Climate Crisis Music Video

I put together a music video for Climate Crisis using various public domain clips I found online. This song highlights the plight of environmentalists, disaster victims, and refuges who are all impacted by climate change. My album Drop Those Things and Run is on all streaming platforms and over at Bandcamp.

Lyrics:

We’ve been planning for 2 years
Your refinery, gonna shut it down
Bad times now worse times ahead
Climate crisis all we know
Reach the edge of the plateau
You don’t know how far we’d go
Rising seas and wildfires
Look at the sky
If we don’t run we’re gonna die
Bad times now worse times ahead
Climate crisis all we know
Reach the edge of the plateau
You don’t know how far we’d go
Don’t know where to go
Don’t know what to bring
In desperation
Going to fuck up everything
Bad times now worse times ahead
Climate crisis all we know
Reach the edge of the plateau
You don’t know how far we’d go

Squash Bee Party

I got this clip today of a bunch of male squash bees, doing, well…whatever they are doing on a massive squash flower. This inspired my to record a little song and it ended up having a pretty dreamy vibe.

Squash bees (Eucera pruinosa AKA Pepopapis pruinosa) nests in the ground and the males come out first. Until the females emerge they seem to be just partying together. The females exclusively gather pollen from squash flowers.

Naturistic Podcast Ep. 9 – Owls

Owls, loveable nocturnal hunters. We’ve been on a little hiatus from the podcast and this episode has been kicking around for a long time now, but here it is. We run through a bunch of owl factoids, talk about an experiment looking at the impacts of noise pollution on owl hunting, and discuss some of the cultural importance of owls. 

Citations for this episode: 

Going Back Home

Going Back Home is the first track on my album Drop Those Things and Run. It’s about being a vagabond academic and the various traumas of constantly moving to new places. The idea of going back home is full of ambiguity and confusion since I don’t know where that would be. Or maybe it’s just the ‘anywhere I lay my head is home‘ idea?

This photo was taken by Hamilton Boyce in Seattle and shows me all packed up to move to NC to start grad school. My album is streaming now in all the places (spotify, apple music, etc).

Sell Your World to Me – Music Video

I put together a music video for my song Sell Your World to Me, track 2 off my album Drop Those Things and Run. This song is from the perspective of an oil baron type character who is taking land from indigenous populations for some type of resource extraction. He then exploits and brutalizes workers for his own profit. I suspect this song was inspired by The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn which recounts many scenarios of horrific working conditions and labor movements fighting for the most basic of rights. Workers’ protests and strikes were then often met with extreme violence either from private militias or the State.

For this video I found a 1970’s workers safety clip called Shake Hands With Danger that acts out a bunch of work-place accidents with heavy machinery. It’s at least adjacent to the topic of the song and I think the old footage has a cool vibe that matches the gritty-grunge-country vibes of the song.

Lyrics:

The future of your life is bleak
Follow head songs and sell your world to me
Keep your thoughts on present week
Move from your land, keep kids asleep and then you’re gone
You’re gone
So long
The sand is rotten under feet
Drill into the Earth and pull it out for me
It’s only profit that I seek
Rip up your flesh throw it to the weak and then you’re gone
You’re gone
So long
You Can’t come back
It’s all mine
You’re gone
So long
You’re gone
So long

Announcing The Release of My Solo Album: Drop Those Things and Run

My folk and alt-country flavored singer-songwriter solo album Drop Those Things and Run is out now.  All songs were written, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by me.  Hamilton Boyce and I collaborated on the cover design. In upcoming post I will share some details about individual songs. 

Drop Those Things and Run is available on all the streaming services (Spotify, Tidal, Apple music, etc) or you can listen below: 

 

Lawn to Wildflowers Presentation

I recently gave an online presentation for the Florida Wildflower Foundation. Amazingly, over 400 people were watching :) The presentation has facts about lawns, wildflowers, and pollinators that are all motivating factors behind our Lawn to Wildflowers project. I conclude by showing all the features of our mobile app and answering a bunch of questions from the audience. The talk was recorded so you can check it out if you want, my presentation starts at around 3 minutes.

In the talk I included a video I made showing one method of creating a wildflower plot. Though over the livestream it was a bit glitchy, so here’s the original video:

Naturistic TikTok Videos

I started a TikTok account for Naturistic where I post 1 minute videos about the usual types of Naturistic topics: ecology, evolution, plants, and animals. Already it’s the most popular content I’ve ever made with one video about bald eagles getting over 90,000 views. Here’s a sample of some of the videos, and give the channel (@naturisticseries) a follow if you use TikTok. If not I am also posting the videos on our Facebook and Instagram pages as well as my Twitter.

@naturisticseries

#baldeagle #bird #nature #biology #ecology #science #hollywood #birdcall

♬ original sound – user7708953247062
@naturisticseries

Global value of #pollinators? #nature #biology #ecology #insect #food #crops #agriculture #science #naturisticseries

♬ original sound – user7708953247062
@naturisticseries

#insect #aphid #pathenogenesis #biology #ecology #naturisticseries

♬ original sound – user7708953247062
@naturisticseries

predatory caterpillars! #biology #ecology #nature #insect #ant #butterfly #naturisticseries

♬ original sound – user7708953247062
@naturisticseries

#wombat #marsupial #biology #ecology #science #biodiversity #naturisticseries #fyp

♬ original sound – user7708953247062

Antlions! Video and Naturistic Podcast Ep. 8

On this episode we discuss antlions, these are the insects that build deadly pit traps in the sand, somewhat like the Sarlacc pit monster in Star Wars. We start by talking about Neuroptera, the insect order containing antlions, and then the specific ecology and pit building behavior of antlions. We finish by discussing a couple behavioral experiments testing if antlions can learn and modify their foraging after just a short period of training.

In addition to the podcast we also have a short video showing antlion prey capture in action. This was shot in Florida a few years ago when we were out and about shooting clips for another project. We just happened to run across an antlion pit, just another miniature marvel that’s easy to overlook.

References for this episode