This morning, my interview topic with affiliates is NASA setting up a contest to name newly discovered planets.

I should mention that I’m writing in fits and starts in between interviews, so this blog may seem a bit disjoi–Hey, it’s Alan Scaia, calling for a 7:13 interview. Oh, wait, make sure you don’t write that down.

This blog may seem a bit disjointed.

But I started writing after one station, an affiliate in Tennessee, asked if I was just calling NASA over and over and voting for “Alan.”

“No,” I explained. “When you’ve got a name as cherry as ‘Scaia,’ you use it.”

They asked which planet would get the name.

“All of them,” I explained. “They’ll all be named Scaia.”

“So, Scaia 1, Scaia 2, Scaia 3? Like the way they are now with ‘Trappist 1?'”

“No,” I said, becoming exasperated but not letting it show on the air because when I started this job, I was told I sound exasperated when a host asks a strange question. It was entirely the host who was driving the conversation in a strange direction. “Just Scaia. When you’ve got a name like Scaia, you don’t gum it up with other words.”

This particular issue, and this really did come up with two different stations, led the host to remark, “Oh, like George Foreman naming all of his kids ‘George.'”

This wasn’t the station that sent me the Christmas cheese, but the host did play along. At the end of the interview, he said, “Alan Scaia, thanks for joining us. Did I pronounce that right? Scaia?”

But now that I’m thinking of it, we could number these planets without sounding disrespectful to Scaia. We just wouldn’t use “Scaia 1,” “Scaia 2,” etc.

Instead, “Scaia the First,” “Scaia the Second.”

The only exception would be the third planet. Not as some homage to Earth but because I’d like to name it Scaia Emerson Winchester the Third. And I’d like NASA to specify that you really have hit “the Third” like that guy on M*A*S*H.

So, it turns out this is an homage, just not to Earth. I’ve been watching a lot of M*A*S*H since it showed back up on TV a couple weeks ago. I have no idea why, but I identify with misunderstood geniuses who are insubordinate malcontents.

NASA is still taking suggestions! Be sure to tweet “Scaia!” at them with the hashtag #7namesfor7newplanets.

Update! …And our Portland station, KPAM, just told me, “That’s a great name! It’s up in the sky!”