But because those pussywillow Pollywoggies only know how to fumble scrumbles, it means I’m a little low on funds and equipment right now, so I don’t have access to the capital necessary for an atomic force microscope or any microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). And, as I already noted, science takes money, goddamnit!

So, while I wait for the corporate moolah hogs in accounting to approve the extremely reasonable expenses for my unequivocally requisite scientific equipment, I simply lack the resources currently at my disposal if I ever want to introduce enough disequilibrium to extract energy from the vacuum.

****

Every day, all sorts of nonsensical pigeonshit drivel and requests bombard me. Nonstop spiels dripping with the oily charisma of a basement casino proprietor hawking canards as large as a barge… and twice as alarming.

So, better believe you me when I tell you that when I received that call from those scaley suits begging me to bring my formidable scientific background to the pinkest and slimiest of infotainment rags this side of the Chattanooga, my primate instincts told me to take that jar of snake-oil they were offering and smash it in their offallic faces… metaphorically speaking, of course, since we were on the phone.

If one of the snakes hadn’t slithered out that magic phrase, “sizeable research grant,” before I hung up on them, I most likely wouldn’t be here gracing these pages with my unquestionably critical scientific insights. And just like that, I snagged a flight for my first visit to Orange Forest. “The Ol’ Oh Fo,” or so I’ve been told.

The flight was a miserable misadventure bustling with awful bastards that not even eight mini bottles of off-brand bourbon could make tolerable. The experience at the Orator’s office was even worse. A loose smattering of desks arranged along otherwise empty walls engulfed by a barren wasteland of open, empty office space. Across the void that filled the interior office spaces, the floor’s organized geometric discolorations of cubes and aisles provided the telltale evidence of a recent massive exodus.

All-company meetings were as unproductive as a castrated bull trying to breed the field. Executives were as slithery and malformed as an inbred Chernobyl noble. Thankfully, I’d thoroughly steeled my senses against the statistically high-probability likelihood of the type of snake people I’d be dealing with by downing a half-pint of Makers and eating a 30mg gummy before locking myself in the office cage with those barbarous thugs.

But the most fucked up shit of all was in the staff meetings where it was clear as crack that all of the writers and columnists deferred to this Betsy Embers. Sure, I get it. She’s apparently been chained to this paper since she was hired as a 17-year-old Gal Friday back in ‘59. Long before I plopped into this world. I’d never met Embers before… only vaguely offhandedly heard of her because of that recent Pulitzer win. And now she only writes a short knock-off Dear Abby column? During that harsh, suffocating stint spent at the Orator’s office (thankfully recently revamped thanks to all that Camelcase cash), I could not believe the level of hog-swindling hagiography displayed for Embers that struck this reporter of empirical scientific veracity as pure sycophantic psychopathy. All these so-called journalists feebly requesting her feedback and meekly seeking her notes just reeked of kneejerk thinking and smacked of rampant hackery.

But bust my bones and bedolt my brain. After I finally got the chance to sit her down and chew the fat… really ruminate on that tough mutton… turns out that Embers is one helluva bellwether head-leveller. Sharper than a Sharpie and sturdier than a Sherpa. By a longshot, though, the most significant impression she left on me involved her sharing a keen piece of insight I’d somehow managed to overlook that might unlock a potential untraveled avenue leading to a MEMS that could theoretically turboboost my DIY attempt to not only test for zero-point energy but store it locally. Reminds me that I better check on how Igor is holding down the BYMPA fort against those dastardly grizzlies. Okay… this column needs to conclude now because that scam-riddled deposit for the “sizeable research grant” has yet to ka-ching into my bank account, and I’ve already dedicated an unquantifiable amount of my precious time engaging in this asinine pseudojournalistic endeavor, which has so far only resulted in extreme personal energy dissipation.

So I leave you with this then: My Embers chat underscores how, in our post-reality era, the question of knowledge and truth now seems more than ever like it’s the question of no one but yourself. (Unless, of course, you’re battling a dumb grizzly bear’s insatiable destructive urge dead-focused on pulverizing your BYMPA… then it becomes a question of mortal conflict, not knowledge or truth.) When actuality, the evidence reveals that even I, a goddamned doctor of scientific journalism, can sometimes forget that people still exist whose torches not only burn brightly but who can and will effortlessly brighten your torch as well. People who remind us that the question of knowledge and truth, as always, belongs to all of us.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I fear I have no choice but to go inflict an excruciatingly dreadful penny-pinching existence on those number-gooning numbskulls in accounting until they sign off on my expenses and we can start contributing to urgent scientific progress.

Fac cum zelo - Doc Fonzo