was like, I feel like an ignoramus. He played college football at Ohio State and was selected third overall by the (then San Diego) Chargers in the 2016 NFL Draft, where he was named NFL Defensive Rookie . On his YouTube channel, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, which has close to 260,000 subscribers, the vast majority of his videos have him giving half-hour-plus-long lectures on topics like plant morphology and evolutionary relationships in his very distinctive accent. Many of those unauthorized trees now are more than 30 feet tall. You knows what Im gonna do, Im gonna take you to a nice rehab facility. And Jesse's with me. But it's his voice that's the real star of the show. Joey's video from South Texas has some 50,000 views and counting. It's an idea of the bigger picture, you know, instead of this human myopia, where I'm just I'm just concerned about, I view everything through the lens of my own life. Kind of a bummer! Personal Quotes (3) I just want people to take a closer look at the nonhuman world and ask more questions. She also warns that rehabilitating a lone coyote pup is a particularly complicated venture. Larsen: Allow me to introduce you to Joey Santore. I'm not trying to harass you. You got the damn opposite leaves looking at it. You can plant this thing that would outlive you and maybe destroy the sidewalk," says Oakland resident Joey Santore, whose viral video " Tony Santoro's Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting " playfully documents his subversive efforts to reforest his neighborhood. I, of course, would let my common sense and care for an animal in need override their recommendation if it happened again, but I understand why they have to say that.. We're, we're keeping it civil. I remember reading about spectroscopy there and that was what really blew my mind was how you could take the light that's reflected off of a star or a planet and put it through a prism and then you'd get a spectral signature of whatever the atmosphere was composed of or whatever the star was composed of. Leaves looking at plants last fall, two very different approaches to addressing climate change unfolded in Bay! 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