Illustration by

Forget Lacan. Forget Freud. Jerry Lee Lewis knew the truth about desire, greed and lust, and how it fucked you up. He knew it was bad shit, but his body ached for it. Check out Lewis' `64 Starclub performance. Made not long after his young son died, the concert is a violent, drunken, frenzied testament of desire, pain, anger and hate. It's raw. It's honest. In life he maintains the image of the Dionysian spirit, a hard drinking, hard fucking, don't give a crap about nothin' man's man, but in art, the pain, anguish and uncertainty seeps through every note of his music.

Andreas Hykade ain't no Jerry Lee Lewis, but his films breathe from the same polluted air.

—

Animation has too many scientists. Too many technical masters making cold, polished, certain films. They create within the calculating sanctity of a sanctuary. All the furniture has been replaced, the bodies removed, blood mopped up. Hykade is different. He's a raw, faulty, honest poet in the vein of Nick Tosches, Hubert Selby, and, yes, OK, Charles Bukowski. I'm not talking some macho hardboiled nonsense either; I'm mean a man torn between sin and salvation, good and evil and the struggle to cope with the redeeming power of humility and weakness.

—

Hykade has given us We Lived in Grass, Ring of Fire, an assortment of TV stuff including a nifty young kids' series called Tom.

I watch Hykade's beautiful, troubling films and remember that I knew some dandelion girls. When I was six, I pushed her into a brick wall. When I was 15 she dumped me. I was heartbroken, wouldn't let her leave the locker bay. Then I shoved her and pushed her down the hall all the way to first class. I think I saw her put her head on her desk and cry. I followed her the rest of the day.

I don't remember this.

She reminded me last year.

—

I think it was the former Toronto Maple Leaf winger, Busher Jackson who said, "Hey, Primeau, there's only trouble and desire." Ain't that the truth, fella. Always chasing time instead of livin' it. What happens when the now suddenly vanishes? You're confused, angry, and lost. You don't know where to turn because you don't know where you are. You're not prepared. You get angry and lash out. You want to hurt what hurt you. Isn't that why the boy burns the dandelion girl, the cowboy beats the angel, the ape goes crazy when his TV goes out? That guy chasing the clock, he's nowhere. Why this burn, burn, burning desire?

Lacan said it was all a ruse. When we were little pissers we think we're at one with the world. Then we see our mug in the mirror, see that we're separate from everything around us, and spend the rest of our lives trying to become one again. Course, along the way, it's also being ingrained in our noggins that we're incomplete. First came the church, then came the advertisers Dirty, soul-sucking con men (themselves doin the deed just to preserve their own desires) telling us we're no good without God, the bible or a bar of fucking Dove. Meantime they're snorting and guffawing as they guzzle the holy water and thrust their lust sticks in places they don't belong. We all have the beast inside.