Mental Health Matters- What is up Buttercup?

Gracious. Good evening, my favorite buttercups. Yes, that's, I think, how we will start tonight. Um, hi everyone, it is Suicide Prevention Saturday, otherwise known as Mental Health Matters, so that we get to stay online without getting chopped by the ever-so-attentive, uh, people here on YouTube and Facebook and all of those things. So anyway, hi everybody, it's Suicide Prevention Saturday, it is 9 PM-ish. On a Saturday night, as it has been since 2018. I know lots of people out there actually, like, pay attention and know how many streams they have done. I have no idea, and I'm not doing the math, but it's been a few. So why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicide. And as gun owners, we care a lot about helping save lives. A lot of people use their firearm to save lives. Many more than commit crimes. And if suicide is the thing that takes 60% of the lives by gun, goodness gracious, imagine the lives we can save by talking about mental health, suicide prevention awareness, and all of those good things. So tonight I said, what is up, buttercup? Um, and I just, it struck me funny today. When I realized that A, I missed Jamie's show last night, so I forgot it was already Saturday. So I did get this up here, but words, we're gonna talk about words 'cause words are important. And "What's up, buttercup" made me laugh and smile and think about the warmer days of summer. Now, I don't know where you live, but here, We have buttercups, right? And here's the funny thing about that. I'm guessing wherever you are, you have buttercups as well. However, if they're the same flower, maybe, maybe not. But were you ever a kid and playing in a lawn or a field and someone would pick a buttercup and they'd put it under your chin and if it turned yellow, then that meant you liked butter? Did you do that? I'm not the only one. Tell me I'm not the only one. Am I the only one? I hope not. But anyway, things that make you smile, things that you say, Dr. Seuss, right? We have one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, right? Rhyming things help us remember things. If you've never read Dr. Seuss, I don't know how to help you there, but things get stuck in our heads. And if they rhyme, like "What's up, buttercup?" or "Later, alligator!" or "Seeing a wild crocodile," all of those things are things that get in there. They stick. They go round and round and round, and they bring out emotions when we say them. So what are some of your favorite sayings? PG-rated, by the way. Family-friendly, please, for various things, because I think I asked that in the in the thing. It's like, what are some of your favorites? DJ is out here with me, so he will star them for me and we'll go over them because I know there's always this lag, so I don't bother looking right this second, but in a few I will. So, um, Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish has tons of rhyming stuff in it, and it was fun to read and it was fun to be read to. And, you know, the artwork was interesting as well, but it's just, um, like, ooh, butter. Ready? Let's see if I can remember it. Betty bought a bit of bitter butter, so Betty's butter made her batter bitter. And then there's more to it than that, but the tongue twisters that we will try to do and say also, right? Gives us a challenge, gives us a feeling of accomplishment if we can say them. Uh-oh, she sells seashells by the seashore, right? And what is the other one? If, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, right? Now, I don't know, are these New England things? Do you that are all over the rest of this country, do y'all have these same things? But, I know like my grandma used to do this seashell, she sells seashells by the seashore. And as a kid, it seemed so amazing that she could actually say that without really having to try. And when we are talking to ourselves, oh, you know, it's gonna come around to Mental Health Matters somewhere or another. When we're talking to ourselves, we have to remember we're saying the same things over and over again so that we can remember them and hear them. So Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, then how— where— what is it? How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? Yeah, all of that. So anyway, DJ, are we gonna have fun tonight or what? This— you cannot do drinking while we do this one.

Already are. Already are. Yeah, and we already got a great crew out there as well. I'd like to welcome in everyone this evening. Thanks for coming, and remember to, uh, hit the thumbs up, share it out now, make a comment after the cast would be great. Krabby Turtle's out there, so is Gizzard Gary. Sorry, Van 93 is in the room. Mike Bellinger's out there, so is Fiona Chasing Ghosts. Abigail Sorcha, finishing up with the gun websites, most recently in the room, I believe. Yeah, so I think it gets us current on stuff. All right, what's up, Buttercup? I actually never knew about the whole buttercup— was it rub it on your chin, see if it turned you like butter?

No, so for real, if you take something and I'm like— I, I don't know if you're gonna be able to see it, but like if you take something and put it under here, you can almost see it, it changes the color. So it's like because it's a yellow flower and you held it under here, there'd be that reflection. And so that was the, the test for whether or not you liked butter or not, because that was much more fun as a child than just asking someone if they like butter.

Got it. That, that was one that I did not experience in my youth, and I don't know if I could even identify a buttercup responsibly in the field.

This is, this is— so up here, what we call buttercups is a very delicate small flower, and it basically has 4 or 5 petals that are yellow, and it's just open wide. Um, and it's— they grow in little patches. So, um, like I said, here's the thing: when you travel, some things are called the same thing, but they are not the same thing. And that's why it's just like, I'm not a Latin major, and I know pretty much all the plants are named something in Latin, So I'm relatively confident buttercup is not their official word.

Scientific name. Yeah, scientific name, common name, colloquial name, and then whatever it is that somebody said it was once, and that's what sticks with you. Yeah.

Yes. Like sandwiches that are made on long rolls, depending on where you live, they're called different things, right? Out here we've got grinders. Midwest, you guys have hoagies or submarines?

We call them subs. Submarine thing, that's kind of— that's really OG. I'm not sure if that one sticks around.

Well, it's like going from here to Wyoming. Um, I was a teenager and I'm like, hey, where's the package store? And they're like, what's a package store? So here in New England, we call liquor stores package stores.

And so I've learned from Moo that, uh, in the Upper Midwest they call them party stores sometimes. Party store. I want to go to the party store, Gary. I'm thinking it's going to be like, I don't know, hats and Hooters and streamers and balloons and such. And no, pretty much a liquor store.

Yeah, you can imagine that if you have enough drinks. There's that.

You're right.

Right.

I also want to make sure that you knew that, uh, Birdie B Sanchez is out there tonight, and so is the man of the Great Pacific Northwest. Woods is in there.

All right, so they have a picture of a dog, dog nose. Is that what Woods is carrying these days? All right, so Dr. Seuss. Have you read Dr. Seuss? Were you read to Dr. Seuss, or did your mom like just read you like Shakespeare and stuff?

A lot of both, actually, and they kind of work together.

All right. All right. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I was kidding about the Shakespeare, but I'm not surprised. I did like Shakespeare. I was very blessed to have an awesome freshman year English teacher. Who explained how hysterical, like funny, haha, that Shakespeare is once you actually take the time and can understand what the heck is happening.

So as good stuff out there.

Yeah, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of body stuff right there. But all right, so Dr. Seuss, at least I got you and me. Um, oh yeah, so wait, I— any comments that I should be that you want to pull up because let's see, because I did ask. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Yeah. And the problem is we have that other one. Well, wait a second. What if it is my circus? And what if those are my monkeys? But yeah, I can see that. And Fiona, I was just talking about you. We're supposed to get together to clean. I'm asking other people to come clean. Oh, save the drama for your mama. I like that one. I like that one. That's a good one. Um, but yeah, so we all have different experiences. We all have different things that stick in our head. Um, even colloquialisms in general are mostly gonna be local, right? Like, I didn't realize how local some of the things I learned growing up were. So it's like, in the town I was born in, it— the name of the town is Winstead. And if you are born in Winstead and you're raised in Winstead, one of the, the terms you hear is Winstead Raggies. And what that means is you are white trash, which I was very much white trash. Um, yeah, it's very confusing. But anyway, white trash as in not overly sophisticated, I guess, might be the thing. I had a house that had no— well, we had running water, but not really. You could take a shower, we could take a bath once a week. Because it took 4 to 5 hours to fill up a bath. So it was a little bit, um, I might have been a little smelly as a kid going to school, hence the reason I got picked on kind of a lot, because I would go to school and it would look like my hair was wet because it was so greasy because I hadn't taken my weekly bath yet. See, if I could go back in time, I might have taken my bath in the middle of the week versus the weekend so it wouldn't be as obvious by Friday. But anywho, Winstead Raggies basically meant poor white trash. And when I left that town and I started going away to school where I could shower every day, it was very exciting. And I was in Lake Placid, New York, and they didn't know what that Winstead Raggies was. But I'm like, yeah, yeah, well, of course not, it's a Connecticut thing. And then I moved back to Connecticut. Yeah, no, wasn't a Connecticut thing, was only my town. And so, uh, oh, sorry, my nose is itching. It's gonna drive you crazy. Better?

Okay.

Um, like you're gonna know if it's better or not. Anyway, I moved back to Connecticut, but not in Winstead. I'm like, oh no, Winstead Draggies is just in my little tiny town. So why are we talking about all of this stuff? What is up, buttercup? Not my circus, not my monkeys. Save the drama for your mama is things that we learn as we grow up that stick in our heads. The other thing we need to remember is all the other stuff that is playing in the background. Mental health matters. Paying attention to what's playing in the background, whether it makes you smile, happy, sad, upset, gives you reasons to think or smile. We want to try to put more of those in there. And the things that make us mad, frustrated, or annoyed, we want to acknowledge them and let them go. So when we, when we, when we read things like Dr. Seuss— and I'm laughing because there is one part of Dr. Seuss where it says hop on pop, and I don't remember which story that's in, but it just, it seems silly to me. Hop on pop. And in the NRA, we have a thing that says put the jag on the patch and put the patch on the jag or something like that. And I like that we have one slide— there we go, it actually rhymes— in the entire thing. And I'm like, oh, we have our Dr. Seuss slide. So sorry for so many divergent things, but it's one of those things where one thought brings us to the next thought that brings us the next thought to the next thought. The reality of it is we don't pay attention to what's going on here as often as we should. We allow stuff to get shoved in here and put in here. Like, this is why I got off Facebook, because unfortunately my Facebook feed got filled with all sorts of political garbage that I don't want to pay any attention to. I much prefer kitties and guns and pretty things and funny things. And so I have some of that as well. And social media, because we are here on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, uh, Patreon, all of those things. And it's just like sometimes we don't have control over what's being put in, and we have to remember that we get to decide what's going to get stuck in there. Not always, because someone here said something about they want a Coke now, um, And so my— oh, hoagies, uh, and I want a Coke. So whoever said I want a Coke, uh, who was that? Oh, Chasing Ghost. It's like Coke is it. And Coke had such an amazing ad campaign, and it's like Coke is it. And that is the song that goes in my head when Chasing Tara says I want a Coke.

And we have a smile.

And a smile. Yes, and a smile.

Because it's the real thing.

It is the real thing for real. There's a lot of that, but it's like we have to remember that we are in charge of the advertising firm that is in our brain. And, um, it's hard. It's— my husband and I are actually getting— sorry, see, I, I, I looked at the things, and so now I got hillbilly. I put a cup of butter on my flapjacks. I'm just like, so I'm gonna go like if we took the, the buttercup test with Hillbilly, his whole neck would just glow yellow apparently. So, but anywho, yeah. So DJ, I'm all over the place, man. Should we say hi to Jamie and Mark and the other folks that came in since you talked to?

Well, you put up Hillbilly's comment, you just mentioned Jamie and Mark, so that gets us current actually.

All right, well, it's one of those things.

It does. I love the participation out there in the text chat as well, because as soon as you start talking about these things, people from different parts of the country are piping in with their representative examples, and that's the kind of variety that I really enjoy. It's also a way to be able to relate to something that we, we all can do, we all can relate to in such different ways. And Jamie made a comment earlier about how there's a lot of things in his part of the country that are like that. And I really enjoyed the South and the more colorful ways that there are to say things that are so common and blah here in the Midwest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and it's probably not blah in the Midwest. It's probably just— it's your normal, so you're used to it. When you go elsewhere, oh, that's an interesting way to call that, or that's an interesting way to call that.

So, and we all suffer from a multitude of monomic devices. You had what, put the patch on the jack with the jag on the— whatever that was. They're like, and there were a dozen more that tripped in my head for that sort of thing as well. So yeah, language, uh, the thing that unites us all for sure, aside from music. I dig it.

Yeah, well, I mean, and that— oh, and music. Oh my gosh, for real. Like, that is the thing. Like, you and I are saying Coke is it. Right? And you know that we're hearing the, the, the jingle in the background of our head as we're saying that. So it's in a— like, how many songs— well, you're not the right person to ask this question, but how many songs most of us know, like we could sing along with it every time it's on the radio, but if you ask me for the lyrics of a song just to like write them down without hearing the music. I can't do it. I mean, Hotel California might be the one song that I can do because I literally like for days with my cassette deck, I'd play it, I'd write down the words, I'd stop, I'd rewind, I'd play it, I'd write down the words, play it, stop, rewind, right? So Hotel California I might be able to, but like There's tons of songs I listen to that if I don't have the music to go with it, uh, I can't put it together. Now DJ, what about you? Can you just cold write the songs that you know the words to, or do you have to hum along as you're writing them down anyway?

Oh, combination of all of that plus more.

Okay.

There's, you know, thousands and thousands of things like that. I, um, I used to pride myself on knowing all the lyrics kind of thing, but think about how many songs you've heard in your life. Like, just think about the songs that you like and so, I can't name that's too many. And then think about the songs that you don't like and oh, that's too many. And then put the two together and then all the other ones that you've forgotten but could be reminded of. That's so many pieces of information to remember. So, you know, really the ones that do stick by repetition or by there being your favorites and they spoke to you enough that you didn't have to hear them 100 times to get the message and internalize it sort of deal. But I can remember doing transcriptions of lyrics with a boombox just like you described for And having the discussions, uh, like at school, you know, with your friends. What did they say?

Oh yeah, the amount of, uh, made-up lyrics that I had. Although the Tigger one, you know, we gotta love Pooh for Tigger because there's nothing more wonderful than a Tigger, of course. So, um, Yeah. So let's see, what is one of my favorite ones that, like, all right, you guys got to help me out with this. Like, what is one of your favorite songs that you've sung along with for a long time and then you found out what the lyrics really meant? And let's see, what was the one I was thinking about is Radar Love. And I had no idea. I thought they were talking about red-eye love. Because it was a driving song. So in my little brain, red-eye love was the fact that you're a trucker driving late at night and your eyeballs are like this as you're trying to drive down the road. And when I found out it was Radar Love, I'm like, wait, what? That doesn't make any sense to me now because I had a whole story of why it was red-eye love. Um, yeah, that's just one of them.

There's so many because every single thing that you hear, every poem that you read is open to your interpretation. And so there's— it's really, it's no more or less legitimate than what the author may have intended.

Oh yeah.

And I don't— so many times it's such a stock question, um, you know, what does this song mean? Or what is, you know, what's your style? There are so many canned questions that you answer that you would, uh, commonly ask bands. And I, I loved when an artist would say, well, it means whatever it means to you. And, and sometimes they would make up a, you know, a history or a reason or a person, you know. It's a, it's a fiction by the time it gets to you.

You? I think some of my favorites were, you know, Every Breath You Take, and then find out that Sting was a stalker. It was like, what was another one? I forgot. But yeah, so, oh, I know, Phil Collins, In the Air Tonight. You know, like how many rumors there were that he actually saw someone die somewhere or something. And it was just like, Anyway, the whole mental health matters stuff in general, right? Why am I talking about what's up, buttercup? Why am I talking about all these things that we say or that we do is simply for the fact that when we pay attention to what we're hearing and saying, and when somebody else has that spark that, oh yeah, that did make me smile, or oh man, I want to throw punch that person. I'm not suggesting we have violence here on YouTube, by the way, but we do this to ourselves every single day. We're on social media, we're reading other people's opinions, we have a reaction, and we can only control our own reaction to the thing, or at least become aware that we're having a reaction to what they said. Because I am working on my vocabulary, and if someone does something where I get mad or frustrated or annoyed, I'm doing my best to not say, "They made me mad." Nope. I allowed what they did to upset me. Now, did they try to make me mad? Maybe. Do they have control over whether I'm mad or not? The answer really should be no, because there's lots of reasons. We can ask, what else could this mean? And someone may do something that you find offensive, and you might get mad at that person and they have no idea that what they did was offensive to you. So that's one reason to try to check in on yourself and find out, well, wait a second, what could this mean? Does that person just not know that that thing that they did really rubs me the wrong way? I'll give you an example: snakes and spiders. I have some students students who are mortified of spiders. I don't know until it's too late because I will say, "Oh, look at the spider in my classroom!" and they turn white. Did I mean to scare the crap out of them? No, I did not, because I'm not afraid of spiders, so I didn't mean to make them upset over there being a spider in the classroom. So yes, give people the benefit of the doubt. No, don't be a rug that everybody walks over because you'll just let anything fly. Understanding where your borders are, where your boundaries are, where things start and stop, but being aware that— make sure that the inner brain conversation that's happening in this brain pan of yours is beneficial to you. Take a moment every single day and say, all right, what makes me smile? What makes me laugh? How can I see the best in this situation? How can I enjoy what I'm doing? How can I do the best that I can? How is one of the most powerful words that we can say. And yet the thing that pops into my head now is hop on pop, because saying that is way more fun than saying, how do I do this better, or how can I do this well? So what is up, buttercup? The idea behind tonight is think about the words. Think about the words that make you smile, laugh, um, make you giggle. Like I said, tonight we're gonna be— Hillbilly is here, so we're doing family friendly. No, even if Hillbilly weren't here, we would be doing family friendly. So that is what I've got for you guys tonight, because, you know— oh, barbecue, barbecue, and my squirrels. I'm assuming these are my squirrels. They look like little rats, honestly, but I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be my squirrels. My adult daughter, there's a spider in there, kill it. Yeah, see, no, we cannot kill. We kill nothing here at A Great Start Shooting School. My grandma raised us so that if there was a spider in the house, you had to go catch it, and you had to— I learned catch and release from my grandma. Had nothing to do with fishing. It was you had to catch the spiders and put them back outside. So no, no killing spiders in our house did not happen. I have been here on my, you know, sometimes I actually work on that book I tell you all about that I might be writing. But it's like I've been here and my spider is literally like crawling across the screen. And did you know if you move your mouse, the spider will attack it? So I was able to walk the spider off the screen. But anywho, and, and yes, you're not wrong, Barbecue, squirrels are just tree rats. But their tails are much fluffier. And I'm not sure, rats might actually be smarter than squirrels. So anywho, all right, what do we want to do? TJ, are we ready?

I'm always ready.

You're always ready. Say hi, goodbye, and all of that. I'll put this a quick little bow real quick. Say things that make you smile. Remember to be aware of what is repeating over and over in your head and make sure it's something good, because bad things need to be acknowledged. Maybe feel bad about them for a little bit, but kick them the heck out of there. And with that, I shall let Mr. DJ take us out.

Right on. I'm so glad to see everybody here tonight. I am every week, but there's an extra smile on my face tonight. We've had more than a dozen folks out there for the majority of the live show. Hey everybody, bring somebody next week. It'd be great to see even more of you out there. And the text chat was a good time tonight. I'm gonna go back through and read what it is that I missed. I hope to see everybody again next week. Uh, Crabby Turtle was here tonight, so was Gizzard Gary. Sorry if N93 was in the room. Mike Ballinger joined us, so did Fiona Rock. Jason Ghost is out there. Abigail Sorcha Finnegan joined the conversation. Gun Websites was out there, so was Bernard P. Sanchez Woods. Hey man, Hillbilly Upsetter, he's got a show coming up not long after this one. Mark Thomas from Pennsylvania, expect those squirrels look a little bit more like groundhogs this time of year for Pennsylvania folks. We also have Jamie JH 586 out there, Viejo in the room, and so is Guns and Barbecue. Um, everybody, until we see you again, be safe, have fun, take care of your crew and yourself. And rock! We're out!