May is Mental Health Awareness Month so Suicide Prevention Sat Continues!

All right, so it's a party at a Great Start Shooting School for Suicide Prevention Saturday tonight. We have DJ Guns of Barbecue and moi. I will do a quick intro because it was crazy in the green room for a moment, just because barbecue can do that to a person. So hi everybody, thank you for checking in at Sous Chef French and Saturday. It is May, it is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that's a lot of M. And just real fast, My dear G-Webs, if this is the first one that you posted, then yes, that's the only one I see. So if there are other ones, I didn't see them yet. So Suicide Prevention Saturday, why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths we hear about are suicides. And if we are looking to save lives, we must talk about mental health. And bonus, if we pay attention to the stuff that is mental health and suicide prevention, it kind of bleeds over into violence prevention as well. So here we are. I have, I have, I have a special guest. I have Guns and Barbecue and so DJ. So yeah, so Barbecue is my special guest. DJ is just my normal person who tries to keep me organized and stuff. I haven't had a chance to say hi to him yet though. So DJ, are you allowed to unmute yourself? He's like, no, apparently not. I don't know. We didn't, we didn't get all the technical stuff done beforehand. So with Mental Health Month, here's the question I'm going to throw out to all of you folks, you fine folks over there in the side chat. I appreciate you all for stopping in. When DJ can unmute himself, he will let me know he's available. But for right now, I will say hi to Mike White and Mike Ballinger, G Webs, Woods, and we've got Crabby Turtle. Oh wait, and Crabby Turtle kind of did the whole little, the intro thing for me. So DJ is here. Mike Woods is here. Mike Woods. Wow. Mike White and Woods and Mike Ballinger, G Webs, Guns and Barbecue, and folks. So anyone who is here who is not commenting, we're saying hi to you as well. Uh, thank you for that, Krabby. Now I can't find that. Okay, there we go. All right, so Mr. Barbecue, barbecue, barbecue. Oh, I'm making— and make it all you. You want it to be all you? We could make it all here. All right, um, so see, you know how you said you— because you're here with me, you can't troll me? Woods is going to take care of that, so Special guest. Yeah, this is a good guy. Yeah, you know, you're special.

If I can't do it, he'll get— he'll get it done.

There you go. There's always that. And then we have, uh, Mr. Jamie, uh, JH586. Uh, it's also Jamie, the man with the beard. One of the men with the beard. All right, so Barbecue, how's life? What's up?

Um, well, won't lie, I wasn't planning on being on the show tonight. I know, but this is one of those times where, uh, a harmless prank turns into an ultimate blowup in the prankster space. Yeah, not complaining about being on the show, just saying like completely unprepared for this. So there's that. Well, I like it, I like it.

So, so here we go. Um, like I told you, I mean, it was funny, it was happenstance that you should show up here because Darn it. Where's my thing? Oh, that's because it's not a window. Anyway, I'll go back to us instead. All right. So yes, as it happened to be tonight's plan on my part, which DJ and I had not talked about, was to offer you guys, if anybody wanted to come on the panel and we'd actually just chat tonight. So Woods, Jamie, Tara's in here now. Hi Tara. If you guys wanna come in, I was gonna drop the link for y'all to join in and we could have like a little panel discussion. And here I am in getting ready to set all this stuff up and all of a sudden G23 pops in and I haven't talked to G23 in a while. I haven't seen G23 out in the side chat for a little bit and poof, here he is. Now, barbecue, do you wanna explain to the folks how that exactly happened?

So I may have done some super awesome hacking. Um, by that I made a phone call and obtained a URL that would allow me to pop into the pre-chat. And when I did this super awesome hacking, uh, the hacky then told me, hey, if you're gonna do that, like, you should totally mess with her and make sure to change your name before you go in. I was like, well, if I change my name, I got to change my avatar. So I just did the, uh, avatar that has nothing. It's just a gray silhouette. And then I was like, hmm, who can I appear to be that she's had on the show before that she'll just, you know, like, oh hey, what's up? And so I was like, she's had G23 on, so I changed my name to G23 and and she let me in, and I did the worst G23 impression, which she never once said, G23, my goodness, you sound so terrible.

Nothing like that. Well, so you had caught me off guard enough because DJ is the only one I ever expect to get here in the back room here before I start. And so when you popped on and I saw G23, my poor little brain was already melting as to what did I do? And I could have sworn I sent that link to DJ. And I know it was last minute, so I'm just like, what? And then your words to me of, hey, well, didn't you want to reinterview me? I'm like, my poor little brain was melting yet again. So when it comes to Mental Health Month, we're just going to go with pranks are worthwhile because what is fun? Pranks are fun. So now that this backfired on you though, Barbecue, what do you think? Is it still fun?

Oh yeah, I, I can just roll the punches, don't you worry.

Okay. All right. Well, this was part of my plan as far as like anybody else. All right. So for real, does anybody else over here in the side chat want the link to pop in so we can chit chat on this? Um, Mental Health Month. That is what I was trying to get to where I didn't have that up before because I didn't want to talk about this a little bit. Um, mental health awareness from 1949. And you would not think that mental health awareness in America has been around that long because so many people still don't want to talk about mental health, substance abuse, and those sort of things. Because really, why do people— sorry, see, because you're in here with me, Barbecue, I'm not ignoring the chat. So things like that Jamie says about Don't Pursue G3, he's a Glock lover.

You know, well, that's what made it all the better is because I would never own a Glock.

Oh, there's—

I lied, they are being sued right now, so I kind of want to own a Glock. Oh, Glock is getting sued? Yeah, in Chicago I believe it is, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, so wait, wait, so Woods is going to come in so that then you're going to get smaller. I think that's what the idea—

terrific.

Well, see, and I'm not fancy. Like, I don't know how to, um, uh, whatever you call it. I don't know how to like put a back room up. So if I put the link out there for y'all, anyone can pop in. And so, uh, there is that.

I did it for 300 episodes. Totally safe.

Totally safe. All right, for real. All right, everybody, Woods is not coming to play. However, anyone else who wants to So mental health awareness, as you all know, at the top of the next hour, right now it's 9 PM here in the East Coast and only— yeah, anyway, so at 10 o'clock PM Eastern, Hillbilly, where is he? There he is. Oh wait, can you see him? Hillbilly comes on at 10 and he always says, how'd you make somebody's day better? So for me, because it's the last weekend of— sorry, I will get you off here for a second. For me, this is the last weekend in Mental Health Awareness Month. So if you want to jump on the link and come on in, I will add you to the screen and you would help me tell people how you may have done something to help either your mental health or somebody else's mental health in the month of May. So if you are brave enough, unlike Barbecue, who decided that this was just going to be a prank and he got sucked in here anyway, which is perfect because apparently DJ is busy right now. Which is the last message I got from him. So yeah, you think you got in here to prank me, but no, apparently we're pranking you because we're keeping you here. So what have I done for mental health awareness? Well, as you guys know, here I am every Saturday, try to talk about something regarding mental health. And one of the things that I have realized is that I need to make sure that I'm paying more attention to mine. Because it's very easy for lots of us to want to take care of everyone else, because when other people have issues, it's so much easier to help someone else. So the past 10 days have been a little bit crazy because my daughter was in the emergency room, then my mom was— had an emergency appointment, and, um Sorry, um, I gotta—

I gotta—

when I'm trying to talk, I have— I really do have to hide the comments because I will get back to that, I promise. Um, so what am I saying? So yeah, so I was taking care of my daughter, which obviously is important, and I was taking care of my mom, and then I realized I'm like, ooh, I really need to do something for me to make sure I'm taking care of me. Because one of the best things I think I ever learned on a Christian women's retreat was As women, we tend to take care of others all the time because we're the mom generally. And even as the daughter, we often will take care of the parents. And I'm not dissing you guys, I'm just saying it was a women's, women's Christian retreat. So this is how that went. And it just talked about how important it is to remember to fill up your own cup, to make sure your pitcher of water is full, which mine is not because it's been hotter than Hades up here today. And so I've drank all my water. But if I'm not going to keep my glass full, how in the world am I supposed to help fill my mom's glass and fill my daughter's glass? And this is one of the challenges, the balance that we're trying to find. And there is no balance in life. We are always on a roller coaster where we are getting highs of excitement and happiness. Like next weekend is my son's Eagle Scout project. And then there's things like, oh my gosh, my kid's in the ER. And then, okay, that's not so bad. But now, oh, my mom's Got an emergency. And then it's like, all right, so life is always like this. It's a sine wave, I believe. Not that I'm good at math, but if I were, that's what I guess. So we have to make sure we're taking care of us. So for Mental Health Awareness Month, is there anything in particular that you have done for your mental health? Now, Barbecue, what have you done other than wanting to prank me? Are there other people that you brought smiles to by being a smarty aleck? That's what I want to know.

Well, I believe I— well, I received a phone call from somebody the other day that was having a bad day, and they knew that I would enable whatever it was that they really wanted to do, so they called me to just have me tell them that that's a great idea. Like, you're welcome. So there's that.

Okay. Yeah, that did, that did make my day better. It's, it's true. So I appreciate you trying to not say who it was, but yes, I totally use barbecue as a— I try to keep good words in here. Uh, complaint session. There we go. That's what I'm going to use for tonight. That is not the word I used when I talked to barbecue last week because all of this stuff was going on and you absolutely made it better.

And jelly either.

It was not peanut butter and jelly either. But before I went off on my, what have you done? I appreciate Woods's comment. I didn't go see my parents, my mental health. I think everybody loves Raymond's mom. So yes, family is challenging. It's like we get to choose our friends. Like I get to choose to hang out with and visit and surprise barbecue from time to time, whether it be a complaining phone call or actually just showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, practically. So it was just dark. It wasn't the middle of the night, but it was very dark and hard to find your place.

But I found it.

So, you know, there's that. Then there's Tara. I have no doubt. I figured someone's gonna help this month, but I don't think I helped it. Well, let's see. You didn't run anyone over. I'm guessing your truck is still in one piece. I'm hoping. And, All in all, I'm going to go with, I'm sure that you actually did, because I know you put some new videos up on your, um, Tara Smith's Kitchen, uh, thing. And I love watching your videos, even if I don't spend a lot of time doing it, because A, it makes me hungry. B, it makes me inspired. It's like, it's really not that hard. All you have to do is follow along. So, um, you absolutely positively impacted at least my mental health. And then Woods being the ever, ever helpful friend. So enablers are good as long as it's good stuff, like buying more guns and buying more ammo and fun things like that. Now, uh, who else is here that I'm gonna pick on? Where's Jamie? All right, I know he's up here somewhere. So anyway, so Jamie's a pastor, so obviously he makes— oh, All right, Mike. Mike, I know Mike does lots of things. One of the things Mike does is he works at an animal shelter and he helps take care of dogs. So Mike has really cool things to do as far as that all goes. And then G-Webs. G-Webs is always helping others by sharing all of his wisdom and giving Guntubers ways to do stuff. So Here's the other part of this, right, is the hardest part for many of us is to realize that we do impact other people in a positive way. And rarely do we take advantage of that or realize that, like my dear DJ, who is off to something else this evening, which I think maybe he did throw barbecue under the bus on this one. I'm not really sure. But like, DJ, I was just thinking before this, it's like, I love having him here, the baritone voice, as well as just the fact that he knows y'all and he can call y'all out. And he is one of my favorites and it is awesome. So anyway, that's all of the things that I can think of. Yes, you can, you can come to, you can join, you can join for any reason you want. And yeah, sorry, Woods. I was like, you absolutely affect people on a regular basis because not only do you affect the kids that you teach, you get to affect the parents or their grandparents or whoever's taking care of them. Um, so there is that. All right. Oh, we've got a puppy! I'm so excited I have a puppy.

It's P-Webs. P-Webs.

Puppy Webs. There we go. I like that. Puppy's like, what? What? All right, Pete, what's your— what's your question that's not about Mental Health Awareness Month?

Well, no, it's about the month, but it's just not the whatever you're doing today type of thing or this week. One of the things I was been curious about, and it's difficult to ask in the limited number of words we get in the questions out there, is, is there some way to gauge or to measure the— I don't know what to call it, like the amount or the effort that's being made towards this? Like, you've been doing this for a number of years, right? Is there some way to like take a snapshot of the past and think, you know, this much effort, this much awareness existed of this. And then, you know, just Walk the Talk America. There's quite a few veterans organizations. I find more of them as I—

I'm—

thanks to you, I'm aware to listen to this stuff. And because I know a couple of them, every time I hear one that's not one of the ones I know of, I can go, okay, now there's another one. And luckily there's so many of them that I— well, maybe luckily there's so many of them that I can't keep track. But I don't know the history of all of them, so I don't know if some of them are defunct or if some of them are just wasting time or if they're literally all just, you know, helping different sectors of the community, the world, all towards this effort. So is there a way, is there some way, like, is there a national level organization or national— is the CDC or something keep track of how much effort is being done towards like mental health awareness and suicide prevention, or is it just something that we have to do on our own? I'll shut up.

No, no, it's okay. It's all good. As far as I know, it's something we do on our own, sort of like what you started with, like, especially since we're on Memorial Day weekend, right? So one of the things that sort of kills me is the fact there are so many different ways that people try to help, and veterans specifically, right? It's like, because I got in a competition, I found out about Aiming for Zero, and so that's how I started noticing some of the veterans stuff. Which is about suicide prevention. However, all the veteran stuff that's out there, there's like 1,000 different flavors of veteran help out there. And as far as suicide prevention, same thing. And what I have found, actually, I'm trying to think, I'm, I'm looking at my stickers because down here there is one that's a little tiny local one just here in Connecticut. That's called ajjfoundation.org. And that was a kid committed suicide and his parents and friends are musicians and they raise money to get kids free music lessons. And I'm sorry, DJ's not here for this, but because, you know, music, we've talked about that here where it's like music is also a thing that helps people's mental health. So, I mean, there's an example of just one that's here just in Connecticut, and it's kind of small. And then of course we have Tunnels to Towers Foundation. There's— there are so many of them, but no, there doesn't seem to be any kind of organizing structure that I've ever heard of. I do kind of wish that we had something like that, and I think Walk the Talk America is doing a good job of trying to reach out and sort of branch and kind of pull stuff together. But as far as, yeah, who does what, when, how much, I'm going to say no, there's nothing that I've come across in anything ever. It's like the CDC has stuff, but just like the, um, the thing I brought up here about Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm like, I didn't even know that it started in 1949 because it doesn't seem like it's the sort of thing that people would've been talking about back then. So Pete, I'm sorry, I don't have a good answer for you, but that's the answer I have for you.

No, that's an answer for sure. And then the next, then the other part of it would be in your feeling or like in your perception, is it gone up or down? Is it the same or is there other making?

So I definitely have a hard time with that because like I've been talking about suicide for all of my life. When I was a teenager, I'm talking about it in here. As I got older, I started talking about it out loud. And so it never occurred to me that mental health isn't something that people normally talk about. And because I dealt with, um, drug abuse and alcohol abuse in my family, to me, that's just another form of mental health issue because you don't know how to deal with your emotions, so you drown them with alcohol or drugs. So mental health is something that's been a part of my life forever. So I didn't even realize, and I'm only now actually starting to realize like how few people are willing to talk about mental health, much less suicide in general. So that's kind of where I am with that. It's like, I can't gauge it because all I really have is my own experience. And I didn't realize that folks are not, you know, open to talking about this on a regular basis. So that's kind of that. And wait, we have one, one new person in, or at least one person, new person. Tim, hi, how are you? Uh, we don't have DJ tonight, so, um, however, Crabby Turtle did give me a, a roundup of everybody that was here earlier.

Did you know that, uh, yesterday was National Turtle Day? I think it was yesterday.

I did not know that yesterday was National Turtle Day. Um, and yeah, I think on the first one, May 4th, that I did of this, I did do a bunch of all the different months awareness that this is. Um, and that's why I'm like, I'm kind of cool, happy to see that 1949 was when this actually started. Yes, I know, the bacon bit is adorable. It's so true. Sorry, what's that?

It was the 23rd, Thursday.

Oh, the Thursday. Well, it would make sense to me that you'd have a turtle day on a Thursday or a Tuesday because it starts with T. So, but I'm sure it's actually a date.

Um, um, because it starts with F and turtles are so fast.

So fast. Yeah, well, there's no S's, you know, Saturday or Sunday because they're slow. There's lots of possibilities. This is officially going to be the best rated, uh, Sew Star Friendship Saturday I have because it's got a puppy on it.

It's gonna go aluminum.

It's gonna go aluminum. Look at them. Sorry, not platinum. All right, aluminum. Thank you. Yes. Well, I've got 8 people. Uh, I don't know, I'm not looking on the YouTube side. Hopefully I've got 8 thumbs up at least. Um, you guys can always feel free to share if anybody else wants to hop in the, uh The link is up above. So Tim, you got in here a little bit. Give Bacon Bit a treat. Gee. Oh wait, he opened his eyes for that. Does he?

I'm not sure if he's interested. He may not be interested because he's pretty sleepy. All right, well, $30 treats. This cost $30.

Oh well, not per treat at least. Good Lord. Well, if it makes you feel any better, we just had $1,200 worth of Dog surgery. It's like maybe he heard treats. Oh, so much fun. That's it, Pete, you've stolen the show now. I can be— I can go now.

What if there's just a channel where you, every time somebody hashtags something, somebody gives a dog a treat?

Oh my goodness. Yeah, well, it could be. I mean, well, no, the petting of the dog. The petting of the dog is the thing that matters.

You could get a robot hand to pat the dog every time somebody hashtags or something.

Well, yeah, because the petting— so for those of you, if you— I think everyone knows this though, right? Everyone knows like petting an animal, a dog or a cat, actually lowers your stress level. On for like for real. So I mean, I imagine getting to actually watch someone pet a dog or cat. Oh, look, there she is! I got to meet these two superstars live and in person in Vegas.

You're super jealous that anybody else ever gets a treat.

Uh, gotcha. Yes, he does snore super cute, it's true. Um, but Woods— yeah, no, Woods, you should come on. You have your dogs. Do you have your dogs in the back? Usually you're throwing your dog your ball.

Do it. I'm getting ready to make bacon.

You'll make, you'll make G2-3 happy. I mean Guns and Barbecue. I mean G2-3 because it went more than 20 minutes. Oh yes, lowers the blood pressure. Petting animals also lowers your blood pressure. This is the other thing too, is I'm sure there's a special day for this, but there's also hugs. As long as you're not afraid of people and germs and stuff, but giving a hug lowers your blood pressure as Well, and Bacon Bit's adorable. Oh my goodness. So Tara cannot move because, um, if she's got a cat sleeping on her, the universal rule is you cannot move and disturb the cat.

So I'm sorry, cats are monsters and dictators.

Oh, there's that. But it's like, if you have a cat on your lap, you are not moving. It is not happening. Um, So, um, yeah, so yes, it does suck when we lose one dog or one cat or a pair that have been hanging out forever. Um, yeah, we have a 10-year-old poodle and a 4-year-old German Shepherd, and because little dogs live longer and big dogs die sooner, I'm hoping they kind of go around the same time when they go. But hopefully I've got a little bit of time yet. So, oh, puppies and kitties and bears, oh my. All right, this has been 26 minutes of puppies and dogs and barbecue. Yes, what are you gonna say, Barbecue? You unmuted, you must have something to say.

Oh, you're talking about your German Shepherd? I was going to tell you a story about mine. Okay, he's become a bigger pain in my butt. I have to now buy an air conditioner this year because normally every summer I just leave my front door wide open and the front porch has a gate so, you know, the dogs escape off the porch or anything. Gunther has figured out how to jump the railing of the porch. I can no longer keep the front door wide open because he will just jump the porch railing as he pleases. Gosh, I have to buy an air conditioner to keep it cool. I'm not happy.

No. And oh, you're not going to be happy with your electric bill. That's brutal.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So what were you gonna say, Pete?

Mabel figured out the same thing. She used to be content on the back porch, and she figured out she can just jump over the back porch, like, railing, and now she just can't be outside by herself anymore.

Gotcha. Yeah, no, um, our German Shepherd— we have, we have an old, um— oh, we lost barbecue just like that. We have an old house, it's the 1700s, so it has the latch doorknobs. And, um, so our German Shepherd comes downstairs and then he can open the door. All right, hold on, I gotta add Barbecue back up. What happened, dude? You left us.

My audio went weird. You guys were super quiet for some reason.

Oh, gotcha. I'm like, where'd he go? So, um, yeah, so our, our German Shepherd can open the, the doors in our house because it's got the little latch thingy on the other side. So, all right. Who wants to do roll call? Oh, barbecue. Gotta love that picture. That's one of my favorites.

It's a pretty good one.

It's a pretty good one. It's even better when it's like on a video talking. It's even better that way. Cracks me up every time. That's good for mental health. Um, treat the nap. That is not a bad life after all. For sure. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I want to—

who loves naps?

Who loves naps?

You.

I do. I do. I do. It's all right. See, Chris, the joy of being late is there's always a replay, at least as far as I know. But better late than never, I think, is what they say. And we have a puppy today. We have a weird-faced child down there with a hat on? Because for real, the first time I saw that, I thought it was one of your kids.

But actually, that is not a weird face child. That is a man. This is a weird face child.

Oh, and TJ is not here to talk about it.

Oh yeah, that's right, he's the one that saved this one in the first place and used it as an avatar.

So Gotcha.

Yeah, that last one was compliments of DM Foss.

Gotcha. Oh, Foss is awesome. All right, so before closing out, for all of you listening to us ramble on about various things, um, this is the last weekend in Mental Health Awareness Month, and just because the month is over does not mean we have to stop talking about or doing things for our mental health in general. Remember to do stuff for yourself as well as for anyone around you. Like DJ would always say, smile. If you don't see a smile, be the smile. Something along those lines. I always do this incorrectly, but all right, let's see if I can do a final roll call. Dude, I don't know if I can do this all by myself. All right, here we go. Chris Brancato, Tim S, Mike White, Chasing Ghosts, Woods, and Crabby Turtle, and G-Webs, and— oh, George. Oh my God, guy, I am so sorry, I did not see you in here earlier. Um, okay, Garage Guy, but you're getting it, you're high now. And oh, Jamie. And you know, and I think at the beginning to the end, Woods. Yes, Mike White. Yes. And this is why DJ does this, because he actually has this all together. All right, that is everybody. And I don't know how to get Jamie's comment off there. So with that, I'm gonna— I know, but I have to find it again because I just put on somebody else's.

Look at somebody else's and then click off theirs.

And then see, this is why.

Magic.

And then thank you to my lovely panel of Puppies and Guns and Barbecue, AKA G23. And I will see you guys No, actually I'm not going to see y'all next week. Next week is my son's Eagle Scout celebration from noon to 3, and then it is my 35th high school reunion because I'm that old. So I'm pretty sure next Saturday is going to be a prerecorded thing. I just don't know what it's going to be. So I hope y'all are just waiting and very excited about whatever that's going to be. So, Barbecue, you got any last words?

Um, I just figured out you're old enough to be my mom.

Nice.

Thankfully.

Um, but on a serious note, uh, last I knew Brooke did have Patreon. Go over there, support her. She does amazing things. Uh, well, you know, you're watching one of those amazing things tonight. Uh, but some of the behind the scenes stuff she does is, you know, go to her state capitol on a fairly regular basis and fight anti-gun legislation in the state of Connecticut. So, you know, go support her. Go check out Great Start Shooting School website. Last I knew, she had some pretty awesome merch over there. That's another way to support her. So yeah, just— and pass a word. Yeah, pass a word. Pass along the word that, you know, she does these things. And, you know, you know, a new shooter, female shooter, somebody that's just like, hey, I need you know, something to uplift my day, whatever the heck it is, you know, share these chats, all that good stuff. So thanks for making me stay, Brooke.

Well, thanks for popping in. And do you have— Pete, you got anything to say? That was more than I expected.

Thanks for hosting, being a consistent voice towards normalizing the conversation about these topics. Critical. I appreciate it.

Thank you for all the work you guys do. And oh yeah, wait, wait, don't forget to check out Guns and Barbecue. He's actually back to doing new stuff on his channel, and G-Webs as well. Obviously go check them out. And as far as those of you who go to Patreon, I apologize already, I don't put a lot up there. So, um, I, I may work on that, I may take it down, I haven't decided. But, um, I appreciate all the kudos. So y'all have a lovely rest of the day, evening, weekend. Uh, go check out, uh, Hillbilly in about 25 minutes, 30 minutes. And I guess that's it. Talk to you later. Thanks.