OK, now I'm forced

To write this down

A few days ago

I was evaluating

The new Orb music

I was thinking that

Jeff might like it

And maybe I'd

Make him a tape

With all their stuff

At the time

There was a mild

Coincidence,

One not quite worth

Documenting,

Between the Orb

Being on my mind

And Tom Swift's

Spherical robot brain

By the name of Orb

Coming up from time to time

In the Swift books

That I was reading

(Which were generating

A number of coincidences --

See Driven Up a Tree Near the Field of Waking Dreams,

Tiger by the Tale,

The Same Only Different,

Tempest in a Teapot,

And Drumsticks and Sharkmeat)

Well, late yesterday

The other half of

Tom's robot system,

The mobile part named Rob,

Cracked me up

As he and Tom

Landed on the Moon

As Tom was about to

Step down onto

The lunar surface,

Rob beat him to it, quipping

"A large step for robotkind,"

To which Tom responded

"Quit clowning..."

Later Jeff called,

Inviting me up

To San Francisco

For Thanksgiving

On his and Brenda's behalf

I decided that now

I would definitely

Make the Orb tape

Today, the cover of

An issue of NME

That had come in the mail

Featured a picture of The Orb

And promised an article inside

Locating the article,

I was amused by the title:

"A GIANT BLEEP FOR MANKIND"

But, it didn't hit me

Until I had started reading

The bizarre and

Colorfully written piece

That there was now a

Sufficiently strong tie-in

With Tom Swift

To warrant recording it

By the way,

Colonel Bleep was

One of my favorite

Cartoon characters

Back in the early 60's

He was a do-gooder

Alien space traveler,

Just my kind of guy

I don't think

I've ever seen or heard

Any mention of those cartoons

In the thirty years since,

But it would be nice

To see them again someday