Mr. Radish might look pretty big in public photos, but in reality he’s a lot shorter than he appears. I met Bad on March 28, 2009. While casually jogging through Watershed Park in Bellevue, I almost stepped on him. As any mad and startled root would, he bit my leg. Despite this introductory sting, my curiosity got the best of me and I stopped to chat.
We had a winding philosophical conversation about “the man”, who this man is, and where he should go next. We talked about the nuanced difference between “regrets” and “ragrets”, Milli Vanilli’s best songs, and the real reason that Iceman thought Maverick was dangerous in Top Gun. We discovered our shared interest in the latest chainsaw models and agreed that Weird Al’s music video “Smells like Nirvana” was a phenomenal creative progression after his multiple award-winning box office hit “UHF” <golf clap>.
That day, a lifelong partnership formed, partly thanks to Bad’s NLP and conversational hypnosis tricks and my willingness to entertain them. Brainwashed by a radish! I’ve heard vegetables are good for you, so I’m okay with this.
My work for Badradish has mostly involved programming and making random things as per his fantastical whims. He gives me a lot of space for my own creative pursuits, given that he sometimes disappears for years at a time. In 2015, he went on some spiritual journey to India, popped back for a while, and in that same year disappeared again to Europe. Following this guy around is a hassle, but rewarding in it’s own way.
Mr. Radish is fickle, does what he wants, and throws me for a lot of loops (when I say “There is no way in hell you’ll have this piece delivered in 2 days”, he responds “Can you please examine what exactly ‘no way in hell’ means? I understand hell doesn’t have paths, so can you be more specific?”)
With Bad’s support, I learned a little C#, C, Arduino programming, Processing, and whatever else needed on the fly to make an experiment happen. Through him, I got to work with the Casual Games Association and start Seattle Games Cooperative. He made appearances in some of my SGL work as well. I had to build absurd computers and procure vintage ones to appease him. Many of the projects I’ve worked on are prototypes or tests, intended only for BadRadish’s entertainment.
I shipped Lodestar 1000 on Xbox Live Indie Games and made a few interactive “toys” called Autospira (XBLIG) and Firecracker HD (XBLIG). I also started numerous Arduino/LED projects, all of which remain, as of 2018, unfinished. Badradish has a great fear of finishing, and we’ve been working on that together lately by posting small snippets online at Openprocessing.org (“baby radish steps, spicy one”, I tell him).
Badradish
