Rolling artistic tribute to AW, IW – and Japan

RADPAT: Palm trees salute Hawaii, the rising sun salutes Japan (Photo ©2008 by G.A. Carroll).

What follows has been in the works for some months, before we became so crossthreaded with, and in turn ignored by, American Wota, International Wota and the idol-music blogging world in general. But it is genuine, and came together earlier today, so here goes.

The state of California has a pretty cool personalized license-plate program for vehicles, which allows drivers to pick out a design, part of whose fees go toward the California Arts Council. The design you see above of the “RADPAT” plate (which, of course, stands for one of our original monikers, “Radicalpatriot").

American artist Wayne Thiebaud.

We had toyed with “YOTAKU,” but this was before the launch of the YankeeOtaku metablog on April 4, and “RADPAT” seemed to be a better choice at the time. And, even now, it still does.

But the artwork is very interesting and chosen for two specific reasons. The art is from famed American artist Wayne Thiebaud, who is now 87 years old but considered a foremost expressionist of regular everyday objects, a la Andy Warhol.

In this case, the palm trees at left signify, in our concept, the home of American Wota and International Wota, Hawaii. The “rising sun” at right signifies the wonderful “Land of the Rising Sun,” Japan, from which all idol-music wonders emanate.

Now, it might not seem that appropriate now, since both sites have tended to ignore all three of our Web sites – this one, YankeeOtaku and Radreview – but it was only right to follow through on the symbolism of the RADPAT personalized plate and the original idea behind it.

That brings to mind that many of Hello Project’s bigger names – Musume, Berryz, °C-ute, Ayaya, Momoko, etc. – are probably available from California’s list. For the California Arts Council plates, six letters or characters are allowed.

Not even Thiebaud can keep up with the color craziness of C-ute, circa September 2007.

In any event, that’s the story behind the RADPAT plate idea. In case you’re wondering, it is now attached to my beat-up old white 1994 Ford Escort wagon, which is about to quit on me but I can’t replace because of finances. Thanks for reading through all this. Now if I can just get a few posts “recommended,” maybe some order will return to the universe.

This is Radicalipton signing off – for now.