Good. Beauty. Truth, value judgements all of `em; given meaning and relevance only by us. To further the myth we create fictional characters to back it up: God. Jesus. Santa Claus. Ricky Martin. Icons of perfection. Flawless truth and beauty. Good God. Bad Devil. Beauty Ugly. Life. Death. You can't have one without the other. Ying yang. We also created icons of imperfection too. Dean, Monroe, Manson and Elvis. Lost souls and all that shit. No in-betweens. We're hell bent on living in one of these either/or states.

Hykade's work, like Lewis, Tosches, Selby etc. try to sort through the extremes, to come to terms with the fact that there is no pure good or evil, just faulty liner notes to get us by. Snoozers like to ridicule assorted macho `misfits' like Hykade for romanticizing violence, lust, and all the supposed essences of masculinity. They got it all wrong. These guys are ridden with guilt and conflict, trying to come to terms with the fact that there are no absolutes, yet being driven toward them all the same. It's not that they won't believe, it's that they can't believe. It's as if they know and see too much; yet not enough to extinguish the fires of alienation and desire that isolate them from world.

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This isn't about dandelion girls, cousins, whores, cowgirls or even Beatrice. Hykade, like the rest of them, is seeking the father. The father of night, day, darkness, love, and pain — the whole kit' and caboodle. Wasn't Jesus just lookin' for pops? Did the boy burn the dandelion girl because he believed his father or because he lost his father? Revenge for bailing on him. The sins of the father…

Fatherless fathers. I had two of them. Both were dicks. Real one came (nudge, nudge) and went. Fake one was violent, scary and nasty. I hated him most when I became him. I'm a father now. I want to forgive my fathers. Why is it that I blame them for the bad days and don't thank them for the good ones? They were too busy looking for their fathers to be one. Fucked up fatherless-fathers; boys being asked to emulate something that isn't there to begin with.

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As some 15^th century Italian poet told us, to find heaven, you have to go through hell. Ya gotta stumble before you rise. If you ask me, and you didn't, too many animators, too many people wanna skip the bad to get the good. That's bad (heh heh). Ya gotta know the bad to know the good. Hykade, a new father, uses the dirt and darkness of the past as soil to fertilize a future of light, darkness, and hope, not to mention a bit of bread with honey and jam on it.

This was originally written for the 2003 Ottawa International Student Animation catalogue.

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Check out more about Hykade at: http://asifa.net/robinson/profiles/hykade.htm.

Chris Robinson is little more than a man. In his spare time he cares for the elderly. www.animationpimp.com.