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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"My body is like a well-oiled machine—both are really oily."

I joined a gym yesterday. I didn't know it could be court-ordered to join a gym. I suppose if nothing else it's a good warning to everyone else not to snack on pork rinds during court proceedings, but in my defense, it's not like it was a murder trial or nothing. Just manslaughter.

The gym's not so bad, really, if you know where to look. Only suckers stop at the machines with the pully slinky things or those machines where you run and never go anywhere. There was some comedian who said I don't run unless I'm being chased, but I think he was just pissed off at me for eating pork rinds while he was trying to do his act.

Gyms have hot tubs and showers and all sorts of cool things. The showers have hot water, but you have to shower with all these guys who are probably gay. They were watching me the whole time I showered. Only one of them said anything, some security guy who came up to me afterwards and said you can't take firearms into the shower, there was some law against concealed weapons in the club. I told him it was in a holster but there was no way to conceal anything while taking a shower. He didn't think it was funny and I'm on warning at the club.

I tried losing weight hundreds of times before, but I always gain it back when I start breathing again. You can try to keep it sucked in all day, but I'm telling you it doesn't work. You just turn blue and pass out, which is another thing that pisses off judges and stand-up comedians.

One time I bought one of those electric machines you hook up to your body and lose weight with electricity. I tried it on everything, and I mean everything, but I never lost any weight. Well, it made my balls shrink up to the size of peanut M&Ms but that's not the kind of thing you can brag about.

What they need is some kind of bulimia machine or something. Those bulimics lose shitloads of weight. I'm not talking a big Willy Wonka kind of contraption, just some kind of box where you spit the food after chewing all the flavor out of it. Take a chicken wing, munch on it until the flavor's gone, then spit it into the box, maybe even throw the bone in. Man, if it turned the spitty crap back into food, you'd have a million-dollar idea. But all the food lobbies would be pissed.

That reminds me, I'm out of pork rinds.

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Here is a tale, well-learned, well-told,
about a girl of fifteen years old.
A girl nearly so old she could drive
with pretty brown skin and a look in her eye.
Between that and how she called the corn "maize"
everyone thought her and Indian babe.

Much props was she given, more than her share
for her leatherstocking dress and well-braided hair.
We thought her a mystic with powers bizarre
that she traveled by horse instead of a car;
wise and well-bred, with roots in the earth,
who knew what the wind and the rain were all worth;
that a teardrop would fall from one eye of brown
when someone tossed their litter around.

Maybe, someone said, she lived in a teepee
that's perfect for her, if not ideal for me.
It's possible someone has traded for deeds
this land all around for a necklace of beads.

So flooded with angst and white liberal guilt
we apologized for genocide and buildings we built,
but we found out later it was all for noit
and it turns out she actually came from Detroit!
She's black, not a Native, and now we have no doubt
a million other things to feel guilty about.

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