he Tuesday polls have closed, the ballots are still being counted, but estimates make the outcome clear: California has lost the recall election.

California voters turned out in record, ignorant numbers Oct. 7 to make their confused voices heard, and the answer was a resounding, "What's this all about again?" As voters chose to recall Gov. Gray Davis, elected only 11 months earlier, and replace him with female-violating, Hitler-loving pure beef slab Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Not that a truly inept politician can't ruin an entire political system in less than a year. The current president only needed 9 months before the world as we knew it fell into a shitcan. And Gray Davis, described by friends as "a necessary evil," probably deserved a good pink-slipping. But to replace the deviously crafty with the hopelessly out-of-their-league, a trend already set at the presidential level, left California in the position of the biggest loser in the U.S.

Early estimates show the recall winning by 55%, with Schwarzenegger leading the recall candidates by a sizable margin. Among the opponents not just doing it for shits and giggles, Lt. Gov. "Tom" Cruz Bustamente, Sen. Tom McClintock, apparently not the character from the John Wayne movie of the same name, and a Green Party candidate who pushed a referendum where new ballots were cast with hemp. Schwarzenegger's 7,000+ votes over the next nearest candidate was called "overwhelming" by some overly-excited reporters. After all, here is a difficult foreign name they already know how to pronounce.

McClintock conceded happily to his fellow plus-sized Republican, calling it a "great day for California."

"In response to a common danger, the people of California rose to their duties and ordered a new direction for our state," said the well-rehearsed GOP mouthpiece. The message on that direction couldn't be less clear: We want the dumbest, most sexually-excitable candidate who runs a chain of failed over-hyped restaurants to do for us what he did for The Last Action Hero.

The white media, plagued with their fascination with celebrity, lauded the Schwarzenegger victory in many subtle ways, some calling it a "Hollywood ending." Leaving one compelled to remind reporters Dr. Strangelove and Taxi Driver had Hollywood endings, too.

Exit polls showed many voters disappointed with the failure of Gray Davis to mend California's budget problems during his 11 months in office. "It's not like the whole country's in a recession here," said one angry voter, drooling on this reporter's tape recorder.

The results of the California recall do little to surprise most pollsters, who predicted the election weeks in advance with their preemptive announcement of recall results beforehand. When asked what features they were looking for in a state governor, most Californians cited a vague understanding of the problems afflicting the state, poor pronunciation of English, and having appeared in at least one horrible Batman movie.

In a concession speech, Gray Davis called for everyone to "get behind" the governor-elect. What Davis neglected to add, but surely was thinking, was either that, 1, you could then proceed to push him off a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean, or 2, he's a big guy and you'll need the shade when the air conditioning dies after every power grid goes out, you fickle yellow-bellied traitors.

Schwarzenegger's new lieutenant governor, a bronze bust of former president Ronald Reagan, could not be reached for comment, as it's incapable of speech.

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Dear commune:

Ed Phillips here again. I was in the midst of another college prank, trying to see how many people I could squeeze in my Yugo when the cops came down on me hard, those punks. As usual, they didn't understand and were very forceful in arresting me, although I told them, to be fair, I didn't kill any of them myself.

With all the terrorism and crap happening lately, I can sort of understand why the overreaction. So many Americans are willing to relinquish a little bit of freedom to make themselves feel safer. I, however, am not. How do we strike a balance? Do I have to write a signed letter with a notary public signature or something to verify that I am willing to sacrifice any security at all in order to retain all my freedoms? If that's the case, I would also like to sacrifice the current security I have in order to gain new freedoms other Americans do not enjoy.

If it sounds good to you, I'd prefer to be shot at maybe once or twice a day in order to enjoy legalized marijuana. If I could have sex with underage teenage girls without repercussions you could go ahead and give like three or four of them some serious disease or a huge boyfriend, that would give me pretty good odds, I think. I'm also looking for a way to commit a murder here or there, but I'm not sure what I can sacrifice, maybe you could serve me some bad undercooked pork or something real dangerous.

I have to go as I just made bail, God bless mom and that bake sale. I'll be mailing this on the way home and thinking up some good freedoms I'd like to get as well as securities I don't really need.

Ed Phillips
Hackensack, NJ

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Dear commune:

I have recently discovered your online publication and have to say I enjoy it, though I don't always agree with it. As an alternative source of news and opinions, it's successful in presenting ideas usually not found in the mainstream media.

I find all of the columnists very interesting, though I have to admit I don't enjoy Ned Nedmiller at all. It's nothing personal against the man, I just don't understand him. He barely seems to be speaking English, and none of it amounts to any sort of sense to me. What is the story with Nedmiller?

Deborah Kling
Daisy, ID


Dear Deborah:

Sorry, but we're not sure what you mean. We have no Ned Nedmiller on staff at the commune.

the commune

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Dear commune:

I am writing Dark Shadows fan fiction for the famous Dark Shadows website BarnabusBytes.com. As is usual, I try to stay true to the vernacular of the period. My questions: What is the past tense of smote? My initial thought was that it is smot, but my friends say that's not true, Barnabus would never say he smot someone. Arnie said smote is the past-tense of smite and the past-participle is smitten, but I thought smitten was a good thing, to say you were smitten by someone, whereas to smote someone is very bad. So what is it?

By the way, feel free to check out all the great Dark Shadows fan fiction by me (SheriffJonas@aol.com) and other fans at BarnabusBytes.com!

SheriffJonas@aol.com


Dear SheriffJonas:

Smote is a dangerous street drug lethal if taken in large amounts anally, though the same could be said of just about anything. Smite was the 19th vice-president of the United States, killed in a duel over smote, ironically. Smitten is the famous German candy with a touch of cinnamon.

Thank you for your invitation, but we find the whole thing very sad. At least that's the general reaction as we passed a printed copy of your e-mail around the office, though some found it hard not to laugh long and loud.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for your outfit, we distinctly said you didn't have to wear that dress tonight. So put on the red light, Roooooooooooooooxaaaaaaaanne.

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Tonight the city is packed like a cheap suitcase, my friends. It is brimming over with miserable, sweaty recluses, who sit naked in their stench-ridden plaster of Paris hovels like the penthouses of the damned. They spend their unfortunate lives brewing up Byzantine conspiracy theories like pots of runny black coffee, in an ass-clenching attempt to pass those painful small hours of the night's midsection, hours that cling and drag like a moss-covered gallstone. And not just tonight, no. Last night, as well. Most likely last Tuesday. Maybe other nights, it's hard to say.

True enough, there are still some intrepid dreamers who sniff glue or make Popsicle stick models of Eartha Kitt's gigantic ass when the boredom horn comes calling, cutting a crimson swath through their sleepwalking nightmare lives. But countless others have no hobbies at all, and instead attempt to break boredom's dark stranglehold by dreaming up improbable conspiracies galore, spiraling out into infinity with their paranoid cake-baking.

But the twisting corridors of this sickly web don't end there, good friend. This lonely waltz demands several more dancers to move their hips in and out when the suggestion is made, like freak-dancing mulatto robots. This latter-day ecosystem of conspiracy is made complete only by the existence of the noble dubunker, the conspiracy theorist's natural predator! Without debunkers, the conspiracy theorist population would grow wildly out of control, regenerating exponentially and savaging the natural cultural landscape. It would choke out all other indigenous lifetypes, like bad drivers and hypochondriacs. The beautiful diversity of nature would quickly and unceremoniously be destroyed, like a bedwetting puppy that was a gift from your ex-wife.

You might argue that this could be a good thing, especially the next time some sex-crazed zealot of questionable lineage backs his 4-Runner over the top of your humble sparkbox of a car, pausing only to spew a smoking stream of white-hot vitriol out his driver-side window before he peels out, and his bumper sticker tells you to go hump a penguin. But diversity is sustainability my friend, and without every variety of unfortunate asshole out there in the world, the whole circus tent would come down like a giant scale model of the Notre Dame cathedral, one made of lubricated dominoes.

Pluck one sphincter-searing malcontent from the beautiful mosaic of life and when your back is turned, six other varieties of life would disappear in the bat of a bat's eye. The nursemaid, the wax statue enthusiast, or the twice-baked grandmother, perhaps? Or could it be the surgeon, the Harley mechanic or the last unmolested boyscout? That's just the thing, my friends, the choice is not ours to make, and when we start yanking fibrous polybendanium stalks willy-nilly from the high-tech camping tent of nature, no one can say just what will come falling down around our ears next.

And what is life without the ammonia-scented wonders of nature? The dizzying variety of crawling, backward-twitching creation, a rancid, festering cornucopia of tropical ooze clogging our eye sockets like a pudding-thick discharge? Not a whole flaming lot. It's a couple of stale Styrofoam coffee cups rolling around on the floorboards of a cobalt blue 1985 Chevy Nova, friend, and personally I'm one who has been down that road before. You can have it. It only goes to Wisconsin.

So before you go to bed tonight, say a humble prayer of thanks to the noble debunker, for all too often they go unrecognized and unthanked. Yet regardless, they bravely trod forward, never once complaining. And when life leaves a steaming batch of road apples on their path, they make delicious apple pie.

And I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from that.

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