Hunter Martinez aka Cactus Quest

All right, welcome to another episode of Crime Pace a bond he doesn't podcast.
I'm here with my friend Hunter Martinez, who runs the Cactus Quest YouTube
channel. And when did I first meet you? Man? When was like
four years ago something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had
you on the channel. Actually we did that little zoom call right yeah.
Yeah, that was twenty twenty, man, it was late twenty twenty.
But yeah, anyway, So how you doing. I'm doing pretty good,
man. I just got back from Arizona. I'm actually when you called me,
I was working on putting together the footage, so I was spent some
time in the field with the cactus biologist looking at some of the Arizona natives.
A few of them are Arizona endemics as well. So I'm good man.
You know, I scratched that itch. I haven't been out in the
field as much as I'd like to see lately, so it was good to
get to get out there and see plants in Arizona that I had never seen
before. And completely different habitats too, Like the second you get south of
Tucson and the Suaro stuff, it really it gets very very different from you
know what people kind of think of when they think of Phoenix to some like
Arizona deserts. You know, yeah, well, so what's it like more
like verdant, more green or what? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I
kept, you know, I had just gotten back from a camping trip,
like in the Mohave Wilderness along the border with Nevada, which is like very
dry. The largest shrubs you have are like really short creaso bushes and stuff
like that, whereas down here is a lot more like briar and all these
like it's just a lot thicker. There's a lot more vegetation, grasses and
trees and things like that. So it's interesting. Yeah, it gets lush.
Man. I remember, I'm twenty nineteen. I remember going to uh
spend some time. We spent like a month now two weeks since Sonora two
weeks or two weeks to a month in scenario, but I forget where.
But but we went to some of the sky Islands and the Souaros down there.
I mean it was they've gotten a bunch of mons soon rain. It
was really really green. It was fucking mind blowing. It was a really
pleasant experience. But you know, Saguaro is growing and really rather lush,
tropical dry forest, but during the wet season. So yeah, it's it's
it's nice. Like I have been out to Arizona many many times, and
it's generally I've been there when it's extremely dry and it's it had rained like
the two or three days prior to me getting there, so a lot of
the things were flowering or in bud and just looking juiced up. I mean,
uh, it was. It was pretty awesome actually, Like we went
to go see a site for a kindo Mastus intertextas, which I'm pretty sure
is an Arizona endemic. I don't believe it grows in Mexico at all,
and they were in flower you know. Oh nice, like really cool to
see that and just seeing all the different habitats. Like first we looked at
a site where you have some Echinocerius species, and then there's Epithelantha micro maris
and it's this one limestone outcrop, like just one lone solitary limestone outcrop on
this mountain range and they're just growing there. That's it. Oh cool,
So you saw that, you saw the Arizona epithylanta population, Yeah, that's
cool. Yeah, Yeah, there weren't a lot of plants, but you
know, there was there definitely were plants, and there were plants that were
producing fruit, Like we found seed I even took a couple of the seed
pods and smashed the seeds into some of the cryptobiotic crust around the plants,
you know, to kind of give a little push in the right direction.
Yeah, And I try to do that too, especially if I'm taking seeds.
I always try to disperse a few too. Yeah, So like with
micromerias, like it'd be cool to take the seeds, like take a seed
pod and grow the specific locality. But because of the fact that at this
site there was like I mean less than a dozen plants, I think we
just left that, you know. Oh yeah, I heard that wiped out.
I heard it. It originally was wiped out, but then someone someone
else told me, like, no, there's a couple populations left, like
they gotta wiped out, like collect Yeah, yeah, this is the check
it was. From my understanding, it was a bunch of check collectors who
came in at this site in particular that we just visited, and they took
a lot of plants. There used to be many, many more. From
what my friend Niche was telling me there was like fifty to sixty plants there
several years back. Now, like I said, there's probably less than a
dozen. Surprisingly enough, though there were two incredible crests. If they just
I guess must not have seen. Yeah, that we're still there, which
is pretty nice. It was gonna. I was just bringing up unrelated the
acino mastis inter Texas because we get that that's in West Texas too, it
like West Texas, New Mexico and like Chihawa. But I always forget that
that species exists because I don't get ekino mastus where I live. It's you
know, in South Texas. It's more like a West Texas thing. So
I remember seeing it, like coming up next to some bunch of grasses,
and I was like, wait, what the fuck that's that doesn't look like
a mammalaria. It kind of looks like maybe a Cora panta, But I
had this cool blue epidermal tissue to it, and so, uh, yeah,
I don't know. I always forget about that one totally related to what
we were talking about before, but you put it on my radar again.
Well, I think one of the things that trips me out about it is
like you okay, so you know you take like, what is it a
kindocactus horaz Antalonius nikolai right which grows in between Phoenix and Tucson. That like
if you know the mojave and you know that limestone, and you like,
you know what that all looks and feels like it literally feels like you could
be in the mojave right there where those plants are growing. The limestone is
like textured the same, has the same and it's literally looks exactly the same.
Yeah, where the epithalantha was growing, the limestone looks very different,
like it's smoother, it's like coming off and like plates almost. It's that
Texas stuff, that cretaceous stuff. I don't know what causes that. If
it's if it's just different, Yeah, I don't know. I think it's
like a I think it's a different chemical mixture in the limestone. Maybe the
maybe the mohave stuff is more akin to dolomite. I'm not sure. Yeah.
Well, and then what trips me out too, especially with going and
you see these plants, like people will be like, well, you got
to keep things dry in the wintertime, but at this site, I mean
it had to be in the mid to low forties, and it was windy
as hell, and it had just been pouring rain. So these things are
all getting soaked in extremely cold weather. And it kind of like every time
I see plants and habitat, it makes me feel like, Okay, I
feel a little more comfortable now in the greenhouse pushing certain things in, you
know, during the wintertime outside of what is considered to be the growing season.
Because they take it, they take it in their home, you know,
that's how they live it, so they should be able to do it
in the greenhouse the same. Yeah. But then you jump from like that
habitat and you go down to where Intertextas is growing, which is a bit
closer to the border, and it's like a very like iron rich loamy kind
of like silty substrate. You know, there's some rocks to it, but
not a whole lot. And then it's grown with grass. Yeah. Yeah,
everything's so there's so many different factors that play though, too, I
mean, especially when you've got a lot of airflow like you do and in
habitat versus in a greenhouse. I don't know, I'm still I'm still like
figuring things out, but it always helps to see things in habitat like where
I live. You know, it blows people's minds that come down here and
see see these cacti, like you know, whether it's star cactus or payote
growing in fine particled sandy loom like stuff that in a pot would be just
unfathomable, you know, like no drainage just turns into a brick when it's
dry and then stays wet for a really long time when it gets wet,
and that's what they but that's what they grow in. I mean plant,
you know, soil when it's in the ground versus when it's in a pot
behaves totally differently, you know, at the rate at which it dries out,
et cetera. But there's I don't know, there's just there's so much
shit to so many different factors to consider. I guess I'm still you know,
I'm still learning. But yeah, definitely the best way is to see
things in habitat. Well, Like I'll tell you, like every I get
a lot of questions answered when I go out into the desert and I look
at plants, and then I get a whole new list of like questions as
well. You know, so like, we went to Koela a couple of
years ago, and my first time ever seeing a turbany carpus and habitat kind
of blew my mind because we were at about four thousand feet in a pine
in a pine forest basically, and we were actually looking for a particular agave
species, and I'm like noticing wherever there's limestone coming up, there's these little
little cacti and I'm like getting close to him and look at them. I'm
like, holy how man, that's a turbany carpus. And it's like I
never had that context to that plant, Like I in my mind it's like
a desert plant. And many of the turbany Carpus do grow at the lower
elevations in the super ariad areas that in fact most of them do. But
to see one of them up like in a pretty lush habitat, like you've
got like orchids and all kinds of stuff growing all over the place, yeah,
epiphytes and and things like that, and then here's this urbany carpus.
So remember when I was when I remember like when I first got into desert
botany was like twenty twelve, and I just had the idea that like deserts
just warn't they were just supposed to be barren and rocky, like the kind
Certainly the concept of like a dry tropical forest was totally foreign to mein which
and that's like where a cacti evolved, Like, they didn't evolve in deserts.
They evolved in dry tropical forests where you get a shit ton of water
during the summer wet season, but then during the dry the dry winters.
It's it's that long period of dry that started selecting for things like stem succulents
and you know whatever. But I always assumed I was like, oh yeah,
desert. I was like, you know, barren fucking Phoenix hills with
like souarros, and that's what a desert is. Like the there pine forest,
you know dry, you know pinion juniper, you know, latitude and
elevation, we're so far off my radar. I just figured like everything was
just fucking rocky and like just like from the from the start, like these
little plants we're just growing in like surrounded by nothing, but rocks are just
getting blasted with sunlight. Man, It's like so much, it's so much
more. It took me a while to figure it out that it's so much
more complicated than that. You know, yeah, I mean some of them
definitely, do you know what I mean? But I totally get what you're
saying. Like you drive, you know, I mean, I would say
for your average like California, and you know, you're if you're not actually
going out into the desert, maybe you go to Palm Springs once a year,
maybe you drive to Vegas, and yeah, you kind of look out
off the fifteen and that's what it looks like. It looks like practically looks
like a Martian landscape. Like there's kind of looks like there is nothing on
those hills, but when you get closer to them, it is actually mind
boggling and in fact, I think one of the coolest things. Okay,
so, like you're familiar with Dudley's, right, Yeah, so you have
most people that like are familiar with Dudley's kind of think of them as like
a coastal you know, cooler weather California and ittive succulent. But there's actually
a species of Dudley that grows deep in the Mojave, out straight out of
limestone at the base of Pharaoh Cactus like completely rugged. And this one particular
place in the Mojave it's like my favorite place on planet Earth. I go
out there camping with my family a bunch, and I go out there any
chance I get. So I've seen these plants in every single possible season,
like in every stage of you know, in every stage of the plant basically,
and this last time I went out there, these things were juiced up.
I mean some of the rosettes were the size of dinner plates. Oh
you're talking about Yeah, yeah, I've never seen now, I've never seen
them that big, but I've certainly seen them, you know in the granite
mountains. I've only ever seen them really growing on granite, but you've seen
them on limestone too, yeah, oh yeah yeah. And so what blows
my mind though, is like you'll go out there, you know, you
go out there like three months from now, and you go to that exact
same spot and you take pictures of exactly where you took that beautiful picture of
that beautiful rosette, and you're not going to see anything. At best,
it'll look like there's a dead dud ley of the m Yeah. So they
just dive back to a root or stem. Yeah, pretty much pretty much,
and as soon as they get water, it's like, I think it
kind of goes to show you like a lot of people focus in terms of
horticulture and with collectors and stuff like that, a lot of people are hyper
focused on the plant above ground, which is of course the thing that is
attractive to us. But really like a lot of the magic of that plant
is what's going on below the surface, Like the fact that these things can
can do that and whatever they've got down there keep them going and then they
can just regenerate from that. I mean that resilience, I think is one
of the things that really locked me in with succulents in general. So on
that note, let's talk about So tell everybody how you got into this and
what you do and you know, because man, I remember when I first
met you, like if that was I think it was before the YouTube channel
really took off. And now you're like you're going out the habit that you
go to Mexico a shit ton, You're filming all kinds of cool plants.
I mean, plants like I've never even seen before, like for Carrio PROPUSSII
and all these cool I mean, how did you how did you get into
all this stuff. What started it? So, I mean it kind of
like all began just before before the quarantine, so twenty twenty, you know,
I had basically I was. I was a sales rep for a window
and door manufacturer, and I worked like a dog. I made good money,
you know, but like I worked like a dog days a week,
usually tired on Sunday and don't want to do anything. But I started going
in between appointments. I started going to nurseries, but the nurseries and thrift
stores trying to found like cool t shirts or cool plants. And my mom
always had a patio with plants on them, and it was mostly succulents.
I didn't know anything about them at the time, you know. I was
just like a high school cow. Used to like the smoke weed out there
because it felt good. The energy on the patio was good, you know.
Yeah, So I started buying plants for myself, and I think initially
I tried to do orchids, and I was like, that mean, you
know, the dude watering is orchids with ice cubes. I couldn't do it.
And somebody suggested that I try succulents because they were a bit easier,
and once I started going to nurseries and seeing them. I mean initially I
was being drawn in by things like at Chavaria's and grabbedo pedlums and like different
messms, tight knopsis and like the baby toes, all these different things that
I looked at and thought that's trippy, like that is that really a plant?
Like it's so crazy. So I was buying things on a trippiness factor.
I started to get kind of a little disenchanted with the work I was
doing, and I actually ended up going Now by this point, I have
a small collection of plants, so I got some plants around the house.
I've got a little table on the back patio with a bunch of cactus.
Everything's the cactus to me. So I really didn't know. Like I had
things that were euphobia's and I just thought they were really cools. What's this
cactus? Now? What is this? Tell me what this is? Well?
I was like, can I remember I bought this one? And I
was like, gosh, it looks like a tiger stripes, like it's such
a wild cactus. And it turns out it's not a not a cactus at
all, you know what I mean? But what the turning point for me
really was is I had gone. I went, and I did a ayahuasca
ceremony. I did like a two day weekend ayahuasca ceremony, and I had
I had like three or four days in between the ceremony and when I had
to go back to work. And how'd you do They were like travel they
were like doing a traveling tour or something or what or did you go to
Peru? Or how'd you do it? No? No, it was down
like in the Vista area actually, So there's there's all kinds of groups of
people doing that stuff around Los Angeles and southern California. But the experience itself,
which I'm not going to go on a tangent about that, but it
was an extremely powerful experience for me, and I spent the next few days
prior to going back to work, repotting my plants and tending to my my
garden basically. And I had this one in particular point as a Mammalaria grisillis
for Jillis. I think I probably got it like Trader Joe's or something like
that. And prior to the ceremony, I had kind of been in a
little bit of a slump. I was recovering from a knee surgery, so
I was not really as active as I used to be, which was bumming
me out. And uh, I had this plan been knocked over by squirrels
in my front yard and was sitting there for a couple of months, and
my wife would be like, what are you going to fix that? When
are you gonna rep And I'm like, I get to it, but I
was just like, I just wasn't. I wasn't in the headspace for it
at the time. And after that ceremony, when I went to go get
that plant and repot it, it had been partially buried with some of the
roots exposed, just sitting in my front yard for months. And after I
dusted it off and cleaned it, I realized, Man, this thing is
actually grown significantly since it got knocked over. And that resilience. I'd mentioned
it before, but that resilience, and I mean, there's something to me
that's very spiritual about it. I think the fact that this plant could get
like just left for dead basically, and not give a fuck really and just
keep going and thriving no matter what in the face of adversity. And I
just it really struck me. And it was at that moment that I was
like, man, it's it's cactus. And I sort of stopped stopped collecting
soft succulents, and you know, I started reading books about cacti, and
actually, so it's kind of a funny story. As I started to get
more and more into it, I was already thinking of doing a YouTube channel,
and I was like, really really wanted to go see them in habitat
and I thought, man, it would be so cool to go dig one
up and like bring home some of the dirt and some of the rocks from
where it grows and plant it and see if I could, you know,
keep it growing. And so I googled where can I go dig up cactus
in California and quickly realize that you cannot do that. So I was a
little bummed. But so different from Texas, where it's like, hey,
he's dig up everything, go ahead, Yeah for real? Right, But
yeah, that's kind of like the genesis for me, and I decided that
I was going to start the YouTube channel. You know, it took me
a minute to like figure out what I was going to call it, but
Cactus Quest is what it's called. And that's sort of like a double entendre,
you know, because it's what I'm on, you know, when I
go and I go to Mexico or wherever, I'm going on a quest for
cactus. And then it's also sort of a nod to what I feel is
what birth this whole thing, which is that ceremony, So it's sort of
a nod to like the vision quest. And that's basically from there I started
it. The quarantine had not started, so I was still working, and
in my mind, I was like, well, I'm just going to do
this. You know, in my spare time, I get to go see
a lot of really cool plants here in southern California. I hadn't even touched
the tip of the iceberg yet. This is just like going to nurseries all
around town and stuff. And I thought that would be cool enough. And
I remember telling my wife, I'm like, man, if I could just
get paid for like six months to not work, like, I think I
could actually turn this into a thing that I don't have to go back to
work. And the next thing, you know, the pandemic hit and I
got paid for like a year to not work. Yeah. Yeah, was
that got a lot of people into plants. Man, that whole period,
I think just being stuck inside and then having everything slow down and having to
realize, like, ah, fuck, like that this ship feels good,
you know, like being around plants feels good, and kind of taking time
to pay attention to these things feels good. And and a lot of people
stuck with that after the you know, after things quote unquote went back to
normal into a recession and you know, political division and all the other normal
I put in quotes, you know, the fucking whatever, the gradual decline
of the American empire, right, but yeah, yeah, I mean so
for me, it was like, okay, all right, I'm gonna you
know, I'm gonna start doing this. And I wanted to, you couldn't.
I literally lived at the foothills in Altadena, like walking distance from hiking
trails, except all the hiking trails had tape, and you know, if
you get caught hiking, it's a five thousand dollars fine, Like you really
wanted to stay in your house, you know, that's nuts mean, And
I just decided, like there's blm land where there's nobody there to say anything,
So I'm just gonna start driving out and just pulling over and seeing what's
there. And that's uh, that's sort of where it started for me.
And I think going out into the desert, like actually going and saying I'm
setting out to find this plant, uh, and then finding it. The
first plant I ever did that with was agave utai insis. Yeah, And
I didn't I didn't ask anybody, I didn't have a locality, I didn't
have any GPS coordinates, but I read about it and I looked and saw
like it grows around here, grows at this elevation. Out of this,
I think I can find it, you know, And I drive in ultimus
that I kind of ended up getting to a lot of places where I'm like,
yeah, it's probably there, but I just can't make this road work,
you know. And then at the at the very end of the day,
like I was coming back and I decided to just hop off one last
time and drove way into the desert and I'm looking at this ridgeline and I
saw these giant, giant clumps of I guess now it's Homolocephala polycephalos, yeah,
but econocactus. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna
up and photograph these like it's almost sunset beautiful, you know, beautiful shots.
And as I get close to them, I look a little further and
I see all these spikes, all these inflorescent spikes, And man, the
feeling that I got right because I knew it had to be them, you
know what I mean. And I got so fucking hyped up. I mean,
like there's video of it, I believe on my channel. I'm just
like like a just a like giddy little kid, you know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, Like I had given up on finding them, and
here they are, and uh, the dopamine rush when people experience that,
I think it's it's quickly addictive, you know. It seems to be anybody,
uh, anybody that I've taken out to go see plants and habitat.
It's sort of like that was like their gateway experience. Like my buddy Kevin
Crazy for Cactus on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, I think I think they're
either getting back today or tomorrow or they're still in Bah. Yeah. And
like that dude, you know, like I took him to do a video.
He had never been out to the desert. I took him to like
outside of Joshua Tree. There's a hike, it's like the twenty nine Palms
Canyon hike or something like that, and we did that. There's all kinds
of stuff growing on that trail, like Escobaria Alverson, I uh, you
got Pharaoh cactus. I think there's mammalarius. But there's all kinds of cool
stuff. And his mind was blown and that's it. That dude has been
on so many trips since then, it's not even funny. Yeah. Yeah,
Which it was one of his lawns that we killed for the UH.
That's right, for the UH. Or his law was one of the ones
we killed for the first season, to kill your lawnyea. I remember when
I first met him, he's like just getting into this stuff. And now
he's yeah, and now he's like all over the fucking place. He's going
into you know, different habits, all the all the shit. I see
him posting him like, God, that's awesome. It's so cool to see
people when they first get into it and then watch where it goes and how
it spreads, you know, and it's I think it's one of the few.
I mean, there's a lot of good things, there's a lot more
bad that comes out of social media. But I think it's it's one of
the good things that really comes out of social media is you know, getting
getting people exposed to this world and also getting you know, people connected to
each other. Well. I think one of the things for me that I
find like really like it draws me in is that you know everything going on
in the world right now. It's uh, you know, you open up
social media to go see what's going on in the plant world and you might
see some of the glorious ship you know you ever saw on accident before you
got to the cactus pictures, you know what I mean. And it's like
between that and traffic and then all the all the chaos of modern life,
there's it feels unnatural. I mean to me, it kind of feels like
the way we live is a little bit unnatural. And when you when you
go out, the difference in mindset, like it's very easy to get kind
of in a in a dark headspace if you're just you know, trapped in
the rigamarow of of everyday life and to have that kind of punctuated with these
moments of going out into nature. And what I find is that I I
kind of am awestruck oftentimes, and every time that I like learn a little
bit more about these places, that just immediately calmed me down, Like getting
out there. The second I don't see billboards, I immediately start feeling better,
you know what I mean. Yeah, it's a it's a I mean,
it's a fucking immediate mental health boost, that's what's I mean the same
thing with you know, like just having like a native garden, native plant
guard in your front yard. I mean, that's that's what That's what my
yard is like, Like it fills me with fucking joy every day. I
mean, it's it's beyond filming with joy. It like makes me feel complete,
you know, Like it's such a fucking yeah, it's it's it's such
an it's so important. I know it does. I know it could do
that for other people too. That's why I push it all all this shit
so hard. I'm like, just listen. I might be an asshole,
I might have a crusty exterior, but just trust me on this one thing,
you know, and it'll it'll it'll fucking calm you down. It'll be
like a cocktail that's not gonna poison your liver, you know. And I
I it bums me on too, because I see people on social media,
especially kids, are like, oh, the world's so fucked up, blah
blah, and it's you know, the world's fucked up. But we've always
been fucked up as a species. We've always the history is filled with hundreds
and thousands of fucking mass graves in you know, our fucking primate neurochemistry,
our territorial pissings. Now the only thing it's different is we're eight billions strong
instead of you know, two hundred and fifty million. But but you know,
whatever, it's it's always been fucked up. It's hopefully it'll get better
at some point. I think things slowly get better. You know, Murder
rates per capita, at least in terms of human population seem to be down.
I mean, they're not where we'd like him to be, but it's
still there's like we're we'rend like the cost of World War three, but still,
you know, it's it's really easy to get in this mindset where like
everything is so fucked But I think when you this, you know, being
into this stuff and certainly having an awareness of the geologic timescale, it it
zooms your ass out of it like it takes you out and it you know,
it zooms you out from this this the myopia of the human world of
like only focusing on things that that affect people, you know, and like
just being like realizing there's like this whole other world, you know, composed
of millions of other species that are all interwoven and connected to each other.
It's it's such a fucking calming effect and just philosophically and just emotionally too,
you know. Well, it's like that that context it makes me like looking
at the world and feeling a sense of wonder, the same world that I
could look at and just be like, I can't believe I'm trapped in this
hell, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's like it that that
ability to be able to like really be fascinated and wooed by Mother Nature and
to like kind of fall in love with the planet you live on, Like
I mean, that was one of the things I was at a at a
nursery, one of the one of the times first time I went to like
a cactus nursery and they had a copia pola that they showed me and I
could not believe this thing I've never seen anything like it. It was a
copiapoamalba. I've never seen anything like it. This thing is like white with
these black spines, this big globular fucking thing. And I'm like sitting there,
going, wait a minute, you're telling me that there's a place on
earth where I could go hiking and I would see that growing there? Is
that is that the species? Is that the one that looks like hell razor?
Yeah? Yeah? And I mean and so it's I think that like
you go out there and you just look at all this, and I mean
I find myself just looking at things and going, oh, oh my gosh,
like, look at how beautiful this is. And I need that.
I need to look at the world and think, wow, this is a
beautiful place. I'm so lucky to be here because it's easy. And I
always tell people, you know, it's like my three year old and like
she's so excited. She's so fucking excited to tell me about a cool bug
she saw, and yeah and and all this, and it's like, man,
if like, I hope she never loses that, because I never did.
Like it got it definitely got smothered. That little kid inside me got
smothered for a little bit, but like it's still very much there, and
that is that's like now it's there more than it was almost when I was
that age, you know, when I was four or five or fucking eight
whatever. Like now it's like, fuck, what am I gonna do to
that? I don't know. I feel like I'm gonna go plant a native
plant garden in my friend Hector's yard, because you know, he fucking said
he wanted one. I got some time, I got some plants. Let's
go do a Let's go kill his fucking lawn and plants. And you know
what am I gonna do? And it's just, you know, it's that
little that little kids still there. And I think, you know, that's
why the world is dying. It's because so many people have let that little
kid, you know, get get the spirit of that little kid gets smothered
in them and they're like, oh, and I get a lot of people
have to, but I think a lot of people forget how to be in
love with the world, you know, they forget how to have that sense
of wonder and fascination and excitement about it. And that's why it's so cool
to see people, you know, just fucking geek out on plants like you
know, like you did when you saw a guy at eight as is the
first time. Oh yeah, that was dude. I mean the sun was
going down. I took as many pictures as I could and looked at as
many plants as I could, but I was like, dude, I gotta
I'm coming back here tomorrow morning. I literally drove home and woke up at
like four am and was back there practically at sunrise the next day, and
then scoured like ridge after ridge. I mean the last time I went out
there by myself, I was like, I finished the day, got in
the car, and I just for shits and giggles. I was like,
how far did I go today? Twelve miles? Twelve mile? You know,
you'd be really hard to get me to go for twelve mile walk around
mustars, right, yeah, I know we're you gonna look at like the
billboards, like the fucking the shit, the human shit on the corner,
the fucking you know, the bank landscaping. It's like, no, it's
the same thing, like the you know, the landscape that humans build in
this society, given our value system that we have right now, are not
pretty but nature even like that word nature. Always say, I don't like
the word nature. It's just the real world. The real world, the
outside of humans is so so intoxicating. But that's you know, on the
same hand, like that's what drives me. That's about Texas. It's like,
you guys have so much public land out there. When I lived in
California, when I was doing desert botany, I basically learned half of what
I know about botany in the deserts, you know, and there was public
land everywhere. And there's just not that much public land here. So to
get people access to it, you know, like most most Texas botany is
just cruising the roads and looking for the strip the margin between the road and
the fence line. And then you know, I know, people like herper
friends of mine will trespass all the time and shit and whatever. It doesn't
you know, they don't. They just kind of I'm looking for snakes.
They normally it's not a big deal, but it's yeah, it's you know,
it's definitely having the public land thing. That's why I like man.
I think I think a lot of people out west, you know, they
don't take it for granted. They certainly appreciate the abundance of public land.
Oh I know, I do, man, I know, I do.
Yeah, I mean the thought of not being able to hike it was kind
of like that, you know. When we were in Oahaka, it was
sort of like that, whereas like compared to like Baja or Kohela or San
Luis put A Sea or any of those other states that I've been to,
those you just kind of like stop wherever you want, just you know,
just go exploring and looking at stuff. In Whaka, like everything is private.
Every somebody owns every little section of land pretty much, and so we
had to like get permission. Every time we wanted to go somewhere, you
had to get permission. We'd go to the municipal office, this is where
we want to get to, and they'd say, okay, well this that
you're going to have to cross this guy's land and this guy's land, so
you know, we'll have to get permission from them. You know. It's
like a few pace those to everybody you talk to. Oh yeah, yeah,
the fucking diplomacy, yeah, and you kinda fucking yeah, man,
It's that's definitely what it's like. And it's like that in Texas too.
I mean you know, you could you got to talk to people. You
have to like build connections. I mean, I've lived there for three years
now, so I've got, you know, a significant amount of connections where
I could talk to people to get on their landstill, but it's it's really
frustrating. It's kind of like the whole concept is kind of whack. But
whatever, it's just what you're what you're working with. You know, it's
like this this religion of private property. But but yeah, I mean I
guess it's just you know, it's just something to get used to. But
when you so, when you so when you're out in these places, I
mean, so you you started with kind of like a narrow focus on a
few species, and then it just slowly got broadened. Like you'd be out
in these places and you'd see, oh, what's this thing growing? How
like when did you get into Dudley's When did you get into all these other
these other groups of plants? And do you see it continuing to expand or
what? Yeah? Yeah, I do. I mean pretty much each time
I go, I mean, every time I learn about something new, I'm
then into it. Like uh, if I see a plant in habitat like
typically, especially if I actually see it in person and habitat I'm it's you
know, there's a there's a little love thing that starts there like and Dudley
is actually, you know, I don't have like a time I think I
have to Dudley as like, I have one that somebody gifted me and then
another one that I had picked up somewhere along the line. I don't grow
a lot of them, but I love going to see them, and yeah,
it it's it started like it kind of started with just not really having
any focus whatsoever, and then I kind of like really got hyper focused on
Copia poa and ariocarpus. It's a little cost prohibitive to collect copiapoa these days
for me anyway, you know, with three kids, So I uh,
it just started branching out, like you start looking at oh, what's what's
turbanitycarpus? I never heard of that, And then you start looking at these
things You're like, whoa, these are cool as hell, you know,
and then it just I mean anything that grows with anything that I like,
I end up starting to get into. Yeah, really with Kopia poe,
as you said, it's expensive, they're just because they're expensive among like collector,
like the horticultural community or what. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
you know, it's they are slow growth. You know, there are certain
plants that are I hate the word but rare in cultivation. And some things
are actually really rare in cultivation, like and you if you have them in
your collection and grow them, you'll kind of start to understand why. Like
Mammalaria crucidge era, one of my favorite mammalarias. I was lucky enough to
get to see it growing out of the gypsum cliffs in Wahaka. I've got
two plants and I pollinate them and they produce fruit, and those fruit never
have seeds, and so it's like, and this is now I think my
problem, probably my third year now, trying to make seed on them and
having no success and you're outcrossing them and everything too. Or do you just
have the one genetic individual or what? No? I have two two,
you know, seed grown plants, so completely different genetics. And the thing
is is that everybody seems to have that issue, Like everybody I know that
has Crucidgera in their collection has that issue, which is why you can't really
find crucidgerra for sale, and if you can, it's typically going to be
relatively expensive because they don't really make a lot of seed and they're slow as
a glacier, so like something, and copiapoa is in that same ballpark,
particularly like Sinneria, the whole sceneria complex really, but really Sinneria and Columna
alba. They're slow. They are super slow. And you know there's some
people grow things where they push them and they heavily fertilize, but those plants,
you know, those plants will grow faster, but they won't really look
like what they're supposed to look like. And so if you want them to
look like copiapoa, you know, you grow them, you don't push them.
And I mean you're not going to get a flowering plant. Takes about
a decade before one of those leaving flower. If you're lucky, it might
be a little longer too. You know. Yeah, I've never even I've
never even bothered. I think I bought like a copy of I mean,
first off, I only grow what's going to be easy for me, uh,
given wherever I live at the time, and stuff I can put in
the ground. And if I'll grow stuff that that is a native there.
It's mostly just to be able to study it, like to get good macro
shots. If it's flower morphology, you're trying, you know, study,
it's study it's flowers, like the same way like a university greenhouse would keep
specimens of like an amberella or a fucking well witchy or something. But but
I had I had like two Copia poe once. They weren't the rare ones.
I bought them at like some fucking cactus nursery in Berkeley when I lived
up there. But but it's I think the thing about that that's that's so
amazing too, is that it's not that's from a cold desert, like not
cold, but a cool desert, you know, like a fog desert like,
not not a desert like there. I was when I was at a
place in two summers that that guy Miles, the Ghost Place, and he
had a bunch of Copia poet. I was amazed he was able to keep
him alive there. I'm like, this is fucking tuson. How do you
do it? You know? I was like, I don't know. He
keeps them alive, no problem, He grows them, no problem. The
problem he has, they don't flower. Yeah, yeah, I could see.
I see that because it doesn't get it's a totally different climate, you
know, hot, hot and dry. It's like polar opposite of what.
Yeah, man, Yeah, so I I don't know, but I guess
this brings up the whole thing I wanted to ask you about too, because
like that's one that's one world, like you're kind of in that. I'm
not. It's like the whole collector and horticultural community, Like you'll do greenhouse
tours and greenhouse videos and I guess what, Yeah, what is your take
on that? Like, what's your take on the whole collector community? The
positives of it, the negatives of it? You know, is it can
it serve as a gateway drug to getting people into evolution and ecology that kind
of thing. I think it can. I think that. I think that,
Uh, overall, i'd say it's good. There are some aspects to
it that are less than positive. I mean, you know, like we
talked about this before, but basically I kind of see it like there are
two main archetypes of the cactus collector quote unquote, and you've got you've got
the people kind of like me, that are interested in the plants in their
environment and growing them from seed and really kind of like learning about them and
appreciating them in the context of like where they are actually from and how they
interact with the other plants and insects and animals in that environment. So like
the horticulturally minded collector, let's say, and then you've got the the like
the big game hunter collector, and those those people tend to be. I
think that that kind of like you have like the Inner City Show, for
instance, right which is is one of the largest cactus and succulent shows in
the world, definitely the biggest one in the United States. Happens every August
at the Arboretum, and you have three cactus clubs from around Los Angeles that
all come together, and you have all like the people that collect and grow
from all these different clubs and really from all over the country for that matter,
that'll bring in their show plants beautifully staged and they're on display for the
weekend. And then you've got vendors outside. There's all kinds of great plants
for sale, usually at pretty good prices and stuff like that. And I
think that there's this weird part of that where you go and you're like,
it's changed a lot since I first came in. Like the first time I
went to one of those, I was kind of surprised because there's a lot
of habitat plants, and so I think that when you get into the world
of like really like only wanting to have the biggest, best, rarest like
things so you could show it off and get a trophy, that shit ends
up. You know. That's why there's poachers, That's why there's boxes and
boxes of plants coming into the US that are you know, getting illicitly distributed,
you know, to to collectors all around the country. I've been in
tons and tons of greenhouses. I've been in greenhouses, many of which I
have filmed, and you've seen the entirety of them. And then there I've
been in greenhouses where I was not allowed to take photos because it's all habitat
plants, and it's like like they don't want to turn they want it to
turn up hot. It's just like this is like an evidenced locker, right,
you know. I remember I've talked with a couple of people that have
really big poast plant collections and they just don't like you know, the one
guy in particular just doesn't even really know the names of things, Like I
remember getting very excited. I mean, it's it's a very weird feeling to
see like a whole bench of field collected copiapoas, even though I've never been
to Chile, you know what I mean. Yeah, and you see these
things almost like prisoners. You know, it's almost like a cell block in
some way, you know, but like it is, you know, I
recognize one of them. Was like, holy shit, that's serpentisilkata and he
was like, I don't know, it's a copiapoa. And I'm just sitting
there going like like really, bro, like you don't you don't even know?
And I asked him, I said, hey, would you mind if
during like the flowering season, if I came over here and like managed pollinations
and collected seed so that you know, just because these are obviously like true
genetics are what they actually are, you don't want to do it. That's
mine, that's I'm the only one that had that. Yeah, that kind
of mindset is weird to me, where it's like, you know, then
I've got you know, a lot of the people that I am friends with
and that I interact with and I'm close to in the in the hobby.
I guess you could say, are the people that are growing from seed,
you know, and that are like we're we're very generous. We passed seed
back and forth to one another, like that's the way. Yeah, and
it's actual for my take, and I I don't really I mean, I
just go on what I've heard. And also the when I was first getting
into this, like the few old nurseries, I remember like we'd go to
like Poots right like in the Central Valley and and uh and we stopped,
you know, we'd be like d be like driving to fucking go to the
mountains. We'd stop, but we owe Poots keect the stores to check it
out and and and it was definitely seemed like it appealed to this like this
old man crowd, you know, like the more like like the weird guy
not and I'm not shit animal, but you know, like the the the
archetype of like the kind of like weird, quiet old man who's just like
a collector and has all these plants. And that was like the customer like
the client telbase versus now, you know, and it was just about collecting
like the same way you'd collect fucking the penthes or orchids or whatever. And
now I see this whole crew and I think, you know, people like
you are responsible for starting it, which is fucking cool of younger dudes from
different you know, from backgrounds that aren't you know, whether they were like
people. There's like in San Antonio's like a whole crew like like you know,
graffiti guys like dudes that used to get used to do graffiti that have
been locked up for graffiti that are fucking artists and tattoo people whatever who are
now into into growing plants from seed and it's it feels it just feels a
lot better in my opinion. And they're like, oh fuck yeah, and
they've got this kind of like reverence for nature. So it moved from like
this, you know, just like to collect like you know, the weird,
like the people that you know, I felt like no relation to like
the old guy collector crowd, but could be cactus could be orchids, could
be fucking gemstones whatever, it's right right right yeah, Like it's like a
fucking rich dentist or like a botox doctor who goes on fucking tropical like Safari
fucking you know, some fucking big some pig villain. But anyway, I
feel like that's a that's like almost worse. It's like a whole like other
crowd. But you know, you know, you know what I mean.
And like I remember went to an orc show in SF once, like twenty
fifteen when it was in the park, Like we were we were walking around
the park on acid when they're like, oh, like the fucking Orchid Show,
let's go check it out. And it was like the vibe in there
was weird. It was like no one was under the age fifty five there.
You know. I went to a Bromiliad show up in Sacramento and it
was kind of the same vibe I thought it was. There was a lot
of really cool looking plants, and it was primarily an older than the graphic,
which I don't necessarily mind. I mean, I kind of expected that
that's what I was gonna encounter with the Cactus Clubs. I was a little
blown away to walk in and see like a bunch of young hip like you
know, people wearing like supreme hats and shit. Oh yeah, well it
was fun, but it wasn't just old. It was like old Caucasia.
It was old Anglo too, which has its whole other different vibe. It's
more, you know what I mean, at least for like the orchid thing.
And again I'm not knock anybody, but it was just like, Okay,
that's cool, but it's just not for me. You know, I'd
like to go to a dog show one day, you know, like I
don't do pot, but if I did pot, I'd eat a shit done
edibles with some friends and we'd go to the dogs show, sho and fucking
mister dog show. Let me know. If you're gonna do that, I'll
go. It sounds fucking hilarious, you know, like what's up with the
sharpay the shar Pei in the fucking the Boston Terrier are getting you know,
what's your favorite fucking dog show? That'd be kind of fun. Yeah,
But anyway, they you know, I see this new crowd. It's like
all these you know, young kids and young people that are into it,
and there's like cool fucking artwork and it's just a different vibe and I think
it's really fucking awesome. I'm like, you know, it seems to really
like it really seemed to spring out of the pandemic. I mean, like,
uh, I have to give a little shout out to my buddy Oscar
at Green Touch Nursery because he and I during the quarantine threw a pop up
at his nursery because it's agriculture, so we were able to do it.
There was nothing happening, right, and I just know all the plant events
because it's all old people, they all got canceled. Everything was shut down,
even though they could have done it, yeah they didn't. And these
things were like honestly shockingly successful, Like the amount of people that came to
these was mind boggling. And it's uh, it has just not stopped from
there. And you know a lot of people are like, what do you
think is gonna happen when the quarantine ends, Like people are not really going
to go back to work and stop collecting. And I was like, I
don't know if you can get this into it and then just like no,
not into it. Suddenly, you know, no, fuck that. Yeah,
and it moves. It moves from collecting too, It moves from collecting
into fucking Now I'm now I'm into nature now, I want to see I
want to learn more. You know, well, it's so it moves and
what What's what's also cool is that you kind of move like I'm not interested
in buying anything that I don't want to grow. So like, if if
I'm going to buy a plant for myself, it's because I need a pair,
you know, so I can make my own seed. Uh. And
I think that's one of the cool things, Like you've got, Like I
said, there's those two archetypes. And I'm not not stupid, you know
what I mean. Like, I don't think I'm gonna come in and you
know, with some YouTube videos and whatever else I'm doing, I'm going to
take people that have been collecting field collected plants for years and don't give a
shit. I'm not gonna get them to change, right, And I don't
really that's not my goal. But what I have definitely consciously done is I
have just promoted what I want to see, what I want the hobby to
look like, which is people that are excited about growing stuff from seed.
Like I'm sitting in my office right now, I got two grow raps right
here, and I mean, dude, there is tons. I've got hundreds
of different species in here, all kinds of stuff sprouting up. And this
is like it's the coolest shit ever and to get people excited about that.
And one of the things that I think has been mind boggling is that I
meet people anytime I go out to do some plant related stuff. I meet
people all the time who will come up to me and be like, hey,
man, you're responsible for me getting into cactus. I found your channel,
watched a couple of your videos, and then I started collecting and growing
them from seed, and like, I'm totally into it now. That shit
blows me away. I never thought I never really even considered that, you
know, like I just sort of assumed that the people that were going to
be watching whatever I was putting out would be people that were already into it.
And I think I was gonna be like converting non plant people into becoming
plant people, and so like that's really kind of like trying to set a
different tone for the hobby moving into the future, because it can't be the
way that it used to be. No, well, what I don't think
it would be because it's a whole different demographic too, and it's and now
it's not just about collecting things, Like that's my hope, Like I the
collecting thing I think, like, yeah, I have mixed films about it
whatever. I think it can get super weird and nerdy at times, and
I think it can be really awesome because I've you see the ship people do,
and they're what they're getting into. And then it it's especially among the
younger crowd, it's accompanied by good, good ethics and good values and kind
of this reverence for nature because I think young people especially know like ship's kind
of fucked up. Like the all American retail sprawled death cult is a death
cult. It feels bad, it feels bad to be in. It's a
fucking exploitative system. It exploits nature, it exploits landscapes, It fucking farms
people as consumers. It sucks, and it's the system is so fucking game
now too. I mean, the middle class is basically gone. Homeownership is
completely off the fucking table for a huge chunk of the population. And so
I think all this shit ties in like that's part of it. Like the
people know that, and they're like, man, this sucks, but this
over here feels really good. So I'm gonna keep doing this. I'm gonna
keep sniffing on this. And then it turns in Maybe someone won't get into
it, maybe they'll just you know, they'll just be a collective thing for
a while, it'll fizzle out, whatever. But I think in quite a
few cases it turns into something bigger. And now they're like, I want
to learn more about habitat. I want to learn more about the geology.
Why do these plants only grow on limestone? Why are you know what pollinates
this? Oh? Wow? This is this evolved? Like what's the soil
microbes? What are they doing? What's involved here? Oh? Wow?
Cactus roots can dissolve you know, harbor bacteria that you know, produce enzymes
that can dissolve rock that basically eat rock. Wow? How does that?
Like? What the fuck? How does that work? You know? Well
like that, I mean, so Pakikorma's discolor down in Baja, Like it's
the first it's the first thing that will start germinating and growing in the lava
flows, and then its roots will start to split it up and it'll break
the rock down and it'll make it so that other stuff can grow there.
I mean, it's like I feel like there's endless, endless fascination where you
could watch turn on TV and it's endless devastation, you know what I mean,
like or just mindless garbage. Like I don't watch a lot of TV
at all, you know what I mean, I can't. I just don't
care. It's not real. And when I get when I go out and
i'm walking, I swear to I mean, like I hate to sound like
wooloo or something like that. Like I got crystals off through it, through
it. We embraced that shit now, I mean, dude, I think
that's the other thing too, is like seeing these guys like and the dude
hit me up the other day, was like, hey, man, check
this out. Next time you're up in northern California, holler at me.
I'll take you to go see the Site's awesome. The dude looks. I
mean, he's got like a fucking spider web tattoo on his bald head.
You know, he's got like a big biker beard. I'm like, fuck
yeah, dude, I'll look at plants with this guy, you know what
I mean. Like it's sort of like sheds. You can't be into plants
and be like a macho man at the same time, you know what I
mean. It kind of sheds. The bravado and you get to just be
like it. You kind of get to be like a child, like you
were saying, like but like getting off topic a little bit here, but
like being out there man, Like it feels right, like that's what I
evolved to be walking through the world, not you know, like I'm not.
I didn't evolve to be sitting in a fucking desk chair in front of
a you know, a whole bunch of different glowing things that are fucking my
eyesight up and all this shit. You know, I think, I think,
you know, I think you can't be in the plants. I think,
especially like almost more specifically, you can't be in the plants and not
not have a little bit of humility and a sense of something greater than yourself.
You know, I think that that is It's a good you know,
despite whatever front someone has up, whatever, you know, people always get
into petty bullshit whatever, I think, there's still at the heart of it.
When you get beneath all that, there's there's humility, and there's there's
reverence, and there's an appreciation for something larger than yourself. And it feels
good to be around these things, you know, these other living things.
Well, you start realizing like, Okay, you're hiking on you know,
a multi million year old you know, limestone, and then there's like you're
looking at a fifteen hundred year old Joshua tree that's older than the United States.
You know. It's like a different it's like a different thing. It
just is you get into it. There's almost a psychedelic aspect to it.
And I'm not talking like with zero substances, just being out there with all
that. Oh yeah, definitely feeling the wind and hearing the crunch and like
like you read about how desert varnish, how long it takes to form on
a rock, you know, and then you walk out there and you flip
a rock over and you're like, man, this rock's been sitting in this
same place for thousands of years. Nobody's touched this thing for thousands of years,
you know. Where it's like, I mean, that's not the case.
That is a pretty wid I forget about. That's something that you encounter
in the Mojavea a lot, like it's it's where I live. It's like
a little too I don't want to say lush, but there's so much but
like out in the like Death Valley area where it's super barren. I mean,
yeah, you'll you'll or like even West Texas, you'll move rocks and
you could see like the calichi, like the white powder around it is like
indented, you know, like it's of it. It's caked up like an
inch like that rock's been there for that fucking long for all this stuff to
accumulate, you know, it's like Jesus christ Man like, yeah, I
don't know, it's a pretty it's a pretty amazing thing. So why why
do you think desert plants got you instead of like you know, California chaparral
or fucking redwoods or something like that. What was it about desert plants?
Was it just because they can tough it out? Or what? I think
that? I mean, I think there's a lot of that. Like I
had a bit of a rough you know, from let's say like thirteen to
like twenty two, like that was you know, that was like me tipped
over with you know, partially buried with my roots exposed to full sun.
And those where those years for me, you know what I mean? Yeah,
So I think that I think that, yeah, that resilience and that
like that dogged determination to survive. You know, I think is is uh,
it really really resonates with me. And also I feel I feel at
home in the desert. I I'm from California originally, but I've lived lived
in several places in South Texas. I lived in Hebronville, Texas. I
lived in Alice, Texas. I lived in McCallin, Texas. I lived
in tama Alipas, Mexico. I lived in Victodia, tam Alipas. So
like, I've lived in a few different places. And when I lived in
Temaalipas, we lived on a ranch. It's five hundred acres and like,
you know, I was in fifth grade at the time, and I used
to just ride my bike or ride my dirt bike, and I'd go explore.
I'd fished every day, and it was like, you know, it
reminds me of it, just it reminds me of my childhood kind of being
out in the desert. Reminds me of my dad too, who I don't
have anymore. So I think that's part of it, Like I feel close
to him out there, which is interesting. But yeah, and I think
that for me, really it's that just that ruggedness. I feel like I
feel like I had a pretty rugged early life, and so I it's inspiring
to watch these plays ants be able to like persevere, you know. Yeah,
yeah, so you gotta you gotta kinship with him definitely from a both
growing in a somewhat hard environment, a somewhat trying environment. Yeah, yeah,
it's not like that now, you know. It's like, you know,
it's funny too. I think, like, what are my My kids
aren't gonna have that, you know, they don't know. It's like their
experience is way different than what mine was. Maybe they'll be in the ferns
or something. Maybe it'll be like people, you know, but yeah,
I was the same way. I had like a fucked up child. I
got sent to all these different fucking reform institutions, and you know it was
I was grew up fighting all the time and ship like a fucked up,
a fucked up child that yeah, yeah, I mean, dude, you
know, I think people probably I don't know if they'd be surprised or not,
but I mean in and out like I struggled with, uh, you
know, substance abuse and was in that of rehabit uh subsequently in and out
of jail and that kind of stuff, you know, So it was pretty
rocky. It's pretty rocky there for a while. And uh, you know,
but I got sober in my early twenties, and you know, that
was sort of the beginning of a different chapter, you know. And I
think that for me, finding plants and really getting connected with them has like
given given my life. I don't know, Like I don't want to say
meaning, because I've got meaning in other areas of my life, but it's
given me something to really like love and to look forward to and to meditate
with. I mean, I swear to God man, like going to my
greenhouse, people always ask me, like, when are you gonna do a
greenhouse video in your own greenhouse? And it's like, I don't even take
pictures hardly anymore when I go to my own greenhouse because when I'm there,
that's like that's my time where I'm literally in the zone. I just immediately
just start tending my plants, whether it's repotting or you know, rearranging or
whatever it is. It's the most peaceful like working meditation, and I like,
I feel unbelievably lucky that that's what I get to do like every day.
And sometimes I pinch myself. It's like, as a matter of fact,
I remember, I remember the first time it sort of hit me,
like I was driving. I remember thinking like, man, I just wish
I could do this, Like I wish I could do this for a living,
you know, I wish I could get it to where I could do
this for a living. And I remember, like I was driving to go
down to San Diego to go meet some growers to go buy some plants and
stuff, and it suddenly hit me like, holy shit, I'm going to
work today. And I used to tell my wife would be so cool if
I get paid to walk around nurseries, you know, yeah, And I
was like, man, I'm getting paid to walk around nurseries today. That
is the craziest shit, Like it's so awesome, and I feel like,
I don't know, I feel like it's like it's like a gift that I
get from the plants for taking care of them, you know, like they
take care of me and I take care of them, and it's like this,
I don't know if they know they're taking care of me, but I
like to think that they do. Yeah. Yeah, so what so what
do you so? Mostly you got the video you grow plants, you do
pop ups. You've made some really cool fucking shirts too. By the way,
I like the limestone one that was. I always like it when people
bring attention to geology, like it's not it's not just in a side.
It doesn't just happen to be what they're growing on. It's the reason why
they're there. Well, all of my favorite plants grow out a limestone,
like literally all of them. Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's
except for Copiapoa's they don't grow at a limestone. But yeah, yeah,
I mean so basically that's pretty much it. The only other thing that I
do is I make, you know, I make pots. I started doing
ceramics. I did a video with a guy who was a potter very early
on with a channel, and I asked him if maybe he'd be willing to,
like, you know, show me how to throw. And he just
gave me a little tool kit and a bag of clay and was like,
I'll had to throw, but you can just start making pots in the meantime.
Yeah, And I was like, what do Just just make them?
He goes, yeah, just make them. I was like, I don't
need like a wheel. He's like no, and the rest of history.
I started making pots, and fortunately it's been it's really actually been super humbling.
Like every time I make pots, people want them, and yeah they're
beautiful. Yeah, they're beautiful. I've seen I've seen them. Man,
they're fucking they're really nice. It's it's fucking cool, you know what I
thought, you know what? It almost reminded me of like some of like
when you'll see forget where where I was. It was somewhere in the Four
Corners region, but you know, speaking of like making posts without a wheel,
but there's areas where you can see, you know, pottery shirts are
just abundant. They're probably fucking five hundred to a thousand years old, who
knows. But you could see the method they used where they just started with
a coil, like a coil of clay. Yeah, and they didn't they
didn't just take like a mass and like mold it with their tht and their
fingers like they started with like a There was a really cool process to it.
I find that shit's so interesting. Man, I'd love to know how
they how they did that, what the process was, how they you know,
turned a coil into a pot basically, Yeah, I mean so like
all of that. You know, I think it's it feels like, you
know, I'm a creative person, and I think that was one of the
things that was like like a slow death as a sales rep is that there's
not really much creativity going into that, you know, like it's like just
stick to the script and you know, go for this sale. That's just
not really what I want to be doing every day. Yeah, And so
I think like being able to create pots things that I make with my hand
and that people really want them, It's like it's a real honor. And
then to be able to grow plants and to be able to sell them and
make videos and that's what I do for a living. It's it's kind of
a trip, man, honestly just blows my mind. Yeah, and shout
out to everybody out there who's been supporting me. You know, I love
you guys. You also you also do I mean, you've been a habitat
a bunch you go to Mexico. Where have you? Where have you been
in Mexico? Like where what areas have you spent time in and looking for
what? So? Uh we went to I've been to Baja a few times,
Wahaka and then Kouela, San Luis Potos and Zacatecas and then Leone as
well. We basically set out in Baja. I actually went the first time
I went to Baja, I traveled with uh oh, you know what.
Actually I've been to Chiapas and Guatemala as well. That was pretty epic.
Yeah, and actually, dude, that was nuts. So when we went
to Chiapas, this is my first ever trip, I mean trip out of
the country. Is sort of funny. Like I did a video with Jeremy
Spath hitting a gode right and we went out into into the Mojave. We
spent a few days together, him and Kevin and so we shot at video.
There's one scene in the video where we're in his truck and he's telling
me a story about how about his first time going out into the field and
how he went out to the field. This guy, Kelly Griffin, who's
like a very well known aloe hybridizer and a gave guy as well, and
he, you know, he's like, yeah, people were telling me,
man, if you get the chance to go with Kelly, you know you're
gonna be friends with him for life. And you know, then Kelly invited
him to go on a trip and they were gone for two weeks and he
was like he was the best thing ever. And then I was sitting there
tripping out, like man, I was that was my first trip with Jeremy
where he's telling me this story about his first trip, and I have found
it to be the exact same thing. He and I have become really close
friends and we've been on a ton of trips together. We went it was
me, him and Kelly. We went to cheap Us. As we're leaving,
Jeremy says, you know, I'd kind of like to go into Guatemala.
I want to go up to this one spot and see if we could
have find a gove herder eye. And I'm sitting there going like, what
you want to go to Guatemala, Like that's not part of what we were
doing. You know, sit there, going to get a little nervous.
And it's quarantine time, right, so it's still like in the midst of
the quarantine. So we get down to the border of Guatemala and I mean,
dude, people talk about like our border is porous. Dude. I
go into the office to try to figure out what we have to do to
be able to cross the border, and the guy goes, no, no,
no, you got to go back into Mexico. You're already in Guatemala.
And I was like, wait, we just I came out of the
office. I was like, hey, dude, he said, we got
to go back to Mexico to do the paperwork. But we're already here,
so why don't we just go We literally snuck it out of Guatemala like three
times while we were there. Yeah, well going back in in Mexico,
did you have it? What do you have to do it? Do you
have issues? You just crossed back in and show your passport or what.
We didn't do anything. We literally didn't do anything. There's there's so they
have one like little chinsy like you know, draw thing to stop cars from
going through. And then there's like a you know, this little shopping plaza,
but there's a wall blocking the shopping plaza. That is a pathway that
passes the border. So you could literally just walk in to go shopping and
shop your way into Guatemala without having to check you with any money. You
just have to be there before the border closes because it closes at ten pm.
So that was it. But yeah, I mean, you know,
and I think there's another aspects to that, like this is a little adventurous,
you know, like what is it that your average person is going to
do where they're going to go on some like adventure like that. You know,
Yeah, it's not something I would I would ever do you know?
Did you guys find We did? Yeah. It was a little unremarkable.
I must say, it was just a don't tell, they'll tell. I
think we all sort of felt that way. I mean, yeah, you
know, we get up there, it's like, uh, it's like okay,
yeah, here it is. I mean, absolutely enormous, the largest
of gave I've ever seen. Now, the plant was a little unremarkable,
but you we're up at ten thousand feet in the cloud forests of Guatemala.
It was wonderful. The entire experience was incredible. And I think that's my
favorite habitat after Desert's cloud forest. So it's my favorite habitat by far.
Yeah. So you go from like you know, you're you're in Chiapas and
it's it's not super dry. I mean you're southern southern Mexico there, so
it's not super dry, but you've got cactus in the flatlands and and uh,
you know, it's a little more desert y. And then you cross
over and suddenly you're like along some river deep in this canyon and there's like
pyloso series growing on the cliffs, and I mean it was just incredible.
And then the further you go up the mountain, suddenly it starts to get
cooler. And then now you have coffee plantations and dude, the people,
the people that are growing coffee in Guatemala, Dude, this these these spots
where they're growing coffee is so steep. It's incredible. Man. Like the
lot of these people getting out there and like collecting all that coffee, it's
just mad. It's so crazy. It was just cool to see all that
kind of stuff, you know. So that was one trip. I think
one of my favorite trips of all time was we went to Baja and we
ended up taking a couple of boat rides. We landed in Loretto, We
went over to Magdalena Bay, went to the two islands in the bay there,
Margarita and Magdalena, which is where you have a gove Margarite sent a
serious aruca growing on the beaches. I mean, yeah, oh wow,
that's cool. I think you would ask me about it once, like I
posted a photo or a video or something, and it was like, there
resolve this like purple verbena growing all around the the aruka, you know,
and so it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
and then it's like, you know, I think there was another plant that
I found on that trip that I put in the video. I don't remember
what it was called, but I mean it was like I was as fascinated
with this plant as I was with any other plant that I found on the
trip. And I mean it smelled like lemon fruit loops. Like literally,
I was We're waiting for the guy to come back in the boat to pick
us up, and I'm sitting there and I'm catching this with and I'm like
it's almost like cereal right here, Like what does that smell? What family
was it? Was it a yellow flower? I don't remember if it was
in flour or not. The leaves had like little like uh like bladder pouches
all over them, so it looks kind of crystally. I'll send you pictures
of it. Oh well, I think I actually hit you up for the
name of it. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I remember you.
I remember you've posted stuff down and baj that, like non cactus stuff,
and I've been like, oh, fuck, that's awesome, you know,
like cause I spent I spent a lot of time on that. I've gone
down there like twelve or fifteen times now, especially in like the mid twenty
tens. I was going down there a lot. I mean, that's where
I spent a lot of time learning, bonding. I remember when I first
when I first Sawstino seres Ruka for the first time in Habita, I was
like, what the fuck this is? This is insane. This is the
coolest, like a cactus that has the same kind of distribution as the redwoods,
like it only grows within a mile or two of the coast because it
needs that frog. You know. Yeah, they're they're they're like fucking awesome
plants. And that was one where I was actually able. I got uh
it was fruit on ton of the plants. Geez. So I collected one
of them and I've got a bunch of seedlings from from that population. Now,
I would love to get photos of that thing in flower too and see
what, yeah pollinates it, because I know I think amosis is moth pollinated.
It's got white flowers, and it's probably moth pollinated and then pollinated maybe
by bees in the morning if the flowers stay open, you know, past
dawn. But uh god, the fucking the ecology of those things is nuts.
Like, how the fuck does it? How the fuck does a cactus
that's that big around in diameter with you know, in terms of a stem,
like six inch stem diameter and stuff case, how does it evolve to
grow prostrate on the ground, you know, like, how does it?
How does it? How does the environment select for that trade? You know?
Yeah, I don't know. I mean I think like it would be
I think if I if I ever had a time machine, like I would
go back to go see like what was growing here, then you know,
like to try to fill in the gaps because cactus apparently don't make good fossils,
so yeah, make good fossils in a lot of cases too. Yeah,
there's just well, so that same trip then after that, like we're
you know, we're also fishing the entire time, so I swear like every
single night we're eating what we caught that day. And then we ended up
going back to the Sea of Cortes side and we took a fuck dude,
a little tiny boat, one of those little pongas all the way to uh
the island where faro cactus daghetti grows. Uninhabited island. It's the only place
in the world where the rattleless rattlesnake lives. Oh yeah, did you see
any No, we saw those snakes. And it's crazy. Every single person
that we asked about the island was like, oh, don't go there,
there's so many snake. They made it sound like we're gonna step off and
like have snakes trying to wrap around our ankles and stuff. You know what
I mean. We never saw one snake at all, But I mean that
that place you like seeing you so you're you know, you're in like central
Baha and you see the burst for microphile and the Packycormus diice color going out
of the big granite boulders and like, you know, they're they're much more
like trees. But then you get onto this island and these things are it's
like as if somebody came with a hydraulic press and just smashed the tree so
that it wasn't any higher than like a foot and a half. Yeah,
man, I've seen I've seen that same shit in the serpentine areas of BCS.
It's that species is so weird, man, it can be you know,
two diameters breast heider, it can You could see a plant that just
crawls, you know, along the ground that looks all crumbholtzed and and shit,
it's wild. It's wild. It's so plastic. It's cool to see
too. Then taking like, okay, so what's causing that there? Right?
It's the wind. It's the entire it's wind. It's constantly pelted with
wind, so no branches can grow up, right because it just gets snapped
off, like it's serious wind. Right, Yeah, yeah, I know.
Take those plants and you grow them in cultivation and you just let them
do their thing. They're going to grow tall and lanky. However, if
you come in and I'm doing it right now to burst receive things that I
have where I literally I'm opening the lid to the little container where they're in
the probably less than a month and a half hold, and I just every
time it tries to sprout again at the top, I just pinch it.
I don't let it grow any taller. Yeah, over time they'll start to
fatten up yeah, it's like this sort im it's the same thing. You'll
see it, you know, on mountaintops, like you'll see with like white
bark pine at like fucking you know, shit, seven thousand feet in the
Sisky Mountains or something. It's fucking nuts, man, It's really cool,
like right on right on like a slope like where they get blasted with wind.
But I wonder if any of those populations, because there are there's a
couple of different varieties of pack of cormers. I think I wonder if any
of those populations, you know, do stay true to form, like if
it's not just if it's not just phenotypic, like if it's actually like they
all the whole population grows like that, you know, or if it's just
because I mean, who knows. I know, I know they're for sure.
There are two like on the oh god, I can't think of the
island right now, but there's one particular island that has a pink flower PACKI
chormas, Oh wow, something with something for that, probably hummers or something,
I would guess maybe. I mean, so I know there's those two
varieties. I don't you know. I know that in the as far as
it goes. There's no like, there's no different varieties for those different forms.
It's just kind of I mean, the way I see this is probably
more environmental. I think I didn't you know, I never saw seed on
a packa chormas ever, but I did collect some bursra seed, and they
don't seem to do They kind of just grow like burs grow, you know.
They just in cultivation, they tend to just climb and get tall,
you know. So if you if you're growing them though, you can keep
them short and they'll it'll take longer, but they'll eventually start to fatten up
and stay short. Another another thing that's about about packet cormus too is that
you know, obviously, like the northern part of Baja is on a California
rain regime, like California Mohabi rain regime, like you know, winter rain
generally summer dry they get. If they get rain in the summer, it's
like normally a downpour versus rain in the winter is normally like a drizzly you
know, it'll just stay cool and wet for for days. But but then
in the south of the island it's more akin to mainland Mexico. We have
summer rain in winter dry, and it's a it's you know, it's like
how I wonder how that is affected. They're like the tuopi, how different
the two populations are if they're how it selects, how the you know,
the different rain regime selects for the populations too. Because it's so widespread.
It's like it's like pakisiris Brinley. It's like cardones, you know, which
you get in the northeast south as well. But it's amazing too that it
doesn't there's no it doesn't grow anywhere else other than bah Like, I think
that's one of the coolest things. And I mean I said it in one
of my videos. It's like we have our own little sikotra right there.
Yeah, it's like cool to see that. And yeah, I haven't even
been all the way south. There's there's a lot of species of Mammalaria in
particular, they grow like all the way down Schumanni I and some of the
others that I would love to see. I just haven't had the haven't had
the opportunity I have been. The last time I was there was like twenty
seventeen, and I was My interests in terms of plants were nowhere near as
broad as they are now. Where Now I'm like, fuck, I gotta
take pictures of everything, even like little liver wars and shit, whereas you
know and log it and find out what species it is. Whereas like back
then I was, I was a little more restrict than in terms of this
shit that I cared about. But I came across a little patch of liver
works the other day. I dude, I was like blown away by these
things, man, Like it just looked like very small little micro habitat,
like off this hiking trail in Ventura, ca here. But I was like,
looking at it, I'm like, man, you got Dudley Is and
all these little ferns, and they're so cool. They're fucking wild. Man.
They a different planet. It's like a totally different planet. They can
dry out, they don't have a vascular system. They've got it, you
know, they're they spread by spores, so they get around a lot easier.
But then they're a lot more restricted and where they can grow, and
they just it's they're fucking nuts. And like the the sporal fights, you
know, they've got the whole alternation of generations. Get me to fight and
Spora fight and the fucking thallis that looks almost like a like a like a
wet lichen versus the Spora fight that ends up looking like a little umbrella.
You know. Yeah, there's I feel like I could do a prime around
like alternation of generations, explain to myself what they like, read up on
it, because I always forget like once a year. You know, at
least with liverwarts, they're so fucking weird. They're so weird, and I'm
seeing some really weird ones in Chile. Yeah, man, I don't know
that. Yeah that, I mean, they're fucking endemism of Baja's nuts.
I went like with pack of cormerce, I wonder is it you know,
the peninsula's been separated from the mainland like five or six million years ever since
the San Andreas opened it up, right, So does like things like packet
kormas like when they don't if if they don't occur on the mainland, is
that because like there was a climatic difference, or did they just evolve that
much more recently, like within the last five or six million years and become
restricted. Was was the population at one point larger and then they because there's
there's boot jump trees on a little island of Sonora, or not island,
but a little patch of Sonora too. It's just you know, it's not
a behindemic, but yeah, that whole the whole fucking region is so cool.
I I'd love to spend some time on the west coast of mainland Mexico
sometime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I I swear,
man, I think I could. I could just go like and perpetually travel
Mexico. I love Mexico. People are like I always ask me when I'm
gonna go to Chile, and I I will go eventually. But there's just
the amount of stuff that you see on any trip in Mexico is just so
much, Like there's just so much more. Yeah, it's super diverse.
It's so fucking diverse, man. I was like, and it can be
overwhelming too going to to new places. That's what I felt like, if
you know, when I was doing South Africa videos, I was like,
man, I have to stop, Like it's too much. I can't,
you know, There's like just too much to keep tracks. There's too much
to keep track of, Like every different fucking hill is a different plant community
on it like different species different in South Africa, like like three weeks about
I'm going through that part of the book right now too, and I'm like,
fuck Jesus, like what how do I feel bad leaving anything out?
Like the aloes lacanalias, the fucking Hawarthia that we saw, you know,
there's the fucking the the uh not. They call them beatle daisies, but
they're not. They're those members of Astraci that mimic kpe beeflies because that's their
pollinator. Like, it's the fucking weirdest thing I've seen. Like these the
flowers have like embossments on them where they're mimicking a female beef like because it's
a male b fly that pollinates. And it's the fucking coolest. It's one
of the coolest cases of co evolution I've ever seen. Like this needs to
be in in ah I guess it wouldn't be co evolution, but you know,
specialist pollinators like that needs to be in bondmy textbooks. So it's yeah,
it's it's it's super overwhelming. You know, I've taken more photos in
South Africa than any other place I've been to, but I believe it I
mean, dude, it's it's got a three week trip. I can't even
imagine how many gigabytes and footage you had that it gets too much. It's
like it's too much after a while, Like fuck, I gotta leave,
Like I can't. I'm not gonna be able to remember this, you know.
Like That's what I use I naturals for primarily now, is to remember
shit. This is like a log of everything I've seen, you know,
like the same way someone like a botanist forty years ago might have kept like
a you know, a notebook of you know, on a different trip,
or a barium vouchers or something. It's the same thing I use it for.
So you don't. You don't have like a GPS thing to you ease,
No, I mean, I just I use I use this snapbridge app
through Nikon, which works. I mean, you got to. It'll fuck
up sometimes you have to check and make sure the GPS is accurate, but
it'll it'll GEO tag the photos for you, and then I'll I'll keep records
too, of like GPS coordinates and where I've where I've logged everything. I
obscure everything I put on I Naturalists now, unless I want someone to go
there, like to collect seed, Like if it's a you know, abundant
species, but it's not well studied and there's not a lot of it in
cultivation. I'm like, oh, like I did that, would like prunus
text saying it it fucking sandsheet apricot. That what I was calling the Texas
almond. But it's actually more closely related to apricots. It's a really cool
fucking plant. It's not in cultivation. It's loaded with fruit. Like,
no one's gonna go out there and poach a fucking, you know, four
foot tall shrub. So that's something I like, I want people to go
collect fruit of. So like I'll leave that open. It's like, yeah,
go out there, there's nothing else. It's like poachable I want.
But generally I obscure locations on everything, just because I don't want people.
I want to cover my tracks, you know, I don't want people lurking
where I've been, you know, unless they're you know. It's just yeah,
it's just the way to like filter it out. But that's how I
mainly keep track of everything, Like I use Iinaturalists mostly for myself, Like
just it's so fucking useful like I cause I can be like, Okay,
I can't remember I can't remember the genus I saw in Chile. That's related.
It's the sister family to astor Ace, but I can't remember the genus.
I can't even remember the family and output. But you can type in
order family like any taxonomic level into your I Naturalist account and then put Chile,
and so I'm like, okay, Asta raileys, it's in the astor
order. I can't remember the family. Okay, Oh Callisseracey. It'll pop
up and you know it's got taxonomy charts on there. It's super fucking useful.
Yeah. I haven't really used it very much. I mean, uh,
I have always just kind of felt a little extra wary I think of
putting anything like I I recently was at somebody's house that they'ret their plants and
they had an old, old tag from the Huntington and the fucking the plant
tag basically had damn near the GPS coordinates on it for the plant, you
know, And I was like, Wow, you definitely can't do that anymore,
you know. And I'll get people with no way, man, No,
I mean people will ask me like, hey, can you like,
let me know how to get to see this, and it depends on what
it is. I mean, ninety nine percent of the time, I'm going
to say I can't do that. You know. It's just because there's not
a lot of those things there, and I don't you know, you may
be trustworthy, but you may not have the greatest judgement. Show it to
your friend. Yeah, someone else learns it, and then it's then I
come back in three years and it's gone. You know, I watched that
happen with Aero Karpus Scaffeostris. Yeah. I mean I think I don't know
how people find I think people already knew, you know, it's pretty easy.
Someone showed someone. But I went back and they were all gone except
for two plants. It was fucking wild, like they were all excavated,
you know. But I've once well, I found holes for sure. I
mean I when we were at a particular site in Koela in the mudflats,
like there were several holes, you know, and you're looking at them like
the way that they and there they're holes where people doug loafs, you know.
I mean that's just But now someone's got a really nice collection. They've
just expanded their collection. Right, where did most of shit go? You
think? Is it mostly overseas? I mean where I would assume it's like
Europe or Asia, like Eastern Europe or Asia, Like where's the market big?
Because like it's it's seel ross. You know, they get all the
intercepted plants, the customs catches, and they're all going overseas. I wish
I wish I had access to the data of where they were going, because
I remember I've seen some fucking white like Pelasifra's Aerocarpus, Bravoanus, you know,
like buckets of these things. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy.
I've been places here in Los Angeles where you walk in and you're like,
what the fuck, Like, wow, this looks like one of those like
photos you know, like you see online where it's just just you know,
a couple hundred pack of podiums with the fung just side, you know,
painted on the bottom of them, just sitting there with no roots. You're
like, oh, Okay, So I don't know, man, I'd say
it's it's probably it's probably uh it's going all over you know, I know,
I know, I know there's certainly an illicit market. Here, there's
no doubt about that. There's a completely different culture about it. In Japan.
They's just not looked at it the same way. You know. Like
I had a conversation with a friend of mine from Japan and was asking,
I said, you know, what is kind of the thought process, because
it's clearly there's a different mindset towards collecting plants and you know, like particularly
talking about copiapoa, and he said that, like a lot of people here,
the way they see it is like those plants are for all intensitive purposes.
They're already extinct in habitat. I mean they're not there's zero recruitment,
The plants are not growing. They are pretty much just dying. Like it's
just that's all the plants are doing. There is dying, with a few
exceptions on a few populations. So to them, they're like, we're saving
the plants. So it's kind of like, man, that's so wed,
Like they're not fucking a collegist and not doing population studies, you know,
Like that's the thing is like I don't know, I don't know, but
I mean people have the same mentality here in Texas, and I kind of
I guess I kind of get it. But I would trust someone that was
actually from the place that they're taking stuff from more than I would trust some
you know, somebody with an ulterior motive that wants it in their selection.
I guess, well, I think that you know, from my understanding,
Chile is getting hotter and drier. I mean, it's not like just poaching
is the number one issue. I mean you mentioned Fokiria purpose I I mean,
like the site that we went to go see these plants in Wahaka,
I mean, god, it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever
seen. You're driving then suddenly the road just turns red like so you're like
you're in Sedona all of a sudden, you know. And then you get
up to this you know, outcrop, this ridge, and you get up
to where the limestone is, and these things are growing way at the top
of this limestone, and you know, you're looking at these things, like
you said, with a lot of reverence, like these are just these majestic,
ancient plants, like god, who knows how old they are. And
then the guy that took us there's like, yeah, man, he's like
there's a pile down at that we passed it because you can't even tell anymore.
He goes, but they they recently just destroyed seven big, like twenty
foot tall ones. They're mining marble. Get this stuff, get this stuff
up the way. It's cent away. We got to get That's what it's
like done. That's what it's like in South Texas, man. I mean,
like when the border wall went up, there were so many old payot
There were a lot of payota that were saved and moved. I mean now
they're like, I'm kind of questionable property. They're just on who knows what
will happened but where they got moved to. But you know, there was
so many more that were not able to be saved that we just got demolished.
It was it was nuts. It was fucking you know, and tons
of other cool speeches and Sistro cactus, Thelo cactus. Just I got a
nice photo of a Thelo cactus just squashed in a fucking tire tread of a
bulldozer. Like just mind blowing shit. Man. I was like, this
is this is criminal, this is this is insane. It really is a
death cult. But I mean, yeah, poaching is not the main thing,
but it's it's certainly up there with at least with plants like this.
You know, I remember I with just orchids. I remember being a wahaka
once and seeing this dude just selling, you know, epidendroids that he had
he had plucked off of a of trees, Like he had a milk crate
full of epidendroid you know that subfamily, all the epiphytic ones orchids. He
was like, fuck man, it was like Jesus Christ is like, no
shame. But yeah. But then you know, here's the other Like,
here's the flip side of that, right. You like that you drive through
the TABLECM biasphere, right, which is it's a you know, quote unquote
protected biasphere reserve, and you know there are like, uh, these massive
spots where they've cleared the desert to grow agaves for mescal. Yeah, yeah,
in the deep in these these places, and you're like, wow,
I mean it's it's just it's kind of a weird thing, Like I mean,
that's you know, that's how they're doing it. I definitely think I
definitely think habitat destruction is the big I always say that it's almost just as
much if not more of a threat than climate change, because climate change is
still I mean it's going fast, but it's still a slower process than it
is. Just go in there and just bulldoze things overnight, you know.
Well, so, like my buddies had gone on a trip down. I
didn't get to go to it, and they went, we're looking at like
all the areas, you know, all through northern northeast Mexico, and one
site I forget whether it was Kachi bian Us or something. They said they
were there. They photographed all the plants, and then like within a week
they went back to take some more pictures. The entire area had been cleared.
No more plans like Oxo coming soon or fucking Walmart or something like.
It's it's it's a certain point. It's like a fucking Simpsons episode, Like
it's so cynical, you know, It's like it's just it's like fucking so
dark, it's almost hilarious. It's like this is so obscene in fucking nuts
and just kind of like the behaviors of like a sociopathic civilization. I don't
feel bad or sociopathic elements of a civilization. I don't feel bad calling it
that either because it is it's these aren't people that the think this way.
They don't have the same value system. I think that's why this shit is
like what you do is good. You get people just started off on this
shit, whether just growing for hobby or whatever, and it ends up opening
up it's a gateway drug to a larger perspective and a reverence. And that's
the same shit I was talking about too with like why I think this the
demographic of people getting into this shit now is it's different than it was like
then these old guys that were and no offense to a lot of those old
guys are fucking awesome. They grow amazing plants. But there was certainly it
was. It was a different time though too back then, whereas like there
was still a lot of habitat left and like, oh dig a couple plants,
not that bad. But it's funny though you still have some of those
like old timers that still propagate that kind of narrative where it's like it's okay
to dig up three or four of this if you want for yourself. It's
like, dude, you can't tell that to a group of people anymore,
Like you can't tell that to a group of people anymore, like you could
you could tell, uh, you know a person that you knew well,
Like, hey, look, if you want to take a pad of a
Puntia basslaris, like you know, you're probably okay, You're not gonna damage
anything. You're not gonna hurt you. You're not. You're not disrupting the
environment, you know what I mean. You collect a seed pod off of
agave u tian sis, you're not. You're not throwing the whole environment out
of whack. Where where that changes is when you come in and you just
start cutting spikes off them and you've got a bag, you go, you
go dig like fucking you know, a truck a truck bed full of a
gay. And since there was some dude in Arizona doing that, I couldn't
believe it. I was like, this is fucking obscene. But that's what's
cool is like this this generation people who's into it now that ship is it's
fucks like people don't they're not, you know, there there's like a like
a strong anti poaching mentality and people talk about it and it's fucking cool.
I mean, there was some dude. There was some dude in North Texas
who was selling plants. He was buying off someone in jim Webb County and
and then selling them as I mean, when he was selling them like he
was trying to say that, oh they're from Europe, Like they totally weren't.
They were weathered, they were cut, they were dug. But like
the fact he was trying to conceal it almost I mean, in this way,
it was kind of indicative of like, yeah, he knows, like
this ship isn't socially it's socially looked down upon now where it was kind of
like tolerated thirty years. Isn't it like a guilty mind state? It's like
Zreea, let's say the mind's state of guilt. Yeah you know, yeah,
yeah, yeah yeah. I wrote the dude and I was like,
listen, man, this you don't want to do this, like you don't
want to get a reputation as this. He just fucking left me on red
and ignore me. But whatever, maybe he'll maybe he'll listen. I get
it. Maybe people it's tempting, you know, but I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, who knows. It's it's you know,
it's it's I think for me that it's like the thought like I have.
Look, I'd be lying if I said I never was tempted, you know.
But like, dude, like with these agaves, these things are growing
like literally growing out of a crack in the limestone that wasn't even a crack
when they sprouted. They made it the crack over their lifetime, you know
what I mean. Yeah, to think about like what you would have to
do to get that out of there, it's just like I just don't think
it's it's not for me, you know. I mean I felt very conflicted.
Actually, I was in I was in Wahaka. We were looking at
a site where we were looking at the Gaveo Taro eye. But at that
site you had it's either it was either Mammalaria tulache i or some kind of
a subspecies of crucider. But it was definitely in that supertexta complex. And
there was these too, I mean they were all over where they were,
there was tons and tons of them. And as we started getting a little
more onto the ridge and then kind of getting down onto the goat trails,
which are these tiny thin little trails on the steep, like you know,
sides of the ridge, there's all these plants that have been hoofed out of
the ground, you know, little ones. There's no big clumps, but
there's like there's little plants sitting there bare root. Oh you would tell me
about this. They just got knocked over by the cows or goats or whatever.
Yeah, I mean you see it in Arizona too. We saw I
mean like a foot tall echino serious rigidisimus that's sitting there that's been you know,
knocked over and just laying on the grass. You know. It's like
you couldn't even take that thing back though, and Rudy, it's too big.
It was almost likely would die for sure. Yeah. Well, I
felt conflicted with these plants, Like I was like, man, I feel
bad, Like I I felt like the right thing to do would have been
to like take them, but that's that's also not the legal thing to do,
and that's not something that I was willing to do with jeopardize, Like
could you could you imagine like I get arrested coming through the border with it
just wouldn't be wouldn't be a good luck you know what I mean. So
it was like I feel ethically like it was the right move to take them
but like, you know, for the system we live in, that's how
I had to do it. And I think I think some of the laws
probably could be changed that would help protect the plants in habitat a little bit
better. But I mean, who knows. I think the only real thing
that can affect that is just education, yeah, or you know people in
that case too. I mean I think if there was like someone you knew
that lived in the region, who would know what to do with them,
and like even just you know, maybe that would be fine, like go
give it to them, you know, or like or a botanic garden or
like a fucking conservation garden or university and be like, hey, these these
were on their way out. There was no way to replant them. It's
a dry season, but you should take these. And you know, if
there was, we were with it. Dude from the university, a botanist
from the university in Mexico City, and actually he and Greg, one of
the guys I was with, they actually had permits to collect, but they
were collecting flowers of agaveo taro line. Yeah see, and they can't get
caught with that shit either. It's like, what do you do with these?
I mean, there's all the red tape, you know, it would
it would definitely yeah, it'd be like something you would do, you know,
underhand. Well that's what I was kind of talking to them about with
those those Folkaria. I mean, you know fokaria. Purpose I is,
you know, another slow growing plant's a very desirable plant, like many people
like admire it and want it in their collection and want to grow it.
And for a plant of any size, they're going to be years and years
and years old, and they go for a lot. So it's like I'm
sitting there thinking to myself, like, man, you guys, the thousands
of cuttings that could have been taken off those seven plants that were just bulldoze,
you know, and those plants could have literally been driven in a truck
to my friend's house who lives probably twenty minutes from there, who could have
planted them in the ground and at least then made seed and made that seat
available. And like it's just but it's not. I mean even even one
of those plants going up, like if there was some mechanism for them to
be able to go up and be auctioned off to benefit that community, I
mean, fucking ten twenty foot tall for Carrie purpose, I would go for
you know, testlex or or at least yeah, or end up in a
fucking you know, in a I think like university botanic gardens in certain regions
would be that would be My idea is like there was every university in a
certain region would have a botanic garden dedicated to native plants, to conserving native
plants, to growing things that sit to should the habitat get destroyed, like
that would be fucking ideal. It's Mexico, sit, man, you know,
I'm in Mexico. Their botanic garden there, even though it's i mean,
Mexico City is like seven thousand feet, it's like not a desert at
all. It's a fucking you know, it's like climate of San Francisco almost.
But there they grow a ship time. I mean, whoever's growing plants
at their greenhouses knows what they're doing because in their little gift shop they've got
all these rare cacti for sale that they I'm pretty sure that's I'm pretty sure
Jeremy's friends with that. The woman that does that. No, it wouldn't
surprise me. Yeah, it's it's fucking great it's really cool. There's a
there's a ship ton of awesome fucking botanists in Mexico were doing really good stuff.
I live, so I need to go down there more. I live
so close. I this fucking book has been fucking with my I haven't traveled
in a while. Like we went out. I took my daughter out to
a friend's land to go see the eclipse, and I was like, goddamn,
Like to botanize again feels so good. Like not just strive to Star
County and you know, check on like a you know, a friend's private
ranch where there's Payote and Starcac Disco, which is nice, but it's done
itt like forty five times now. It's like, actually go out and see
new habitats and be like, whoa, what is this? Okay, I
can get it down to family or genus, don't know species? What species?
You know that that kind of like it's so it's so fun, man,
It's fucking yeah. I need that. Yeah, we should do it.
We should get we should I mean yeah, I think you almost came
on the trip to to Koela. You almost came on the trip to Wahaka.
We gotta get out there. One of these days. Yeah. Yeah,
And I'm going to Mexico in June with my friend Marco and and uh,
that guy one of the guys who's on on a tour with Kevin right
now, I think too, oh Gabe, Yeah, oh yeah, he's
fucking awesome. Yeah, I met him at I met him in New York.
He's he was wearing like a Motorhead shirt. I'm like, oh,
ship, you don't you don't really see cactus people And that's cool man heavy
metal band, I know, That's what I'm talking about. Like the fucking
generation of people who's into this now is fucking It's cool. I love it.
I love seeing that there's the San Antonio Crew. You know, it's
like all these like fucking Chicanos used to write graffiti, who are fucking all
friends of mine who just like grow a shit ton of cool plants and make
good art, and you know they're fucking yeah, like my friend Rosendo and
you know, he's a tattooist who's like really into just growing cacti and ye
making fucking awesome arts. So it's it's cool to see this, you know.
I wish, you know, I was, I wish I would see
this in other countries I went to, Like when I remember when I went
to Brazil, there was like no culture that was non academic for plants.
I blew my mind. Like I remember we went in like a bookstore where
like do you have any field guides of Native Like no, no, And
everybody we had talked to about plants there was mostly associated with the university and
was studying it. It was like, damn, there's like this is just
off the map. And in terms of like the any pop culture or subculture,
you know. So it's cool. I think what's happening here is it
makes me really hopeful. I like seeing people stoked on this stuff so well.
I mean there's definitely tons of stoke on it. I you know,
all the all the people that I talked to on a weekly basis that are
cactus people. We're all like the conversations are you know all you made I
finally made seat on this. So these plants, the blooms finally synced up,
or these seedlings germinated, or I had this issue and dealt with it
this way. Have you had that? Like it's just like it also is
like you know, uh, our grandparents just to do like crossword puzzles to
keep their minds occupied, like this is just so much better, you know
what I mean, it's so much more fascinating. It truly is like I
get excited as fuck about this ship, you know, And so yeah,
the dopamine response is definitely there. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's
fucking great to see and I think Ben, You're you're doing a lot to
spread it, which is fucking phenomenal. Man. So I really appreciate you
for that, and thank you for being down to come on this podcast.
Sorry, it we rescheduled so many times like that. You know, today
was today was on me, So no worries. Did it worked out perfectly?
Yeah? Man? Well okay, so what you got any trips coming
up? And you want to talk about your YouTube channel? You're in inter
gram and all that there, what you know, I mean, you know,
uh, I'm gonna well, you and I are going to be in
what is that May eleventh, We're gonna be in Austin doing a little thing
there, so, uh is the eleven? Yeah? I forgot okay,
yeah, May, Yeah, I forgot what day that was. And then
I don't know when you're gonna get this up, but uh, April twenty
first here in LA from ten to three. I'm gonna be at the Moca
in downtown LA, the Geffen. He's doing a plant sale at a museum.
Pretty cool. Oh sick at our museum. That's that's contemporary our museum
with Yeah, oh shit cool. Those are my only two events. And
then aside from that, you know, it's cactus Quest on YouTube, cactus
Quests on Instagram. Come say what's up? Your merch is nice too?
You got that Master's a time that Kopia Poe is shut? You got the
limestone shirt. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta cook one up?
What was what is? What's your merch store? Is that just thought?
Is it on bonfire or what's it through? Yeah, it's all on Bonfire.
I do have cactus quest dot com as well, which you're gonna be
honest with you, it's Instagram has made me lazy. It's just so easy
to just post something to my story and you know, huck it that way
as opposed to like uploading it and going back. But I do have some
shirts on there, you know, shirts that I have made, uh,
and I'll be putting more things on there throughout the year. You know,
I intend this year to start actually doing pottery drops on the website eventually,
because that's the number one thing that people are always asking, how do I
bout your pots? I'm like, you just started the process by asking me
if you ever want to trade a piece of art for a pot too,
I'd like to have one of yours. That would be nice. Yeah.
Absolutely, what do you draw it to? Like? Who does the animations
for your videos and shit? Like that little thing that you got, that
intro animation was done by a dear friend of mine, your own, who
is a who's an artist. Uh. He just changed his Instagram, so
I don't know. I don't know how to shout him out. I forget
what it is now. He recently just changed it, but he's uh.
I think he's got a gallery open right now in New York, just to
you know, just a good friend of mine I've known for a long long
time who did that for me? But yeah, I do draw. I've
done a couple of the designs. Uh. I've drawn a couple of designs
myself and then had friends help me bring some of the other designs to life.
You know. Yeah, it's got it's got a specific style. Man,
it's really nice. So yeah, I love all your stuff. So
there's two way Street man. Thank you, right, I mean, well,
thanks for being down to do this. I appreciate it. And everybody
else have a grocery day. Go fuckers. Somebody