And I'm going to be floating a little bit back and forth. Like I said, I'm using two computers. Kind of the big thing in taking a look at the budget for next year, the 2021-22 budget, is I'm going to start with the bottom line, what people can expect to pay, what the increases they can expect to see in terms of their taxes, because that's what most people are usually interested in. And then I'll kind of go through and I'll explain a little bit for those that have a little bit more interest in Vermont tax law, how we actually get to that bottom line. So bottom line, and this has actually changed since some of the earlier presentations, because things looked a lot rosier after we initially had to kind of talk about the budget with the school board in terms of the education fund. There was a significant amount of money that flowed into the education fund this year, despite COVID, that people did not expect. And so it's made for a little bit rosier outlook. And so the bottom line for all three towns is that the school budget, as it currently stands and based upon what's working its way through the legislature in terms of property yields right now, is going to add about $1.5 cents per $100 of assessed value of people's property. So to kind of break that down a little bit, if you've got a home of average value in Vermont of $275,000, the average school tax increase that you're gonna see is gonna be 41 bucks, which is about 341 a month. And the other piece to be aware of for the taxpayers that are out there is that Vermont has a sensitivity income threshold. If you are below that threshold, and I believe it's $95,000 for the household for this year, you can fill out an additional form when you're doing your Vermont taxes so that you qualify for this, and it will reduce your school property taxes. So it's important to kind of look out for this. Now, a couple of things to be aware of. And I'm gonna do this as kind of a preview, kind of a pre-teaching so that when we get to it again a little bit later in the presentation, it may make a little bit more sense to people. In terms of tax rates, you've got your tax rates and you've got your actual tax bill, which is the money that you pay for your taxes. There are really two things that go into determining what your tax rate and your tax bill are. The first is what happens with the school budget. Obviously, if the school budget increases, then people end up paying a little bit more, your tax rates go up, and you do pay a little bit more when that happens in terms of the check that you write out to pay your school property taxes with. There are fluctuations that happen also in tax rates when it comes to school property taxes that are based on something a little bit different that don't have as much of an impact on what you actually pay.  One of the things that I'm gonna keep coming back to is that what you pay for your town taxes, there's a different process for that than what you'd pay for your school property taxes. School property taxes are based upon the fair market value of homes in a town, right? And so that's established with what they call this equalization study that occurs every year. And so what happens is they take a look at what the homes are selling in the town and they say, okay, based upon this, then in that town, the home value is X. And that value can be above or below what the town has assessed you to be at. And they determine your property taxes based upon that fair market value. And now you'll see these wild fluctuations sometimes in school property tax rates based upon what happens from year to year in fair market values. In the case of all three of our towns, the fair market values have dropped from last year to this year. And what happens is when those market values go down, the state will increase the tax rates. But the two balance each other out. One goes down, one goes up, so that in the end, these changes mean that you're paying about the same as you paid in the previous year. Another way to kind of think about this is it's like this. Yep, your tax rates went up because of these fluctuations in fair market value, they went up. So you're paying more on the value of your home, but the value of your home has gone down. And when you put those two together, things come out to be equal. So the important thing to take away from that long-winded discussion here is this idea that the actual increase that you are going to see in your taxes, if you have a home of average value, is about $41 for the school year. So hopefully that makes a little bit of sense. And I've got some slides that go into an incredible amount of detail on this a little bit later in the presentation. In terms of the Orange Southwest School District school budget goal for 2021-2022, and actually for all the years that come after that, as far as we can see right now, the goal is to move into what's called the level service budget. The town was great in the past couple of years. They provided some big increases to the school budget, which allowed us to build some significant structures that we needed to really go after improving academic achievement and mathematics and science and English, as well as to revamp the special education department so that we're providing better services to students so that students are coming off IEPs. And so the community has given us everything that we need in terms of that work, which is awesome. And so it's appropriate at this time to move over to this idea of a level service budget. Level service budget is one in which there are no new funds being asked for. Level service budget does not mean that the school budget isn't going up. It means that the budget only increases enough to cover inflation and other mandated obligations so that we're able to provide the same programs and services that we did in the previous year. And if you think about it, right, the cost of materials goes up a little bit every year because of inflation, the cost of the benefits that we provide to staff that were contractually obligated to provide to the staff increase every year, like health insurance, you know, went up 10%. And then the staff contracts themselves with the teachers and with the support staff with the bus drivers, the contracts themselves through negotiations actually spell out the increases that we give them in terms of their pay from year to year. And so those are the things that will cause a level service budget to increase. They're mandated, they're mandatory, they're not within our control. We are not adding anything new to the budget above and beyond those mandatory items. We can talk about those a little bit, right? In moving from this current school year to the next school year, there is a $523,000 increase. And those are those mandatory budget items, right? We don't have a choice in them. They must be added to the district budget to maintain our current level of services. If you look at the arrows, right, there are three things that are adding up to 98% of that $523,000. That's the estimate we had to put in for where negotiations are gonna land with the teachers in terms of their salaries for next year. That includes a 10% increase to health insurance. And there are other benefits that the staff get like dental insurance and long-term disability insurance. And those go up a little bit from year to year as well. So 98% of that $523,000 is mandatory, contractual obligations, we've got to do it. And then about 2% of what's there is due to inflation, right? Inflation causes the cost of the supplies and the services that we get to go up a little bit every year. So even though we're not adding anything new, right? The cost increases from year to year. We've all experienced that in our own personal lives. That happens with schools too. Now, comparing current year, right, 2020-21, that's the budget that folks voted in last year that we're currently living under. And comparing it to 2021-22, what you'll see highlighted in yellow is what the district is asking for from taxpayers through the Education Fund. This current year, we asked for 19.7 million from the taxpayers that folks voted in. And then next year, you can actually see that it's gone down a little bit. Next year, it's 19.4 million, which is a reduction of 1.54% that we're asking from the taxpayers, 1.54 to 1.56. Now, we created this reduction by using surplus money. So at the end of most school years, we have money that is unspent at the end of the fiscal year. And so we have some designs, which I'm gonna explain a little bit about what we're gonna do with that surplus money to help reduce the burden on taxpayers. So one of the questions that we've gotta ask in terms of the surplus money that's gonna help us out for a couple of years is where did it come from? And why we're needing to use it at this time. A year ago, when COVID closed down the district, we realized really quickly the negative impact that pandemic would have on the state's ability to generate tax revenues, right? And those tax revenues, right? If they go down, it reduces the amount of money flowing into the education fund, which means there's less money in the fund to support education. So the money's gotta come from elsewhere. So one of the ways of thinking about it is if you think about a school budget as a fixed cost, and you think of the education fund as the checking account that choose to pay for that cost, if the money flowing into the checking account decreases, right? Because of COVID, and there isn't enough to pay the bill, the state's gotta scramble around and find more money elsewhere to make up that difference. And in this scenario, the local taxpayers here are that elsewhere, we're the ones that will be expected to make up that difference. So recognizing that there was probably gonna be an increased burden on local taxpayers due to the decrease in tax revenues flowing into that ed fund, what we did is we pulled out all stops to create the biggest surplus that we could at the end of the last year so that it could be used to subsidize budgets in the coming years. Reminder, surplus money is money that is left unspent at the end of the budget year. So at the end of last year, we did a couple of things to try to maximize what that surplus was gonna be. We froze spending in March, right? Remember, in mid-March, the schools moved to remote session. And so any spending that was unnecessary because of that move, we froze. That way we didn't spend the money, we had it available at the end of the year. We had also budgeted for a number of programs, primarily athletics, that due to COVID, they just couldn't run. So we had budgeted for them, they didn't run. So that money was available to go into the surplus. And then I give my business management team a tremendous amount of credit because we really went hard after all the federal money we could get our hands on in terms of reimbursements and whatnot to try to max out this year-end surplus. And what we ended up with is over $1.6 million in unspent money at the end of last year that we can now use to subsidize school budgets, which means reducing the burden that our local taxpayers have. And we have enough there to do it for three years while the state's economy recovers. So it was a lot of good work on behalf of the staff, the teachers here as well as the business office really pulling out all stops to make this happen. And the big thing that we are doing with that $1.6 million is we wanna be able to use it over three years. And so what we've done already, because the law allows us to do this, is we've already taken half of that $1.6 million, right? You see it down there in the green 826,342 bucks. We've taken half of that $1.6 million and we've already applied it towards next year's budget. And so if you look at the two boxes, what it's showing you is that without using that surplus money, we would have to ask for $20.2 million from the taxpayers. Being able to use this part of the surplus money next year reduces what we're asking for from the taxpayers from $20.2 million down to $19.4 million. So it's a significant decrease. It's actually less than we asked from the taxpayers last year. Kind of look into the future. When we were setting up this plan and building up this surplus, the discussions at the time were, it's probably gonna take a couple of years for the state's economy to recover and for tax revenues that they generate to return to normal. And so we really kind of built this plan around subsidizing the school budgets for the next three years. So during this time, the district's gonna seek to reduce those tax burdens by using this giant surplus we were able to create to make sure that we're reducing the burden on taxpayers. Because we recognize that you guys really stepped to the plate for us in the previous couple of years to allow us to build the structures that we needed to advance learning. So what this kind of looks at, looks like is this is right. In this first year here, we've already applied half of the surplus money to next year's budget. We can automatically do that. So we've done it. The goal is to take the remaining half of that surplus money and split it equally to help subsidize the 2022, 23, and 2023, 24 school budgets, right? Again, we're all set for next year, but we are unable to use the remaining surplus money in the following two years without the voter's help. I'll talk a little bit about what that looks like. What needs to happen is we really need the voters to help us by approving a place for us to put the second half of the surplus money to hold it until the budget years in which it will be used, right? So next year we can automatically apply it to the budget. State law allows us to do this. Then we'll have a little over 800,000 that are left over that we want to apply to the two following years. To do this, we need a place to actually put that money so that it can sit there until we need to use it. So as part of this year's school ballot, you will be asked to vote for the creation of an operational reserve fund for this purpose because without that, we've got no place to put that money so that we can use it when those years come up. For this to work, there is really only one article on the school ballot that deals with the budget. It's article 10. And if you vote yes on this article, it does three things for us. The first thing that it does is it allows us to expend $21.1 million on education on educating our students here in the district. And it's important to recognize that we're not asking for $21.1 million from the taxpayers. We have to state what we are going to expend on the students. And we're asking for $19.4 million from the taxpayers. The remaining amount that gets us up to that $21.1 million actually comes from federal grants in the surplus money we're planning on using, right? So we have to ask the taxpayers to expend the total amount of money that we're gonna spend. But not all that money is coming from the taxpayers. Some is coming from federal grants and some of it is coming from the surplus. The second thing voting yes on article 10 will do is it creates that operational reserve fund that we talked about so that we have the place to hold the surplus money in so that we can use it in 2022, 23, and 2023, 24. And then the last thing that it does is it puts the remaining surplus money into the reserve fund. Now, just so folks understand, once that money goes into that operational reserve fund because you have voted on its purpose there, we cannot use it for anything else. I do not have direct access to it. The district does not have direct access to it. The school board, at the time that we wanna use it to surplus the budget for those two years, I have to go to the school board in writing, tell them what we're gonna use the money for and how much we want. And then the school board has to review it and vote it in. So there are lots of controls in place over what this money can be used for. So I'm gonna stop here for a moment. I don't think we probably have any, but if there are any questions out there that folks wanna ask, please turn off your mic and ask them. I can't physically see you while I'm presenting, but I can hear you. All right, so the next part of this presentation relates to the impact that changes in the common level of appraisal from one year to the next has on your tax rates. We talked a little bit about this at the very beginning. I said I was doing some pre-teaching here about the fact that school taxes come from fair market value. CLA changes, common level of appraisal changes can cause dramatic swings in your tax rates from year to year, but don't really change what you physically pay in taxes by very much. So it's real important to understand this as folks can see a dramatic change in your tax rates, but that doesn't mean that the tax bill that you have to pay is gonna change a lot. Typically, if your tax bill is changing on the school side of things, it's because we've changed something in the school budget that's having an impact, or we still have a lot of students in terms of enrollment, which hasn't been the case in recent years. So I'm gonna give you the overall piece here, and then I'm gonna go into detail for those that may be a little bit more interested in the mechanics behind those CLA changes, but in terms of your tax rates for next year, right, again, it's important to realize that school taxes are based on fair market value of properties and not the town's assessment used in the grand list. If fair market values fall from this year to next year, tax rates will increase, and this is the situation across the three towns. So if you look at Braintree at the very end, right, last year, your fair market assessed value was 109.44%, which means that the houses in general were selling for 9.44% over what the town assessed those houses to sell for. And you can see that that fair market value has dropped, right? Last year, you were 9% above, this year, you're down at 1.13% above. And whenever you get a decrease like that, what that means is that your tax rates are gonna go up, but the value of your home has gone down. So what's really happening is that you're paying more in taxes on the value of your home, but your home has less value. So the end result is that, you know, regardless of these fluctuations, in terms of the CLA changes, what you pay is about the same. Your tax rates will change. You will pay more this year because of changes to the school budget. How much more will you pay? Well, I showed you at the very beginning, you're gonna pay 1.5 cents more for $100 of assessed value of your homes, fair market value, which adds up to about $41 on the annual tax bill for the average priced home of $275,000. So in Braintree, your tax rate, 90, 11.5 cents of it is due to CLA changes. You're gonna be paying 13 cents more for $100 of assessed value of your property.  So again, you're paying more on your property, on the value of your property, but because the value of the property has gone down, it balances out. In Brookfield, you'll be paying three cents more because they didn't have as big a shift in their fair market values between last year and this year. So 1.5 cents of that, you're gonna be paying more in your tax bills, right, about 41 bucks for the average priced home. The other part is due to these market fluctuations, fair market fluctuations. In terms of Randolph, in terms of your tax rate, you'll be paying 0.4. So four cents more per $100 of assessed value. But that's because the fair market values of your homes have gone down moderately when the state did its equalization survey. So again, what people can expect on the average cost, average cost home of $275,000 is about a $41 increase in the actual tax bill that you pay. So in terms of school tax rates, we can go into a little bit more detail here besides the noji way that I just described things. When you pay your property taxes, you're actually paying a small amount in taxes to the town, right, there's town taxes. And in terms of the town, they calculate things differently than the school taxes. The much larger amount in taxes that you pay are taxes to support the schools through the education fund. And this discussion is not about town taxes. This discussion is about the school portion of those taxes. So if we're spending more on the schools, it should make sense that what you pay in your school taxes increases as well, the actual check that you write out at the end of the year. Changes to your tax rates that are due to an increase in the school budget will definitely increase how much you physically pay in school property taxes. What's interesting is that the part of your tax rate that changes due to the fluctuations in the common level of appraisal typically do not change what you physically pay. And then we're gonna look at a specific example here. And the example that we're gonna look at is a grain tree. And these use actual common levels of appraisal and tax rates for grain trees. So there are actual numbers in here. So these formulas, it's important to recognize that I'm simplifying them. The formulas actually use the town's grand list amounts. But for simplification, it's easier to pretend that the grand list amount is the cost of the average home in Vermont of $275,000. So the town has assessed your home's value to be $275,000. And that's used for your town to determine your town's taxes. The state on the other hand does a study each year called this equalization study to determine the fair market value of your home based on what homes in your area have been selling for. This current year, 2020 slash 21, which is in the Navy blue there, the state has said that the fair market value of your home is actually 9.44% greater than the town's assessment. And so the state for school property taxes purposes is gonna tax you on that value. So right, if your town's assessed you at 275,000 and you increase that by 9.44%, the fair market value of your home is $300,960. So the town last year, when it was doing this that set the tax rate for $100 of the value of your home at $1.47. That means that for every $100 of value of your home, you're paying $1.47 in taxes.  This year, something happened. You can see that the common level of appraisal has gone down, right? It was 109 last year, it's gone down to 101. What does that mean? It means that the fair market values of your homes have dropped by about 8%. And so what the state did in response to that is they actually increased the tax rate on your home, or will increase the tax rate on your home because this is for next year. So based upon this assessment, right, fair market value for your home is actually 278,108 dollars at a tax rate of $1.61 for $100 of value. Your tax bill will be $4,471 or in that ballpark this coming year, right? So basically you're gonna pay $41 more this year and that number should sound familiar, right? So again, you see this whopping change in the tax rate and brain tree by 13.5 cents for $100 of value, but in reality, the only thing that's really impacting your actual tax bill, what you pay is the impact that the school district budget had on things. And that impact is about 1.5 cents for $100 of assessed value. So we go back to where we started here is this idea that while the change is in the common level of appraisal can cause your tax rates to fluctuate wildly, they really don't change the amount you have to write out for your check when you pay your school property taxes. Only increases in your tax rates that are directly due to changes in the school budget are gonna change how much you physically have to pay. Based on the current property yield being voted on by the legislature, your effective tax rate that it's effective tax rate is that which changes what you pay will increase by about 1.5 cents for $100 of assessed property value. And on the average home, you're gonna see an increase of about 41 bucks. Just to show a little bit more in terms of where we stand, right? Total budget, total expenditures that we're looking to expend on student learning next year is 21.1 million. Remember, we're only asking for 19.4 million from the local taxpayers. The rest of that money is grant money and money from the surplus. This is assuming a property yield for those that are really into the tax game of 10,998 dollars. And that is what is currently working its way through the legislature right now. When we did these presentations a little bit earlier in the year, the state was worried and reasonably so that given COVID, they weren't gonna have as much in the education fund. And so the initial property yield that they had us used was like 10,763. And so this is a real good improvement in terms of benefiting all the districts across the state that the property yield is that. We are gonna use 826,342 dollars in surplus to offset the budget. That means that what we're asking from the taxpayers is actually a decrease of 1.56% from last year. One of the things to be aware of is that we always wanna keep below what they call the spending threshold. The state this year does not wanna see districts spending more than 18,789 dollars per student. If a district spends more than that, there are severe penalties that a district will incur in terms of taxes for exceeding that threshold. And so what we're looking at right now is based upon the numbers that we have, we're paying 17,085 per student for next year. That's what our budget is calling for, which is actually a reduction from last year. Last year we actually paid $109 more per student than we will next year. So we've got a pretty good buffer there that's in place. These pieces are kind of not as important, but I'll throw them out there because we talked about them in earlier meetings in case people are interested. Raven, that budget has already been approved. Raven is a in-house program that we run that serves our students that are in need as well as students from other districts. And there is a tuition to attend that program, which will be $26,693 next year, which is significantly less than if these students were sent out to other programs, probably at least 30 to $60,000 less. The tuition rates at RTCC have gone down for next year by about $100. If a person from outside the district who does not have an elementary school in their district chooses one of our elementaries for school choice, the district will pay $14,866 to send that student here for the high school for next year. If, again, if we have students coming in through school choice, the cost of the tuition to the district that is sending the student here will be $18,630. And that is about it, unless there are questions out there. And since it's just Orca Media and two of my board members who've heard this presentation before, I don't believe there's probably questions.  It's more fun to have some interactions and some questions, but hopefully, if this plays on Orca Media, people are gonna see it. And if it generates any questions, shoot me an email. Tomorrow I will be sending out the line item detail of the budget so that everybody can have it, as well as I'll send out again our annual report for people to look over. And so I think that that'll be useful information. And again, the vote is on March 2nd. We really are hoping that folks can come out and vote for this budget because we've done our homework in trying to reduce taxes for folks. But being able to use that surplus money to lower taxes for three years in a row does require that vote so that we can create that operational reserve fund to put the money in and hold it for the success of two years after next year. So that's gonna be really important. And again, the other thing I want folks to remember is that we have to state in the ballot how much we will be expending on students next year, but what we are expending on students comes from multiple places. 19.4 million is coming from the taxpayers. The remaining amount is coming primarily from the federal grants that we received. So that doesn't affect local taxpayers. And the surplus, which already affected local taxpayers, but last year, to help subsidize things. So with that, I'm gonna sign off and I appreciate it. And again, folks that are watching on Orca Media, if there's questions, shoot me an email. I'll answer what I can. And if it's something that's deeper into the budget that I can't answer, I'll make sure that Robin Pembroke, our business manager, gets ahold of you and can talk you through it. So thank you very much. Take care. Thank you, Lynn.


Hello my artistic friends. This is Susan Jenkins here in Monet Cafe, my little home studio, where I bring you art lessons and tutorials and just creative things that might make you happy. And I'm really happy today because I did an experiment that was a success and I thought it might help some other people. I'm constantly trying to find creative ways and other different things that I can do in creating my paintings. And often I'm trying to do things on a budget, like a lot of people are. I was just having a conversation to a comment of one of my videos about just that, how sometimes we need to come up with some ways to save because these art supplies can get expensive. And one of the things that we can do is to find other ways to use the papers if you're doing pastel paintings because pastel papers can get pricey. But watercolor paper is a lot less expensive, especially just kind of some basic watercolor paper. And so I did have a question on my channel about can you use watercolor paper for pastel paintings? Well, here's proof right here. This was my experiment. Oops, sorry for the shadow. And this is a piece of watercolor paper. And I'm going to kind of go into more detail what I did, but I'll give you a quick little idea first. First of all, all I did was I did a watercolor underpainting. Again, I'll do an example of this. Just on a regular piece of watercolor paper. And I typically, you may have seen from my other videos, like to do watercolor underpaintings on pastel paper, the correct type that can take water, such as UART paper. But this is really handy because this is a lot less expensive than UART paper. So what I did is the underpainting first, I let it dry, and then I applied this product called Clear Gesso. Now the neat thing about Clear Gesso is that it has a little bit of a grit to it, which is what you need for pastel painting. So I was laying in bed one night, it was getting close to the early morning hours, and I don't know why this popped into my head about trying to apply Clear Gesso, perhaps, to watercolor paper. I may have seen it in another video and just not remembered it, for some reason I woke up that morning and I said, I've got to try this. And so I did, and it worked. So after I applied the Clear Gesso, you get a rough enough surface to go ahead and apply pastel on top. So that's what I'm going to be doing today, is just giving you guys a little tutorial of how I do it. It's not very hard. And I'm gonna pick a reference photo here. In my last video I talked about using Paint My Photo for finding reference materials. And these are just some of the ones that I saved. I thought it would be fun to do some little bees and flowers, kind of like in this one, I added a couple little buzzing bees around. So that's a nice photo there. It's either between that or the daisies. All right, so I've got some choices to make. Let me decide and then we're gonna get ready to experiment and do something fun. All right, let's go. All right, so I'm gonna get started now and I decided on the cute little Bumblebee painting with the daisies. Daisy's just make me happy. And I'm really happy today because it happens to be my birthday. And of all the things I would like to do on my birthday, sharing art with my friends. And I truly feel like you guys are my friends, even though I don't know any of you personally, I get to feel like I'm actually with you when I'm creating and it's pretty awesome. And so it's a great day. It's my birthday. It's raining right now here in the Tampa, Florida area. And it sounds so wonderful. It's one of my favorite times to create. It's just so cozy. I thought I would share real quickly too. I had someone ask about, even with my pastel work, why I don't have like a border.  You peel it off and it looks really nice. It is a neat thing. And I do that sometimes still. But I came up or actually saw someone else do it with a way that's pretty handy where you just, actually I usually put this to the back of the paper, first two pieces of tape, put it up here and then I put a strip across of it. But I already had a strip here. So I'm just going to go ahead and stick this one down. And it's watercolor paper. It's going to warp a little bit, but I'm not going to worry about that for this one. Okay, so I've got my watercolor paper up here and we're going to get started on the bumblebee. And sometimes I will work with a sketch and sometimes I won't. For this particular one, I am going to do a quick sketch. Sorry for that little bit of a shadow behind my hand. I may add a light to fix that. But I want to get some things in here pretty good. So I am going to go ahead and do a sketch, but I'm still going to keep it loose. You know this is called Monet Cafe for a reason. We don't want to get too fussy and we don't want to get worried and bogged down with too many details. Life should be free and spontaneous. Okay, so I'm going to fix the shadow a little bit and come back to sketching. Okay, I have enough in here to get going. I decided against the bee. It's actually not a bumblebee. It's a honeybee that happens to be on this flower. I love honeybees. I love all bees. But I didn't want to get that fussy this early. So I think what I'm going to do is focus on this and then throw in some bees at the end, kind of like I did with these little guys here. Just something, some suggestive bees, maybe further away. I didn't want that to distract from these flowers. So that's the neat thing about being an artist is you have that creative license to do that. Okay, so what I'm going to do here, I had another person ask a question, how do I decide on a color palette? And sometimes it's just kind of my mood. But often I alter a photo based on just some good rules of art. Like for example, the things in the background of this photo, the particular photograph are actually very green. The whole thing's really green. Kind of like the last painting demo that I, the reference photo I was using. And so I happened to think that in the back some cooler colors and maybe some purples would look good far away. And then maybe more of the richer, more yellowy greens up front. So that's kind of how I approach it right now. And then I kind of just get kind of inspiration as I go. I'm not getting fussy with going around, super specifically around these flowers. Right now I'm just working on this background. I've got some of the flowers I may leave. Well my brush is dirty, I didn't even realize that. But some of them I may kind of just let the water go over and let some paint cover them. Now the neat thing about watercolor is it's almost like creating a channel for your paint to follow. I used to when I was first starting in watercolors. Watercolor is not my most experienced medium, but I love it. And so I'm always playing around with it. But when I was first starting, I got real fussy with it. And it took me a long time to realize how to let the water work for you and create the beautiful, just, oh, spontaneity is a good word to hear again, but just the life that's in it. It's just so wonderful. Okay, so I'm just getting in some water. And again, this is going to act as a channel for my colors to flow. And it's okay if this background color has a wash that kind of goes all the way down because I'm gonna add my darker colors down at the bottom. And also, colors always lighten with watercolor. You put them on, you think, man, that's a nice rich color. And then give it just a few minutes, it'll dry, and it's a lot lighter than you put it on. So it's very forgiving in that respect, but it's not very forgiving with the respect of keeping your lights. If you cover up something really dark, you can't get it back unless you put down some sort of other medium. So I don't like that about watercolor. Now I've been really loving this phthalo blue color that's right here. It's just such a beautiful color. And I mix that with a magenta and sometimes can get a pretty nice purple. So let me work on that right now. I really like that color. Now I have the underpainting watercolor done. I wanted to mention another little trick I learned is that I had spoken about the watercolor paper buckling. And sure enough, it did because I don't have it taped around the edges or anything.  If it buckles, you take it and you wet it on the back as well. So I lifted it up. You can do it before the fact or after you've already painted your watercolor on here. I did it after and I just did an application of water on the back of this covering the whole back. And sure enough, it kind of straightened itself out. It's kind of neat. Another thing I wanted to talk about here before I put down the Gesso product is just a little bit more about underpaintings. I've got quite a few videos where I've done an underpainting and I wanted to describe a little bit of the different ways that you can do it. One is you can just do an underpainting with just solid color. I could take this. I don't like working on just white paper to begin with. So if I don't feel like doing a detailed or somewhat detailed underpainting, I can just tone the paper like a beautiful magenta or gold or whatever. Then there's another type you can do where you do actually do some of the scene. You kind of paint it out, but you can use a difference between local color or complimentary color. Local color just means you're using colors that are kind of natural to the scene anyway. That's pretty much what this one is here. I have a little bit of complimentary color going on with the purples and stuff, but complimentary color is where you lay down like the opposite on the color wheel, your complimentary color down so that when you put your pastel on top, it really makes it stand out more. For example, I've done the heads of these flowers in local color because the color of the Daisy heads are more orangey yellowy. However, I've done the background a little bit of a complimentary color because it shows in the image of them being green, but I like purples. I like purples for shadows and I like these lighter values in the back because this is far away. It's actually a little bit more of the field, but you can leave it so impressionistic that you're not sure is it field, is it sky? So anyway, a little bit more about how I do the underpainting. Okay, now I'm going to just simply apply the liquid gesso, the clear gesso in contrast to regular gesso is white. You'll see when I put this on here, this is clear now. I shake it up before I get started. Okay, and I think last time I did this, I did it on a brush, but on this case I'm gonna do it on a foam brush just so it's consistent and I'm just going to apply this stuff. And it is probably going to blend the watercolor a little bit. Ooh, I just spilled a lot of it down there. Thank goodness I keep that paper down. Okay, so, but it doesn't matter if it blends your watercolor. It almost adds to that impressionistic feel. It's kind of neat actually. Put down a big dollop of it there. Yeah, that's kind of nice, I like that. It's dreamy, so dreamy. And again, this is just so awesome that you're basically making your own pastel paper here. And I'm putting down enough because I wanna get that grit so that I can apply the pastels to it. Pastels have got to have that gritty surface. I feel like I didn't get enough up here. It just doesn't look thick enough. Okay, so let me look around at that and see if I got a good application. I think I did. Again, the paper's gonna buckle a little bit. And now I'm just going to take my blow dryer again and blow it dry. I'm gonna rinse this out though because I like to reuse these again, of course. So then once I get all this dry, I will get started on the actual pastel. My little dog Jackson sometimes gets curious about what I'm doing. What do you think of that painting, huh? Now I have the Gesso All Dry on here and I'm gonna be quiet and see if you can hear that it does have a sanded surface. Can you hear that? And underneath my fingers, it feels like sand. So it's actually, it really makes for a nice pastel surface with the other one that I did. I really was very happy about that. Oh, typically I put down something to catch my pastels down here. I don't have it, so let me just put down a paper towel so I don't make a total mess. Pastels, that's one thing. They do get a little dusty, but I don't mind. All right, so now we're ready to go to lay some pastels down. Now what I'm gonna do here, I've already got, like I said, the nice kind of complementary color going down under the grasses. But with watercolor, we know we preserve the light and you tend to work lighter to darker. With pastels, it's the opposite. We can work darker to lighter. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get down some good darks in here. I still wanna get down, still a little bit more of this complementary color for some darks. And I know that behind my day, I'm squinting my eyes. It's a good tip to squint your eyes to see where are your darkest values. I'm just using kind of like, got a little pastel that's gotten really flat. Oh my goodness, I can't believe I forgot. I have got to go get my birthday present. I sound like, what was it, Gollum? My precious, my birthday present. I got a set of Terry Ludwig pastels for my birthday. And I haven't even used them yet. So I've got to go break them out. Let me get the rest of this purple going on down here. And then I'll go get them. Man, I totally forgot about that. I am so glad I just thought of that. Now these are the Terry Ludwig set that is the Plin Air set. And I hope I'm saying that right. These French words just mess up a Southern girl like me. But it's P-L-E-I-N air. And it's a word, it's a French word I think that just means painting on location. So it just describes when artists go outdoors and paint not from a photograph, but what they really see. And this set happens to be great for that because it has such a nice variety of colors for your color palette. There's a lot of other different sets you can buy. You can buy one that's more Southwestern, more that's just for portraits. But being that I love landscapes so much, this one suited my needs a lot. So anyway, I love these pastels because they're soft and buttery and beautiful. And so I'm so glad I remembered because I wanna add some of those or maybe just use exclusively this set for this pastel work. All right, here we go. Okay, as you can see, I've been painting along and I really have been able to get down a lot of layers. Typically with pastel paper, even the good pastel paper, you get to a point where you can tell your colors aren't laying down. They start to get kind of muddy. I'm starting to get to that point now, but as you can see, this product did a pretty good job on just watercolor paper. So again, this was a great experiment to help maybe others and myself in getting a way to paint and not have it cost so much. I feel like I need some red down in there. And I've got, I followed this reference photo but I could tell as I've been painting, I have been looking at Karen Margolis's paintings a lot. I really love her style and I don't mean to totally emulate it, but I do love it. It makes me feel good if I even get close to her work. But I do feel like I want to add the original reference photo had a bumblebee right here and it was big. And I feel like I just wanna add a little one back in the back somewhere. And again, I saw how Karen Margolis did on one of her tutorial videos and it was really kind of a neat technique that I used on my other little bumblebees that I did here. Let me pull it up here. Just these little bumblebees. You know, you can get too much to where it just looks kind of fake and not impressionistic or too realistic. And these, they're just a hint. Our minds, our imagination can do a whole lot with a little bit of information if you put other things around that make it believable. So that's what I'm gonna attempt to do right here is to do this bumblebee. And I'll tell you what she said. I feel like it should be right in here and it's gonna have to be really teeny. If it's back here, if I did one up here, it would be bigger. But basically it's three black dots and I'm also working around my camera here. I've got it kind of right in front of my face. It's hard to see. So again, this is kind of, I have to be teeny. This is an incredibly dark green pastel but it will read as black when I put it on here. So let's see here. One, two, I can't even see it. Gotta get around here. Can't see where my pastel is. Two and three. I don't think I got it quite in the right spot. But maybe. And then after you do that, my three dots didn't come out that great. Then you get just kind of a golden color. This one might be a little too golden. Maybe I can use, yeah, this one that I did earlier. And you do it kind of like on the body here. Kind of on the, is that called the thorax? And then you can do a really bright kind of a yellow on the back like the sun's reflecting it. And now these are chunky pastels and they're hard to get specific. But I need a little bit more of that black down here. Let me see if I can get it. You kind of, when something's small like this, you learn to feel your way with your pastel more than seeing it. Okay, so that kind of looks like an indication of a little bee. And then you take just a pastel that is lighter in color. I'm losing my corners on this one here. And you just give it a little wing kind of like behind it. Oops, that's too high. Something like that. And that just gives a little indication of a bee. If you wanna get a little bit more of a darker, kind of an orangey color underneath it, it might like right in there, it might help with that illusion. But I might add a, let me do another couple over here. Let me do like one over here. One, I don't want it on the same level. That's not a good idea. So maybe like, well, maybe even up in here, he's gonna be really teeny. Let's do a head, a body, and well, a middle part and a body. Well, he's even bigger. That's probably not good. All right, let me get the little orange on him. Kind of cover that up. Okay, and then the bright yellow. Probably even find a brighter yellow than this, but okay, let me find a corner. These Terry Ludwigs, they're so soft. Sometimes it's hard to find a spot to even work with. Okay, there we go. And now another little bright spot like for a wing. This one's a little whiter. See if I can do it. And all you're doing is kind of coming off the body part. Just like that. You can kind of do another one too. So there we get the indication of a couple of little bees there. I might fine tune it a little bit, but you get the idea. And if I wanted to get even more layers down, I could spray workable fixative. And I'm gonna grab that product real quick and show you one that I just bought. All right, this is called Blair low odor, very low odor. A lot of times fixatives, they just smell so chemically. Is that a word? Like a chemical. And what you do, this is the matte finish. So it's not gonna have a gloss to it. Is a lot of people use this to spray at the end of their painting. I don't do that because it darkens your painting. But during the working process, like if I wanted to get a few more layers down in here, I could hold it about six to eight inches away from it and spray a light spray on it, moving your hand around. And it's going to darken it, but you get enough layers to put down and it, you know what, maybe I'll just try it right here in one area. Let's just experiment some more. But this is the first time I'm using this particular kind, again, this is a recommendation from Karen Margolis. I don't wanna spray it right here on my pastels. But I haven't used this can yet. So, whoops, it's sprayed on my iPad. Ha, ha, ha. Okay, actually not six to eight, maybe even a little further. You see how that's darkening that up? But that would allow me to get some more. And sometimes I kinda like it when it darkens it in areas like that. I kinda wanna keep this back part a little bit lighter. So, and it doesn't have as much of an odor as my other fixative. So that's really good. My other fixative has like a ball inside of it you shake and this one does not. So anyway, I'm gonna let this dry. I might, I think I will, it darkened it so much. I'm gonna add a little bit more color here. And I'm just gonna keep this loose and free. It kinda came out neat. And as always at the beginning of my videos, I usually share the final and then sometimes at the end.  I'm pretty much done with this. But I hope you had fun. This was a great birthday video for me. What I love doing and I love sharing with you guys. Oh, and I have a great announcement to make. I had the wonderful suggestion by someone on my channel, a comment that they made that said, why don't I start a Facebook page for Monet Cafe where others like all of you guys can share your artwork. I'll share the videos of course. And I would love it if you guys would share what you've created and we could kind of use it as a place to encourage one another of course. And I'm always careful with critiques but only if somebody asked, hey, could you tell me am I doing this right? You know, it would just be a wonderful resource than just me talking all the time. I'd get to hear a little bit from you guys. So I already have it created but there's a lot more I wanna do to it before I'm not even sure if I have it active yet. But that is something that's coming soon and I will be so excited to see some of y'all's work. There's my Southern accent coming in again. And that would just be awesome. So anyway guys, thanks so much for being here with me today and Monet Cafe. I truly feel like I am with my friends. So God bless and I will see you again soon.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with late sports cards ripping 22, Panini, Don Russ, football hobby, three box break, number 20, pick your team style. We've got read off the list of the names of the teams. Andrew F. Colts, Anthony P. with the Buccaneers, Augustus G. Washington. Bartonelle with the Cardinals, Damian V. Ravens, Daniel H. Saints, Jacob V. with the Bears, Jaime D. Niners, Jake R. Broncos, Lions, Vikings, and Seahawks. Joey F. Jets, John L. Panthers, Jonathan H. Eagles, Jose S. Rams, Joshua S. Browns, Justin B. Bills, Bangles, Jags, Keith B. with the Patriots, Landon G. Giants, Martin W. Raiders, Neil J. Falcons, Patrick L. Chargers, Ray G. Steelers, Russell P. with the Packers, Taylor B. Texans, Titans, Troy C. with the Cowboys, and Ty N. with the Chiefs and Dolphins. Good luck here, everybody. What's going on, man? Is a Donovan McNabb missing name plate. What's up, Chad? Bass and Zach Wilson Red. How you doing, buddy? Trayvon Walker, press proof of AJ Brown, Bruce Hall Rookie, Greg Dualstitch on the Red Press Proof. No complaints, dude. No complaints. Hope you're doing well as well. What's up, G.R.? Kenneth Walker. I'm here on King's Jim Kelly and I'm on Raw. St. Brown, that is four of 25. Nice one there on the Gold Press Proof for the Lions. Lions have done well overall in the breaks today. Especially in Donros. Sauce Gardner. Yeah, there's been some pretty big hits tonight, for sure. There's Rashad White, 21 of 49. Nice one there on the Portrait Auto for the Buccaneers. That's sick. Congrats, Bucks. Starting running back there probably for the foreseeable future, at least. CD-Lan. Wondale and Mike Simletair. Jaylen Ramsey and Vita Vaya. Yeah, I just, I don't know if Trask is going to necessarily be the long-term answer, though, if that's how you pick it, rookie. Like, they're still built to, like, win in Hutchinson. There's Malik Willis and Red Michael Carter. Like, they still have a good roster. It's just, I don't know how good their, what's it called, it's going to be. Um, how good the quarterback position is going to be. Johan Dotson. Oh, Hawaii. Yeah, real harsh, like, two terrible schools. There's Najee Harris, Jersey Kings. That's all we have. Oh, nice one there. 25 of 100, two-color patch. Technically, Gonzago is on the other one, but they're playing, like, St. Mary's. Yeah. Champions, Booter Baker. Oh, no, that's actually a good game. St. Mary's ranked 15, and Gonzaga's 12, yeah. Oh. That might be the move over Hawaii. Hawaii's not bad. James Cook. Cleo Mack, press-proof, 23 of 50. The Chargers. Yeah, that's actually not a terrible, uh, terrible game. I can't hate on the Rainbow Warriors, though. I do love Mason Hawaii. See? Damian Pierce. See the pre-game war chip. Breesaw. Yeah, that's kind of far. It's always nice having Hawaii, like, during college football, because, like, Hawaii's always on it, like, 2 a.m. Yeah. Tyrann Davis Price. There's Chris Olave, nice one there. So, like, we always have, like, during college football, like, whenever Hawaii is at home, there's always something to watch on Saturday night, which is good. True. Miles Sanders. I'm not writing, I'm not writing them off, by any means. There's Aiden Hutchinson. I like Trask. I do, I like Trask. I really do. We'll just have to see what happens. There's, uh, Martin Emerson for the Marounds to 49. Like, who's he gonna, like, still have what? Just, like, Mike Evans, pretty much? Godwin. Oh, yeah, Godwin. Imagine Julio's gonna go back. No. Julio didn't really make any of the difference, anyway. Well, I mean, he's healthy, he can, but he's just... Never healthy. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, they do need to, uh, spend on online. I know he's draft O-Line, too. I will say, I don't think it's a super deep O-Line class this year. There's Alec Pierce. Probably not. Bailey Zappi and Clinton Porch. There's, like, one or two guys that are, like, supposed to go, like, top 12. There's, like, one really good prospect from Northwestern, Peter Skoronsky, or whatever his name is. I think there's, like, one other guy, too. I need to go look at a mock draft. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Go do some studying.  There you go. Hell yeah, he cookies it this hour, absolutely. I'm probably gonna go do that one at home. Probably same. Ooh, Kenny Pickett on the RPA, 69 of 99. There you go, Ray with the Steelers. Congrats, buddy. Yeah, I think that's the other guy I'm thinking of, Bruce Lee. There is, it's like those two, and then it's kind of like a fall-off after that, though. It's like not a crazy fall-off, but I don't think anybody's like a super elite prospect. Drake London, outside of those two. Johnson and Skoronsky. You guys really need somebody there. Oh, no, absolutely. The rookies of Jameson Williams, Skymore and Threl Davis. Like, I think Skoronsky's, like, pretty much gonna go top five. I think it's like, and, I mean, obviously it's very dependent on who trades and for what. But, like, as it sits right now, elite series Aidan Hutchinson. Threl Anson, Marquis Brown. Like, an O-line, needy team will take Skoronsky in the top five. I think the real question is, how long do we, until we realize that Strauss is gonna be at bust? Really? I don't have faith. Like, Justin Fields is, is a side, like, I think he could actually do something like, you only know how to stay quarterback, I think. Yeah, David Montgomery. That is Jersey Kings, 144 out of 399 for the Bears. Alante Taylor, red. I agree with that. I just, I can't trust them. They don't have a great, yeah, they don't have a great track record, obviously. Malik Willis, the rookies. And Purple Tribon Moryg, 254. I'll take Kentucky's quarterback first. Leviss. I don't think that's a super hot take. I don't say that's drastic. I was just kind of. No, no, no, I don't think that, I think that's, I don't think that's crazy. Oh. I don't, I really don't. No, there's, there's moth drafts that have, Leviss going one. Really? Yeah, there's teams. Over young? Yeah. Oh yeah. There's moth drafts of teams trading up to take Leviss. I need to go watch Leviss highlights. There's Derek Stingley. Yeah, exactly. Between 20 and 40, there's like another three or four offensive tackles in that range. There's Drake London. And Chew Wuzia. Because I mean, don't get me wrong. Like it's that, that's not bad, but usually you have like 6-0 linemen going the first round. Who's that TC new receiver? Quinton Johnson. Yeah. He's good. Dominators, Josh Allen. Eagles should go get him. Resol and Dan Marino. We'll have like four. Four elite receivers on that team. Three. Yeah, three. I don't think Watkins is considered really good. No, no, no. Good. There's Tyree Kild missing name plate for the, um, thousands. John McGriner. Oh, they're very good. Oh, um, who's John Mechig? John Mechig. Is it Bijan? The Texas running pack? Yes. Kyle Hamilton. And a, I mean, it's Patrick to 50, 33 of 50 for these Steelers. I'd be cool if we let Sanders walk and then we go get him. John. Yeah. That's what we should do. Garrett Wilson. We might need to go get some defense I guess. Yeah. I've heard that, Rusley. I've heard people are like, it's, there's very mixed like feelings about Levis. Very mixed feelings on Levis. But I mean, I guess it's, we'll have to see, you know what I mean?  Stefan Diggs on the, ooh, the full name. Stefan Marshawn Diggs. That's cool. Thanks. Nice one there for the Bills and the throwback. You need to. Alonte Taylor. Red. I think Purdue's quarterback, McConnell, I think was his name like, he seems like. Very solid. Yeah. And he almost broke Breeze's record if he didn't break it. So. That's kind of wild. Traylon Burks. Danny Gray. I think it was. And James, Javante Williams. I think it was most 350 yard games in Purdue. That's impressive actually. I think Breeze had it at 12 and I think he at least tied it. Wow. That is impressive. Wait, maybe 12 seems like a lot. In his career. Oh yeah. I think it was career season. There's no way. I don't think. Pretty career, yeah. Trevor Lawrence. John Randall. Jersey number to 93. That is 84 of 93. Dude, there's going to be what? Five quarterbacks taken in the first round? Probably because there's young Stroud, Levis, Richardson. I think I'm missing one. Who am I missing? I think there's five quarterbacks projected to go in the first. Who's the other one? Who am I missing? I think there's one more that's projected to go. What Tennessee's? He's like, the late round guy. Yeah, he's older, too. That's his issue. I think he's fifth year. Wow. Yeah, no, Richardson. Yeah, Richardson, young Stroud, Levis. Those four. I know those four are like locks to go in the first. And then I think I feel like there's one other one that I'm missing. There's a Nick Bosa. That is 15 of 25 on the 92 throwback. Nice one there. Congrats on that. Niners. Very cool. Baby Bear Bosa. Canine. David Long and Dawson Knox. I could be wrong. I don't know. I know that those four are the big ones. It's kind of nice because we're solidified for a couple years of really good quarterbacks coming out. Ryan Robinson, because we have next year is going to be Caleb Williams and Quinn Ewers. Potentially Ewers, definitely Williams. And then the year after, it's like it's two or three really good guys, so. We'll see. At least hype-wise, I mean. Bo Melton. Red-rated rookie. Jake Matthews. Got Mark Andrews for the Ravens. Nice one there. Two, 349. That's 99 of 349. Drake London, the rookies. Jermaine Johnson and Jermaine Johnson. 44 out of 75 for the Jets on the die cut press proof. Nice one there. Congrats on New York. Travis Kelsey. Filler card. Derek Henry Dominators. And Mark Dupre. Travis Etienne. Malika Willis, the rookies. Mac Carrell. And Bo Melton. Red press proof again for the Seahawks. Nice one there. Drake May. He's UNC, right? Talk of the town. He's Luke May's brother, right? Luke May used to play basketball there. Because he sounds familiar. Loviska Schnolt on the missing name plate for the Jaguars. Brian Burns. Christian Watson. Pickins. There's Deontay Johnson. Black press proof. Two of ten. Nice one there.  Five million dollar UNC, or five million dollar NiL deal. Garrett Wilson. George Kittle. Caleb Williams out of 25. Nice. That's awesome. Rashad White. Bo Jackson on the full name. Vincent Edward Jackson. Cool one there for the Raiders. That's awesome. Jonathan Allen. Couple packs to go here, everybody. Isaiah Spiller rookie. Wes Welker, Michael Pittman. Fans of the game, Kevin Durant. Red, Skye Moore press proof. Color match for the Chiefs. Bailey Zappi rookie. And Christian Harris press proof. 55 out of 100 for the Texans. Do a quick recap here, everybody. Pretty fun break overall, I would say. Pretty solid. We had jerseys where Mark Andrews for the Ravens. David Montgomery for the Bears. Najee Harris Steelers. Nick Bosa for the Niners. Rashad White to 49 for the Bucks. And a Kenny Pickett. 69 of 99 for the Steelers. That'll do it for the break, guys. Thanks again for the fill. Next up, we got Prism first off the line.


And now for the spaniard that blighted my life, Jack Benny. Oh, Jack. Jack. Oh, Jack.  He's taking a taxi right over. Oh, then I better tell Bessar to play another number. Well, why don't you tell a few jokes, Don? Oh, I don't know any, Mary. Why don't you tell one? Well, the only one I know is the one about the goat without a nose. And you know how that smells. Well, I'll tell you what, let's tune in on a few taxi cabins and see if we can find Jack. That's a good idea. Taxi, mister? Yes, quick. I'm late. Sure thing. You know, this is a radio cab. I not only take you where you want to go, but I give you entertainment besides. Yeah, that's nice, but hurry up. Yeah, where you're going and what program do you want to hear? Sixth Avenue and 49th Street and the rise of the Goldbergs. Okay, chief. Hey, what kind of a cab is this, anyway? Fifteen and five. Fifteen for the ride and five for the Goldbergs. I can see you weren't always a taxi driver. No, I used to be a master of ceremonies. Did you ever hear the one about the peacocks? No. It's a wonderful tale. It always was. And don't pull any of those jokes.  Oh, yeah? Well, why ain't you driving a cab? Hey, driver, just watch that road ahead of you, will you? Hey, don't worry about me. I've hit over a hundred pedestrians in a race. One mark in this cab. Oh, that's good. Come on, step on it. I'm late now. Hey, hey, what's the big idea? And that streetcar won't get over. No, it won't, eh? Well, you'll have the same trouble with the Empire State Building. Take it easy. Well, can you imagine that? I can't beat that red light. Isn't that too bad? Hey, bud, you've only gone three blocks and the meter read 60 cents. What's the idea? Well, you see, you're the first customer today and the meter's jumping for joy. That's good. Some fun. Go ahead. There's the whistle. That duck got it. She stalled again and I can't stand it. Can you imagine that? Yeah, in fact, I had a bet on it. And say, when you're as old as this cab, you'll stall once in a while, too. Oh, there she is. Hey, you'd better step on it, buddy, or my program will be over before I get there. All right, kid, I'll have you there in a minute. Uh-oh, the cop. I'll never get to the studio now. Fine mess. A rough-looking guy, too. Here he comes. Hey! Where do you think you're going? Hey, you'll have to talk to this guy in the cab, officer. He's in a hurry, not me. Uh, anything wrong, officer? Do you know you were going 60 miles an hour? No. Yes. And don't you know that the speed limit is 25? No. Yes. You realize that I'm Jack Benny, the radio comedian? No! Well, you just love our new courthouse. Here, take this. What's that? It's your ticket. No! Yes! Oh, but seriously, officer, I'm in a hurry. You know, I have to broadcast tonight. Now, wait a minute. As man to man, didn't you see that red light up there? No. Didn't you hear me blow a whistle? No. Didn't you see me at all? No, a thousand times now. Oh, well, then I'm just a failure. Yeah. Yeah, you ought to be in pictures. Goodbye, officer. Goodbye. You better speed up now, boy. I gotta get to the studio. Okay, Chief. Say, were we going 60? It didn't seem like 60 to me. Well, I got those general blow-up proof tires, aren't you, Chief? They ride like cushions. Yeah, it won't help you. Ten cents is all I ever tip. Here we are. This is it. How much? Three dollars and ten cents. Yeah, here's seventy cents. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, I hope I'm not too late. Hello, hello, fellas. Everybody here? Yeah, we're all here. Okay, play, Don. I receive or two from no-known Annette, played by Don Bester and his fiddlers three. His drummers one and his saxophones plenty. Oh, boy, am I lukewarm tonight. Well, I'm glad I got here in time to hear that last number. You've got some great men there, Don. Really, but confidentially, you know, I don't care for that cello player. Who? That cello player. You're wrong, Jack. Because there's one fellow who knows his own. I know that, but he should learn something about a cello, too.  I mean, do you like him? Yeah, very much, Jack. Well, maybe I'm wrong. What's his name? Hypheth. Oh, it must be me, I guess. Well, anyway, tonight, folks, we have a thrilling... Say, Jack. Oh, there you are, Wilson. Where were you tonight? Well, I was a little late. I dropped in to see a picture, and you should have been there, Don. You had to cry your eyes out. Oh, why? Was it that sad? No, the picture was all right, but a fella came out and sang wagon wheels, and I know how you like general tires. You had to cry your eyes out. Well, I saw a picture this afternoon, and I really did cry. Yeah, what picture was that? Wild garble. That's wild cargo. Nothing to cry about in that picture. There isn't. Imagine paying 75 cents in the balcony at a matinee. Oh, I see. Anything over 10 cents is dramatic to Wilson, you know. Which reminds me, folks, I read in the paper today where Harry Lauder is swimming over for another tour of America. You reminded me of that, Wilson. Now, say, Jack, I hear you're going out to Hollywood next week to make a picture. Yes, Vester, who told you? Well, I saw it in the papers. How do you think you'll do in pictures, Jack? Oh, all right. I don't know. I guess I ought to be as good as William Powell or Clark Gable. I mean, there's really no difference between us. Of course, William Powell has a nice moustache. Well, I can raise one in three days. I mean, that's nothing. And then look at Clark Gable. He has a cute dimple in his cheek. Oh, well, that's easy. I can have three of my side teeth pulled out. That'll help. Gee, Jack, I think you'll just be swell in pictures. Do you really think so, Mary? Sure. There's always room for another Boris Karloff. But I'm not a Karloff, Mary. No, but you certainly Boris. Oh, is that all? Who wrote that? Listen, Mary, what I am... Mary, what I haven't got for pictures, I can borrow. You know that. What do you mean? Well, if I play a Napoleon part, I can borrow a uniform. If I play a Tarzan part, I can borrow a leopard skin.  That's the only thing I'm worried about. Hey, but what has sex appeal got to do with it, Mary? You love me, don't you? Yes, but do I know what I'm doing? Play down. I'm going to look in the mirror. Believe me. Now, with Frank Parker singing, May I, from the motion picture, we're not dressings. Now, let me tell you something, folks. Frank sings with the same quality that a certain tire has, which I don't like to mention on this program. But as a slight hint, you all remember what rank perching held in the Army. But just put tire on the end of that, you get the ideas. Listen, Parker, your voice is getting better, and to tell you the truth, I'd sooner hear you sing than Don Bester any time. I'll bet you say that to all the singers. All right, stick to your singing. Say, Jack, you just made a personal appearance at the Capitol Theater, didn't you? Yes, Frank, I was there for two weeks, and I hate to boast, but the theater was jammed. Standing room only. Were you in to see me? No, I went home and got a seat. I don't blame you. You know, Frank, Mary was at the Capitol with me. I didn't know that.  Colossal. Well, that's fine. I'm glad to hear it. Jack, what does colossal mean? Well, colossal. Colossal means... Give me that dictionary minute there. Will you, Frank? Yeah, here it is. That's the colossal. Colossal. K-O-L. K-O-L-O. K-O-L-O. See, it isn't even here. I guess there's no such word. What dictionary is that? Webster's. Oh, well, he makes a lot of mistakes. Well, anyway, Frank, we both played the Capitol Theater. We had a lot of fun, though, didn't we, Jack? We sure did, Mary.  What are you laughing at? Squirt-cutting your eyes. Say, Frank. Yes, Jack? Let me straighten you out on this. You know the fella that threw that cut on food. Well, I paid him to do it just to get a laugh out of the audience. Oh, yeah? Well, what about the other two guys that were throwing statues? Well, they were freelancing. I had nothing to do with that. That's drop it, Mary. Frank, where were we on the program before we started to talk about the Capitol? Page 8. You said you liked my scene. Oh, yes, here. I got it. You certainly are a great singer. Say, Jack, that reminds me. You know, my folks are very fond of you, but they feel slighted that you went to Don Best's house and Don Wilson's, and you never paid us a visit. Oh, I'm sorry, Frank. Well, they asked me to bring you over tonight, Jack, and I've got to do it. Oh, no, Frank. No, wait. I went to Wilson's house last week and had to move a piano all around the room, you know? That was a fine rest for me, moving pianos. Well, you won't have to worry about that. There won't be any trouble about that, Jack. We have no piano. Well, that's something. We have an organ. Well, I'm not going to push any organs around either. Why don't you go, Jack? It might be a mouse organ. Oh, that's right. Where do you live, Frank? Right down here in Greenwich Village. Oh, you mean the artist's colony where all those painters, poets, and singers live? Yes, my family were all singers. My father was a famous baritone, and my mother was a soprano with the Metropolitan Opera Company. She was, well. Does she know Lucia de Lamamore? No, we just moved in last week. Oh. I wouldn't expect that. Well, Jack, how about it? You know, my folks would sure like to meet you and Mary, too. Well, I, uh... Aw, come on, Jack. What can we do? Say, can we take Don Wilton along? No, he eats too much. Yes, especially when he's a guest. Yeah. Well, come on, Jack. Let's go. It's getting late anyway. Okay, say besters. Yes, Jack. Uh, take care of the rest of this program. Well, I'm going over to Parker's house to meet his folks. Where? Over to Frank Parker's house. Hey, what are you laughing at? Oh, nothing, Jack. I was there last Tuesday night. Good luck to you. Hey, wait a minute, Don. I don't like the way you said that. Listen, don't you think I ought to go? I'm not saying a thing, Jack. You'll find out. Say, boys, Jack's going over to Parker's house tonight. Well, come on, Jack. Let's go. Okay, Frank. Come on, Mary. Gee, play, Don. Yep, this is it. Uh, how much is a driver? $3.10. Oh, the same guy, eh? Here's $0.70 for you. Yeah, that's what I meant. It's funny I never can figure that number. Uh, so this is a place, eh? Quite an old house, isn't it, Frank? Yes, but it's nice and side. You know, artistic environment and everything. I bet the rent's cheap too. What a dump. Quiet, Mary. Well, let's go up. The folks are all waiting. Is this the apartment, Frank? No, that's a Chinese laundry. We're one-flight-up. Oh, I saw a sign singing fat. I thought it was your place, you know what I mean? Sounds like all the folks are at home, eh? Well, here we are. Now, right this way into the parlor. Hmm, nice place you have, Frank. Gee, it's swell up here. Oh, whose picture is that on the wall? Oh, that's Caruso, remember him? Oh, sure, Robinson Caruso. Oh, you can fool Mary. Now, just make yourselves at home, and I'll call the folks in. Okay, Frank, what are they doing now? Oh, just practicing arpeggios. Oh, you mean the scales? Yes, notes to you. Notes to you, too. Now, that's too good to come here to be in trouble. Fine, have to insult me on a program, eh? Come into the next room, Jack. I want you to meet my father. Sure, sure, Parker. Where's your father? Tipo, tipo. Signore. Father, father. Father, I want you to meet Jack Benny. Don't bother me, son. Signore. It's all right, Frank. It's all right. No hurry. Father, father, this is Jack Benny. Oh. Lord on a mobile, how do you feel today? So you're Jack Benny, and this is Mary. I'm glad to know you. Let's play pinocchio, a nickel, a hundred, and the cards are all right, too. Oh-ho, oh-ho, the cards are all right, too. That was the cards are all right here by Frank Parker, Sr. and Jr. Jack, ask him if he knows Lady Mary when you get up. Oh, wait, here comes Mother. Mother, this is Jack Benny and Mary Livingston. Ah, good evening, Mrs. Parker. I'm feeling fine, but who can tell? I'm looking good and feeling well. I'm eating well, but who can tell? I'm feeling fine, but who can tell? Nice play to God, Frank. Well, Mary, how do you like Mother's reign? I like her whole kitchen. You know, Parker, your mother looks fine, but your dad doesn't look so well. Well, dad's leading a foul slice. Hmm. Hello, Frank. Hello, James. Oh, Jack, I want you to meet my sister, James. James, it's Jack Benny and Mary Livingston. How do you do? What is this, anyway? We're the hey, nanny, nanny, and a hot shot shot. Well, have them say, Frank, what was that?  Oh. It was in a nightclub. Oh, Jack, look at that pretty bird. Yes. That's our singing canary, Jack. And what a singer. Come on, sing something, Primo. Oh, Primo Canary. I knew, I knew I saw that bird somewhere. You know, that little bird listens into all of our program. Well, isn't that nice? Primo, what do you think of our announcer, Don Wilson? You said it. Oh, yeah? I resent, sir. Frank, turn off that radio. Oh, look, Jack, they even have a singer sewing machine. Mary, it's the general tire program. Oh. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Me, too. I'd rather move canners. Say, Jack, would you like some of that? No. I'd like some chili and some beans. This is the silliest program we've ever had. Let's cook. Well, we've got some. Oh, Hungarian rhapsody. I'll have some of that well done. What do you want, Mary? I'll have the menacing spring sauce. That song, Mary. Now, listen, let's have some fun while we're waiting. How about the radio? Let's tune in on the radio. Here's the problem again. And here's the general tire show. The show, the show, the show. That's right, Mr. Parker. Tune in and see what our boys are doing. I knew it. I knew it. I think we'll go anyway. I've had enough of this joint. Me, too. Goodbye, goodbye, Mrs. Parker. Goodbye, goodbye, everybody. Goodbye. That's all I want to know. Play, Doc.