Between a pile of freelance work and my usual day job, I’ve managed to continue creeping along on the non-animated facet of the Mystery Work In Progress, which I still hope to launch this fall.

I found I was doing much, much more writing than I had time to animate, and that most of the writing seemed to center around the same themes and characters. So now I’ve got all this material, and I need to put it somewhere. It’s a little bit like having to poop… except for the impulse to share it with the public… which in both cases is unhealthy…

A lot of this writing was done at a certain coffee shop (I won’t mention its name, because all you have to do is look out your window and there’s probably one there). Normally, I’d hang at one of the local joints. But this particular location, in a busy shopping district here in Kansas City, has a special feature that I enjoy.

This bizarre fountain, brought back from Italy in 1928 by a major Kansas City land developer, depicts a frog squirting water straight into the crotch of a cherub, who looks absolutely ecstatic about the whole thing. (who wouldn’t?)**

About two feet above this lovely scene is a large window and a comfortable table inside the coffee shop. Beyond that is a fireplace. There is no better place in the world to write cartoons, my friends.

A constant stream of tourists and suburban shoppers passes this fountain, holding their shopping bags and cameras. As I sit there, every minute or two I’m treated to the sight of a family doing a double take, stopping in their tracks, pointing, smiling, joking amongst themselves, and then snapping a picture.

Kids under a certain age don’t find it funny or odd. (why on earth wouldn’t a cherub have a frog squirting him in the junk?) Older kids find it hilarious. Most adults do too. Some of them try to hide it. Once in a while a pack of high-school kids will walk by and struggle to maintain their fragile teenage composure. Few can resist smiling as they pass.

Nothing washes out the wretched stench of cynicism that can come from working in commercial art like spending an hour next to this statue. People are caught off guard, and for a brief moment they stop trying to look cool and just smile and point like first graders. It’s a beautiful thing. Had I known that was all it took to bring out a moment of genuine humanity in people, I’d have been standing there in the buff myself all these years. (though something tells me the reactions would have been different: surprise, yes… giddiness, no)

You can keep your Rodin and your Michelangelo and your Lipchitz and Moore. Give me Rafaello Romanelli’s masterpiece, “Frog Spritzing Cherub In Wee Wee.”

So that’s where I sit and write sometimes. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, come say hi. Better yet– let’s have a secret code so I’ll know it’s you!

If you see a guy sitting at the table by the fountain, watching the people and scribbling in a notebook, come up to him and say this Secret Production Log Pass Phrase:

“Excuse me. I’m looking for Mr. Romanelli.”

If he replies with the Secret Production Log Answer Phrase:

“WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?! GO AWAY!”

then you’ll know it’s me… or some unsuspecting, foul mouthed stranger…

**I came across one older photo of this fountain which seems to show the frog showering the boy in the stomach, which is slightly less humorous. This may have been the original intent of the artist… maybe someone bent the nozzle down years ago as a joke. But it doesn’t matter now! As you read this, that frog is squirting that cherub right smack in the schlong, and the world is a better place for it.