don't you dare rattle that fucking thing at me. 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? This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. So they kind of enter this wormhole that's talking about a whole universe, of natural life. But many thrive, and some of his earliest plantings are now impressive specimens. If you want to take a look at what I've been up to more seriously, check out my resume. We're going to turn it to shit. Oh, what's going on here? I would probably say the same thing to somebody cause theres a lot of jackaes out there, he says. And it clearly has a special place in Joey's heart, based on a t-shirt he sells. Like I just got really excited when I would read about this stuff. He undoubtedly spurred people who'd never heard about milkweed to give a damn about the plant. His life as a guerrilla forester began when he noticed some of the public spaces the city was ignoring. There's a wealth of stuff in the Chicago area that people should check out. The attention is somewhat unwanted. Hi, I'm Joey Santore, plant lover, botanist, and working class mook. Some of his trees are now over 30 feet tall! All right, not that quietly. and see what grows around you and then just start learning plants by family and genus, which is how they're all grouped together. So today I'm going to show you a little project that I've been engaged in for about the past. Being, uh, important members of the natural ecosystem, you know, you don't want to see them, uh, get, get smacked. Meet the Misanthropic Chicago Italian Who Charmed Twitter, 2020 Chicago magazine / A Chicago Tribune Media Group website, I try to always encourage people to download Wikipedia and, onto their phones as a resource. Usually, we just see his hands, which are covered in tattoos. One was that this gentleman was so singleminded in his approach to try and achieve a compassionate outcome for this young animal, she says. When you speak to them in person that accent gets dialed way back down. Learn to spot shallow conformity in social circles and don't waste your time on them, study plants and geology instead. Because what better way to understand the guy who created "Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't" than to join him on a hunt for a plant that's a schedule 1 controlled drug? Guy with thick chicago accent helps coyote pup pic.twitter.com/RJB9sqkrxl. Will: But it ends up just being a very minor part of the day, hunting down this peyote. Touch device users, explore by touch or with swipe gestures. 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. Thats basically all I do is I look at rare plants, I photograph them, I make notes and then share that information with the general public and make silly botany videos too., "It looked grossly malnourished. We spoke to Santore about his complicated feelings on his newfound fame, how the natural world can be abalm for modern anxieties, and why he plays up his Chicago accent for the camera. The penalty, which came . But as he told Jesse Will while they traveled around South Texas, once he hit his teen years he tended to get into trouble. His priority is making habitats, not only leaves and pretty flowers. Tony Santoro is the online alias of West Oakland resident Joey Santore, whose YouTube channel Crime Pays but Botany Doesnt is a rebuff to conventional nature documentaries. Released on 03/11/2022. First in his backyard in Oakland, and then, as he ran out of space, at the median park close by that became the star of that illegal tree planting video. And, and when I talked to him on the phone, he's he's like, yeah, I know where some populations of that are, you know, I'm going to go look for some new ones. (He also produces a podcast of the same name.) He says that working as a freight train operator rather than spending his time in school has allowed him to pursue that passion. That's just my personal take. Who discovered botany? Sorry. I would just be going [to school] to learn this stuff rather than get that piece of paper and thats kind of the whole idea behind the Crime Pays But Botany Doesnt thing. My yard now looks a little different from the neighbors next thing you know, it's going to be all milkweed. Braidwood Dunes is another really good one. All right. We don't get that here. And despite his cynical-seeming exterior, Joey finds beauty in all of this, too. One is that, at the department, we never recommend chasing or cornering or forcibly handling wildlife. Perhaps because the accent (and its attendant colloquialisms) has become such a rarity, when it does turn up in a piece of media, people notice which could be one of the reasons why the coyote video has generated so much attention. Larsen: But Joey doesn't see a weed. I'm getting welcome to Mexico texts, were so close to the border. Beyond the tenderheartedness, what really made the video was Santore's thick, Bill Swerski-esque Chicago accent. Member Since November 2014. 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. Santore, who hails from West Oakland, is YouTube's botany- and profanity-loving phenom by Robert Langellier July 11, 2022 Share This: Botanist Joey Santore. Joey Santore, amateur botanist "Crime pays but Botany Doesn't" Podcast "It's all gonna be okay. And Jesse's with me. You got a Tecate Cyprus, a Santa Cruz Cyprus, and a Guadalupe Cyprus. Amidst mild profanity and general irreverence, we examine plant life (the base of Earth's food chain) and the nature of the rocks and soil they grow on, as well as the evolutionary adaptations that enable . It's a giant a part of how I make my cash." Santore has a whole bunch [] You got the damn opposite leaves looking at it. And Jesse's with me. Drawings 2019 - 2021; 2010-18; 2005-09; 1995-2004; 1990-94; 1983-88 . However, the downtime has allowed him to post more videos about botanizing the Bay Area. Looking back, she was really sick. This is what happens when you dont have any regulations in place to protect the people on the bottom, he says. Possibilities opened up. Obviously the accents canned, he said. All right. I've been breaking relatively unimpactful laws my whole life. But is now just kind of leftover. and he says that accent as a joke, like it just makes him laugh. I have been driving freight trains for, I dunno, the past 15 years. You gotta, you gotta peyote, a peyote, a lophophora, whole shit tons of peyotes. countries. Allying with Nature to Regenerate our Living Planet, 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. And despite his cynical-seeming exterior, Joey finds beauty in all of this, too. Usually, we just see his hands, which are covered in tattoos. Absolutely. We're going to turn it to shit. I was like, I feel like an ignoramus. Today I'm here to answer your plant questions via Twitter. All English Franais. If someone spots a wild animal that theyre concerned about, Monroe recommends that they contact the Department of Fish and Wildlife directly to assess the situation. I was out in the country and the nearest rehab center was, like, two hours away, and they weren't open the day I got it. His appeal is all about sounding nothing like the stereotypical botanist. Unfortunately when I found her, I was so far out in the middle of nowhere and I didnt really realize how sick she was until later that night when I brought her home, he says. But on the other hand, the sad part of the story is that the thing died before I was able to get it to a rehab center. Most of the prairies have been destroyed, but there's still these little islands left that people can go check out. It was grossly underweight.. And maybe you have a better likelihood of accepting. But it's his voice that's the real star of the show. A shantytown of homeless people has sprung up adjacent to the neighborhood where hes been doing much of his planting. It was about 2 p.m. and hot out and coyotes, I rarely see them out during the day. But is now just kind of leftover. It's just the way it is. Plants, Redwing boots, dogs. Joey Bosa. Specifically, trees. Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher who first studied with Plato and then became a disciple Listen to me. I believe Northern Pacific rattlesnake. I wasnt able to make it there that day so I decided I would bring it there the next morning. He would print out papers to read during downtime on the trains. I don't know why you're taking that kind of stance with me. Meanwhile, across the bay, Tony Santoros Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting debuted. Then theres his voice: a native Chicagoan, he can sound like hes on an SNL skit about Da Bears. Maybe I should have just left her alone. As a fellow phyto-obsessive personality, Joey is dedicating most of his spare time to not only understanding plant diversity but also sharing his passion for botany with the world. I thought you was a gopher snake at first. Earlier this month, WTTW Channel 11 profiled him (using the name Joey Santore) and though he does have a noticeable Chicago accent, its not nearly as heavy as what you hear in his nature videos (or his voice memo to me). Got a tip? It was nothing personal, but I rejected them all unless we had mutual friends. And they did find some. I thought, "Oh, shit!" I'm a writer and photographer living in downtown Berkeley, California. As for the thick Chicago accent which wasnt nearly as pronounced when TIME spoke to him on the phone Santore says that he uses it to try to get people invested in his nature videos. 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. Cmere, hey, youre OK, shhh, a mans voice can be heard as he runs after a small, skittish coyote through the tall grass. I grew up hearin people talk like dat. Kind of a bummer! We dont value plants, we dont value habitat, often we dont value each other. 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. The Tribune did confirm his identity in a public records search but agreed not to reveal it. I don't want to hear that. Oh, yeah, there we go. Although Santore was worried about this pup being out during the day, Monroe says thats not actually out of the ordinary. 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. [laughs] And I had a pang of regret. From Outside magazine, this is the Outside podcast. 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. A few months ago, Outside dispatched Jesse Will to tag along with Joey on a field trip to the backroads of South Texas. "Mailing out stickers. Then, in 2012, he officially appropriated space in the park for rare trees, including Baker, Tecate, Santa Cruz, and Guadalupe cypresses, along with lodgepole pines, coast (aka California) evergreen live oaks, and incense cedars. I just want to create a more pleasant place to go, he says, and provide some sort of food or benefit to birds, bugs, and shit like that.. email me. It's the oldest psychedelic substance known to man. 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. It's botany 101, mashed up with expletive-laced tirades about consumerist, car-based American culture. So he decided that he'd see the U.S. by hopping freight trains. The Chicago vernacular is kind of dyin out, especially as cities get more gentrified and you get more dog day care and coffee boutiques moving into these old Chicago neighborhoods. Amidst mild profanity, general irreverence and a thick Chicago accent, Joey examines plant life and the nature of the rocks and soil they grow on, as . This video went viral when Joey posted it back in 2019, but venomous snakes are not his typical beat. Let's see. There's something to be said for keeping something like this around, you know, it's, it's a part of this, this interwoven fabric that supports it, supports the life that's been here for millions of years and is part of the bigger picture. Today. But Joey has his own reasons for loving the plant, chiefly its incredible diversity -- there are hundreds of species of milkweed in North America alone -- and unusual flower morphology, laden with abundant nectar and distinctive pollen structures. Larsen: He was kicked out of military school and got into graffiti and the punk scene. Joey is standing in the middle of a road in Central California, filming with his phone as he has a heart-to-heart with a very distressed looking Northern Pacific rattlesnake. So maybe it'll be okay. We have constructed attractive Patreon tiers that allow you to be fully recognized for your regular contribution. First in his backyard in Oakland, and then, as he ran out of space, at the median park close by that became the star of that illegal tree planting video. My aim is to give people a context in which to place [the nature] they see around them. It makes life a lot more interesting. If there's one thing philosophically learning about natural sciences has done for me, it's to tell me that it's all going to be okay." Joey Santore As a child, Santore took an interest in science early, visiting Chicagos Field Museum with his mother and propagating elm trees from seeds in their yard. And then the YouTube account blew up, which is cool. His appeal is all about sounding nothing like the stereotypical botanist. First he delved into various sciences and then focused, increasingly, on botany. Check out our Patreon page for more info. So I put all this narration through this voice of a 50-year-old Chicago mook from the West Side. Think Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers dialed to 11. 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. Soon, he was in deep. Listen to me. 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. He admits to being borderline contemptuous of maples and rosebushes. Here's Joey pointing out a colony of the quarter-sized gray-green buttons in the video he made about the day. Santore was born in Chicago; his mother was an elementary school teacher and his father left on his first birthday. 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. By his own estimate, he has planted somewhere between 300 and 400 trees, mostly native and drought-tolerant oaks and cypresses, along medians and in parks. Like I just got really excited when I would read about this stuff. I'm Joey. Join Outside+ to get Outside magazine, access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more. 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. I'm Joey Santore: a Connecticut-born, Brooklyn-living, nonprofit-working, cooking-loving, playlist-making, lucid-dreaming, karate-coaching, twenty-something. And especially where we are now as a species with our understanding of science and the world and all this technology that we have. I mean, on some level it looks, it looks like a weed. 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! I guess I view all those videos as kind of a long-running piece of sketch comedy. FILE - Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Joey Bosa (97) looks on before an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 25, 2022, in Inglewood, Calif. Bosa took part in 15 snaps . He's squatting in carpenter jeans and dusty black oxfords, scanning each. My work has appeared in newsprint, magazines, websites, and the missed connections section of Craigslist, where I write personalized notes to drivers who cut me off in traffic. Hes not afraid to mix the sacred, mundane, and lewd. I didn't realize botany could be so cool. He hasn't looked back ever since. Botanist Joey Santore. Okay. I impersonate these Chicago characters as a joke to make the subject material more interesting, he says. Larsen: In other words, as the ecosystems around us erode under humanity's touch, understanding the ways they fit together is more crucial than ever. Theyre normally crepuscular or theyre out at night. I don't know why. And this is a problem. but I think there's other things happening there it's like in this time that we're in, which is like pretty, anti-science he's getting across these scientific ideas by not sounding like he's shouting at you from the ivory tower, right? I don't know, six or seven years give or take. It looks like a weed. He's shooting the shit. Even if it gets really ugly, it's still gonna be okay. 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. Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't: Created by Joey Santore. It's totally fascinating stuff, man. When he ran out of room in his California backyard, he began planting them without permission in public places, including Mandela Median Parkway in Oakland. Special interests: Conifers of California, Conifers of Cupressaceae, California Native Cypresses, Arctostaphylos. 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.. This plant has adapted to lie dormant in its underground rhizome for years until conditions are right. It's totally fascinating stuff, man. We don't get that here. A good read? An ex-punk and former train engineer who is self-taught in the sciences, Joey Santore does not fit the mold of the stereotypical botanist. Well, he's not pilfered. You know, maybe not being seen for, for God knows how long. 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