Anyone who lives in Chicago knows that Tony Santoro is an actual person. Off the clock, Joey began growing rare conifers from seed. Soon, he was in deep. As Jesse points out, what makes Joey's videos different from so many of the strangely popular educational personalities found on YouTube, is that we rarely see much of Joey himself. All right. Usually, we just see his hands, which are covered in tattoos. Joey took matters into his own hands and began slowly replacing the non-native, water-sucking ornamentals the city installed with an assortment of plants he grew himself from seed. 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. It's kind of funny. I mean, on some level it looks, it looks like a weed. Especially young, sick or injured wildlife. A few months ago, Outside dispatched Jesse Will to tag along with Joey on a field trip to the backroads of South Texas. Guerrilla gardener Joey Santore has planted more than 300 trees, encouraging a new appreciation of our habitatand one another. Well, hopefully people will hear this and, you know, chase down this stuff. Larsen: But Joey's influence goes beyond just getting laypeople to care about the things growing in their neighborhoods. Nowadays he films the trips he takes in search of some of the rarest plants on the planet. I think the video obviously it got a lot of hits I think it touched people in different ways. Joey sees an integral and resilient piece of an ecosystem. Some of his tree babies meet an untimely end, felled by pollution, city maintenance, or swerving vehicles. 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." You can follow Joey Santore on his YouTube channel, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, or on his instagram and podcast of the same name. That's just the funny accent. It's everyone from dope growers to amateur science geeks to viewers who just stumbled onto his YouTube. 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. Sounds like a cool dude. But on Thursday, the Chicagoland native went viral when a profanity-laden clip of him comforting a sick coyote. You can hit the Explore button [iniNaturalist] and see what grows around you and then just start learning plants by family and genus, which is how they're all grouped together. Jesse Will interviewed Joey Santore. And this is a problem. I like the ambiance of railroads. 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. Cmere, hey, youre OK, shhh, a mans voice can be heard as he runs after a small, skittish coyote through the tall grass. 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. So maybe it'll be okay. You got a fuzzy stem, you got a fuzzy stem. Who is the man behind an accent more commonly associated with a Chicago firehouse than an open expanse of mountains and grassland? Take it easy, buddy. Santore: I've been breaking relatively unimpactful laws my whole life. Okay. But again, we always say that people should not pursue, chase, corner or attempt to capture wildlife because it places the person and the animal at risk.. This is ground zero for a lot of environmental action because of the oil spill here in 1969. 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. 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. Santore has been throwing shade figuratively and literally in his adopted hometown since moving there in 2006. So he decided that he'd see the U.S. by hopping freight trains. (Photo by Jesse Will) I called Joey Santore just as he'd returned from a botanizing trip to South Africa. So he decided that he'd see the U.S. by hopping freight trains. 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. I think it's kind of risky. Oh, what's going on here? This is journalist Jesse Will, who profiled Joey for Outside Online. 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. What did you think when you saw that video went viral? But as he told Jesse Will while they traveled around South Texas, once he hit his teen years he tended to get into trouble. It's just, there's something so inherently beautiful about that. Larsen: But you also get the feeling that botany gave him a way to make sense of the world, and of humans' place within it. It's everyone from dope growers to amateur science geeks to viewers who just stumbled onto his YouTube. This plant has adapted to lie dormant in its underground rhizome for years until conditions are right. 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. You like the fuzzy stem. But it ends up just being a very minor part of the day, hunting down this peyote. Transcript. But please dont bite me. He was kicked out of military school and got into graffiti and the punk scene. As with some content posted on Twitter, @eedrk did not create the video. You know, maybe not being seen for, for God knows how long. From Outside magazine, this is the Outside podcast. I was like, I feel like an ignoramus. 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. This blend of well-informed science, minor lawbreaking, and humorous rants about the ills of society is what draws people to Joey's YouTube channel, as well as his Instagram account, and his podcast. 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. You need help! I would be a lot more angry of a person if I didn't have this. Might just be cooking up carbs, storing it in that tuber and then going dormant for a while. That's one of mine. Santore: Anyway guys, here we are once again. He's on your level. The video, he said, is from late June when he was in small Siskiyou County, California, in the northern part of the state. I don't want to hear that. So a lot of them just kind of look like shit, right. He's gonna, I'm sure he'll return it once he's done. The Landscape Architecture Podcast. We don't get that here. According to Jesse Will, Joey's subscribers don't fit any kind of mold. [Terrier survives coyote attack caught on camera in Northfield]. Larsen: Oh, yeah, there we go. Here's Joey pointing out a colony of the quarter-sized gray-green buttons in the video he made about the day. So its mostly a joke, because most science communication is dry and boring. That's just the funny accent. Just imagining the possibilities of like planting something that would get bigger or, you know, dwarf your lifetime and your physical size. Check out our Patreon page for more info. The penalty, which came . So we shouldn't start trying to, we shouldn't, we shouldn't burn down the library before we understand what's in it, you know. You got the damn opposite leaves looking at it. Join Outside+ to get Outside magazine, access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more. Joey Santore's path to becoming an unlikely YouTube star really is one of the most winding journeys you could imagine. The man behind the voice is a La Grange native and amateur botanist who for reasons of maintaining privacy has posted his videos in character under names such as Joey Santore and Tony Santoro and others. another adaptation to that, uh, aridity that, that dry climate. As his online handle suggests, botany doesnt cover the bills. He's shooting the shit. And despite his cynical-seeming exterior, Joey finds beauty in all of this, too. 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. According to the man behind the video Joey Santore, an Oakland-based, self-taught botanist who runs the YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't the pup died two nights after he discovered it in the northern California countryside in June. Okay. Santore: 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. Theyre normally crepuscular or theyre out at night.". But she was covered in fleas and ticks and mites and also had some nasal discharge. It's totally fascinating stuff, man. Trees are a side pursuit. In the coyote video, which he said was taken in Siskiyou County, Calif., Santore can be seen following a pup that appears to be in poor condition through a field until it finally lies down and lets him pet and pick it up. 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. So I said, fuck it, I'm just gonna be who I am. 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. I associate them with a place to like get away from people and, kind of open air playground. I just want people to take a closer look at the nonhuman world and askmore questions. I guess why I talk like that is, one, I want to make the science communication more funny. During an AFC wild-card . Today I'm here to answer your plant questions via Twitter. I guess it's for the better. I'm a writer and photographer living in downtown Berkeley, California. Here's Joey pointing out a colony of the quarter-sized gray-green buttons in the video he made about the day. You got those undulate leaf margins with the slightest hint of anthocyanin pigments produced in the red on a leaf margin right there. Joey: You know, and I kind of like seeing trees. They tried to turn it into a golf course in the 1960s; luckily, that plan failed. What do you hope viewers take away from your channel? There's a wealth of stuff in the Chicago area that people should check out. For his part, Santore says that while he understands why the Department of Fish and Wildlife recommends avoiding direct contact with wild animals, he feels there can be extenuating circumstances. There's another one just coming up right in the middle of the road, it's a goddamned big prostrata. 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. You got to get out of the road. Will: It looks like a weed. But it's his voice that's the real star of the show. You're ob-, obviously a NorPac. The Outside Podcast is made possible by our Outside+ members. Joeys a breath of fresh air. Grew these both from seed. Theyre normally crepuscular or theyre out at night." And when its fur was wet, I realized how skinny this thing was. Among Santores fans are plant geeks, outdoor enthusiasts, and cannabis growers who were worm-holed into Santores channel while looking up plant propagation. Although Santore was worried about this pup being out during the day, Monroe says thats not actually out of the ordinary. 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 . Subscribe to one or more of our free e-mail newsletters to get instant updates on local news, events, and opportunities in Chicago. Chicago magazine newsletters have you covered. Santore was born in Chicago; his mother was an elementary school teacher and his father left on his first birthday. Anyway guys, here we are once again. 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