107. "The Heat of the Moment" by Asia
Have you ever known one of those families that begins all of their 10 kids' first names with the same letter? My uncle Robert did that. All his kids' names began with the letter D, which meant that whenever we visited, I was the cousin most likely to be able to pass myself off as one of the family. I don't remember all their names, but I do remember David, Darryl, Daniel, Doyle, and Denise. I'm not sure what the other names were now, as it's been so long since I've seen them. But I think I can say with confidence that none of them were named Dabney, Diego, Demetrius, Desdemona, Dagwood, Desiree, Darby, Darrence, Daffodil, Daisy, Dartagnan, Dixie, Darwin, Dearg, Doris, Dharma, Deiphobus, Delbert, Delmar, Delroy, Drucilla, Demodocus, Daphne, Derwent, Derwin, Devereaux, Dillie, Dimas, Dimka, Darlene, Dino, Dmitri, Dolphus, Dawn, Domo, Donahue, Dervla, Donatello, Dontrell, Dorian, Draven, Dee Dee, Dorcus, Dordie, Dusty, or especially Draupnir. I would remember cousin Draupnir.
Now I can understand why families do this, especially families planning on having lots of kids. There's something pleasantly entertaining about hearing a long list of family names rattled off in super-rapid order. I get it.
I also get families that have all the kids names start with the same letter, but then for some really good reason, they decide to give the last kid a name with a different letter. Of course, this makes the whole experience of listing the family names more than anticlimactic letdown. It's a genuine jolt to the ol' brain! It produces a "What the--?!" effect in the listener, and a dozen questions flood the mind simultaneously, causing more than a modicum of cognitive congestion.
Did I hear that wrong?
Did they say it wrong?
Did they find a new way to spell the sound the letter makes?
Did they just try to pull my leg?
Did they run out of names that start with the letter?
Did they adopt?
Did the parents divorce and the new spouse refused to support alphabetically consistent nomenclature?
Did the child reject the name and forced everyone to call him/her by a middle name?
Did the family use the letter so much that they acquired a conditioned letter aversion?
Did they surrender the decision to name the child to a dying grandparent that named the child something else just to exact revenge upon the family for defying their original wishes to NOT start every grandchild's name with the same letter?
Did the parents forget to buckle up the child and then there was some horrible car accident in which the child was thrown through the window and the letter came clean off?
OR
Did the letter Q become unfashionable for first names and people began to mock anyone that had it at the beginning of their signature? That's what happened to the letter Q, you know. Q started out fine with names like Quin and Quinten and Quaid. But then somebody decided to create a TV show about a medical examiner named Quincy, which was a great name that everybody liked, but after seven seasons, people began to catch on that being a "medical examiner" means you poke around in dead people's bodies looking for things that don't usually belong in dead people's bodies. Although the ratings shot down, the show survived for an eight season due to a write-in campaign by Quincy's most loyal viewers. But then it was discovered his most loyal viewers were all necrophiliacs, so the show got cancelled. This association of the Quincy name with dead bodies was so strong that Quincy and all other Q-names began to fall out of general favor. The Australians tried to rescue Q with Quigley, but then somebody in Scandanavia named their kid Quimby, and that sealed Q's fate. There's just no bouncing back from a Quimby.
Yet, even with all of these questions flooding my mind at once, I still get it. As a former English teacher, and as a real bastard with a dark sense of humor, I kind of enjoy the idea of people hearing the family name list rattled off in all its alliterative glory and getting excited to see what name brings the whole thing to a satisfying linguistic climax, only to have their great expectations crushed mercilessly by an out-of-sync grapheme. That's just good clean fun!
But what I don't get--and will NEVER get--is when parents have three or four kids with names with the same first letter, but then they give the next kid in order a name with some other first letter, and then they go BACK to naming the next kid with the same letter as the first three or four kids. It's madness! Madness, I tell you!
And that brings us to the British rock band named after the continent of Asia (not to be confused with the Swedish rock band named after the continent of Europa). Rock bands often give their first album the same name as the band. So it wasn't so unusual for Asia to name their first album "Asia." Then they named their second album "Alpha," which is a somewhat cheeky name for something that comes second. But hey! We like bands with a sense of humor!
After the second album, Asia could still have named their third album pretty much anything they'd like and people wouldn't have scratched their heads over it. But Asia crossed the Rubicon and named their third album "Astra," and that made all Asia fans realize that this isn't just a naming pattern where the first letter is the same. No, no, no! To our amazement, the last letter in each name was also the same! We've got A's in front and A's in back! That's commitment! That's consistency! That's poetic!
After the third album, everyone was convinced that the rest of the band's albums would have names that start and end with the letter A. This belief became cemented in our minds as gospel truth when Asia released in order "Aqua," "Aria," and "Arena."
That's six albums in a row with the double-A pattern! So there's zero chance that the next album name won't begin and end with an A, right?
WRONG! Asia's next release is named "Rare." What the--?!
Did I hear that wrong?
Did they say it wrong?
Did they find a new way to spell the sound the letter A makes?
Did they just try to pull my leg?
Did they run out of names that start and end with the letter A?
Did they adopt?
Did the band split and the new members refused to support alphabetically consistent nomenclature?
Did the album reject its original name and forced everyone to call it by its middle name?
Did the band use the letter so much that they acquired a conditioned letter aversion?
Did they surrender the decision to name the album to a dying manager that named the album something else just to exact revenge upon the band for defying his original wishes to NOT start and end every album name with the letter A?
Did the band forget to buckle up the album and then there was some horrible touring bus accident in which the album was thrown through the window and the letter A came clean off?
OR
Did the English parliament finally accept the will of the non-rhotic English speakers and pass a law that officially establishes the letter R as both a postvocalic consonant AND a prevocalic consonant, thus wiping out the use of the letter R anytime it's next to a vowel?
No?! Really?! None of that happened, huh? They just up and named it "Rare" without anyone in British government intervening?
Bloody hell! Why didn't Asia just throw in the towel and call the album "Quimby?!"
What?! You say that this album is in reality more of a solo album by Geoff Downes and David Payne that they composed for soundtracks (part for a documentary film and part for a video game), so it's purely instrumental and generally makes for good background music? Thank you, Gary Hill of Allmusic.com, for that plagiaristic summary! Thanks for setting us straight on that. Now we can explain away the name "Rare" by recognizing that it was only two members of Asia, not the entire band, that was involved in this heinous crime of alphabetical deviance. Whew! For a moment there, I thought Asia was no longer interested in giving their albums names that begin and end with the letter A.
Oh, goody! The next studio album is titled "Aura!" Oh, frabjous A! The pattern has been reestablished, and all is right with the world. So from now on, it's agreed that Asia will go back to following the double-A naming pattern. And that's exactly what we see happen when the rest of Asia's albums are titled:
Silent Nation
Phoenix
Omega (Which is NOT their last album. Cheeky!)
XXX
Gravitas
Oh, bollucks!
I just don't get it.
We, the fans, made an extensive effort to explain away the "Rare" name so that the pattern could continue. We even considered changing the rules of English so that we could almost entirely do away with the letter R? Hell, as a sign of my own devotion to the double-A naming convention, I will now adopt that exact rule as a lifelong commitment and eliminate all use of that unspeakable symbol!
And in no way do I think this will be an easy task! Do you ealize how had it is to wite wods without the lette ?! Now I wite like Elme Fudd talks!
But this just shows how passionate Asia fans like me can be. I was willing to change the conventions of the English language to help keep up an unboken steak of what would have been the best collection of double-A album names in all of ock 'n' oll histoy! That's how much it means to me! And how do you, Asia, acknowledge that level of love and devotion? You cap all ove me! Do you think I'm just pat of a "Silent Nation?" You tease us with "Omega"--which only ends with an A. And what's with the tiple-X title?! It's ponogaphic! And that's just idiculous and wong!
Okay. I guess I don't have to get it. I just have to accept it.
And acceptance is the final stage of gief, so I guess I'm also done witing.
Oh, yeah! I fogot! That song--"Heat of the Moment"--that's the topic I'm supposed to wite about.
Soy, I somehow got distacted and stated witing about eveything BUT the song. I guess something must have biefly cossed my mind duing a shot peiod of time, and I got caught up in an impulsive uge to say or do something I'd later eget. Of couse, that same behavio petty much sums up evey omantic elationship I attempted in my junio and senio yeas at Mash Valley. And fo some eason, this song has a poweful association with that peiod of my life. It bings back memoies of the stong, tubulent emotions--the euphoia and heatbeak--that I felt duing all those cushes I had on high school gils, especially the ones I danced with in the dak afte football and basketball games, but neve afte the westling matches o tack meets o any gils spots (how disciminatoy!). Yes, I eckon I can tuthfully say my heat was uled by teenage ambition, which I emembe well. I was always tying to catch the peal and ide the dagon's wings. What a Quimby I was!
Yeah. Okay. Back to the song.
I like the song. I think it's good! It eally, eally ocks!
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