he scent of blood was thick in the air when withering mouthpiece for the Christian God Billy Graham met his legion followers in New York’s Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to bid them good-bye as he departed for the Middle East on this, his Final Crusade. Graham, long suffering from the many afflictions from God’s magic bag, vowed not to return alive until he had successfully converted the doomed to the one true faith.

“They will be saved, or their blood will stain their heathen streets,� said Graham, his voice failing and his body frail as the 70,000 true believers in attendance rained their approval down on him.

It marks Graham’s final attempt to convert the world’s worshippers of false idols, as the 86-year-old scion of the Lord, who started as a simple Protestant preacher before evolving into the leader of the final crusade of Christianity, continues to grow weaker from the countless ailments plaguing him, including water on the brain, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease, several fractured bones, and three arrows in the back sustained by a Cherokee attack in 1934.

“The devil wants to stop me, I don’t doubt that,� chortled Graham, clad in his shining suit of armor, and supported by six fellow Christians to keep from being ground into dust. “Let the devil come, I say! The Muslims, the Buddhists, and those—what do you call them… the Indian religious guys… not the Hari Krishnas… anyways, they’ll all call their false idols and the devil in to torture me, but I will not be stopped before each and everyone of them knows the true salvation of God. Or death. Either one works for me.�

Much excitement surrounded the event, the first church-sanctioned Christian crusade in almost a thousand years—noting that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are not officially church-sanctioned. Graham announced his plans for a Final Crusade months ago, and leaders of the Protestant church gave their approval as Graham built an army of supporters numbering in the low hundreds of thousands. Some in the know suggest the sanction for the Crusade is more of a tribute to Graham’s long service than any conviction he might be successful.

“The man is not even able to walk in his armor anymore, let alone smite the enemies of the Lord,� said an inside source we love to call “Reverend Blue Jeans.� “Add to that Graham hasn’t built a sufficient army for an attack of this scale, and the fact that they’re intent on utilizing medieval weaponry when even Middle Eastern radicals have access to missiles and firearms… you’re looking at a bloodbath. But Graham is convinced the Lord will give him strength for a final victory. You got to give it to the man, he knows how to go out in a blaze of glory.�

The ailing Christian soldier marched onward, if you count marching as being hoisted by a dozen men, and proceeded to board the large command ship bought by his ministry for the expedition, one of sixty paid for by the Graham Ministries and representing the first wave of the onslaught of the true faith.

“Victory!� screamed Graham in a raspy, failing voice from the bow of the ship, named “The Savior.�

The fragile Protestant then fell overboard, sinking instantly to the bottom of the bay, but was rescued by his followers before any more serious damaged was inflicted.

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Last issue's tome on the metric system inspired more reader mail than any column since the My Friend Polio where Omar Bricks offered to sell naked pictures of my sister to the highest bidder. This time, however, readers weren't asking if I could beat Omar's price. They wanted to know how in the hell we came up with our current non-metric system of weights and measures in the first place. Good question.

Imperial weights and measures (known in modest England as "English weights and measures") range from the feet, gallons and pounds we're all familiar with to hundreds of freakish and forgotten variations that sound like whimsy straight out of Lord of the Rings. The next time somebody asks you for a chalder of coal or wants to know if you can spare a groat, you'll know you've either time-tripped into some medieval hell or else you're at the Renaissance Fair. Either way you're screwed. Likewise if someone offers you a minim of soy sauce or four roods of swampland. And if some wiseacre tells you you're twelve scruples overweight or uglier than a perch of limestone, punch him in the face first and ask questions about his outdated terminology later.

The system of Imperial weights and measures is not one defined by cold logic or mathematical nonsense, rather it's an innately human system based on how one innate human, King Edward I of England, thought things should be measured. Having grown up poor, Edward was the kind of insecure nuevo-rich king that insisted everything be named after him and that potatoes should only be grown in his likeness.

In England, length was originally measured by a unit known as the dork, which corresponded to the king's, uh… royal tackle. Later, more prurient factions within the country pushed to have the measure changed to the more family-friendly foot. Edward relented after being convinced that everybody knew what it really meant, and that nobody thought he had big feet.

The yard was developed as a unit of measurement based on the distance from the door to the backyard fence in the king's boyhood home, which indicated a home run if cleared on the fly by a batted ball. Anyone who pointed out that Edward grew up with a damned small back yard was immediately beheaded and taken off the king's Christmas card list without benefit of legal council.

An acre was originally defined as the area an ox could crap up in one morning, though over time oxen fell into disuse due to the scarcity of uncrapped land in England. In time the acre was known as the smallest area of land you could leave to your heirs without them coming to ox-drop on your grave after you'd passed.

Edward was also obsessed with barley, which at the time was known as "edwardly." The king spent much of his spare time counting grains of the stuff, and was keen on showing off his barley-counting prowess by having the standard measure of weight in England be equal to 7,000 grains. This unit was nicknamed the "pound" because that amount of barley was usually sufficient for bribing the dogcatcher to return your wayward pooch. As is still true today, the English of Edward's times were unusually fond of their dogs, though back then they didn't eat them.

The mile was defined as the longest distance Edward had ever walked without being carried, when as a boy his manservant died suddenly of a heart attack while carrying Edward to the beach and the king-to-be had to walk very far to find some ice cream. Similarly, the hour corresponded with the longest time Edward had ever had to wait in line, from the time when he was at the king store and there was a run on poofy velvet capes.

Naturally, the Imperial system was refined in the years after Edward's passing, the most notable addition coming when London blacksmith Mike Inch's ex-girlfriend Lydia immortalized his unimpressive tackle by lobbying that its length would be a perfect way to divide the foot into twelve segments. Lydia was so unflagging in her badmouthing crusade over the years that the inch eventually became a national standard of measurement, providing a powerful example that hell hath no embarrassment like a woman dumped for a slutty bar maid.

If the history of weights and measures teaches one lesson, it is that terminology and unit sizes will come and go over time, but human pettiness is an undying standard that will always remain universal.

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Good people, I have had one of those experiences that only happens to other people. I have been abducted! And not by aliens, as you might first suspect, and even hope. I was abducted by beatniks!

It starts like any other story of abduction. I found my car stalled, by myself out on a rural road, away from the bright lights of the city—even the stars themselves seemed dim that far out. I tried to start my car once again and only got that whiny "enh-enh" sound going. Immediately, I got out and began walking, naturally fearing a UFO would show up and give me a super-suit to fight crime with. I don't have that kind of time, bossy Neptunians. But something more incredible happened!

Beatniks, tooling around in their convertible jalopy, motored alongside me like something out of a Ginsberg dream. They chatted me up and asked me if I wanted a ride. Of course, I never take a ride with beatniks, like mama Finger always said. But they wouldn't take no for an answer. I found myself soon bound and gagged, tossed into the back of the jalopy like a sack of potatoes.

I couldn't imagine what they wanted with me. For a short time, I even imagined they were aliens disguised as beatniks, in order to draw slightly less attention to themselves—but that made no sense. I invited them to probe me, and though one of them mulled it over for a long time, none of them took me up on it. They instead seemed to concentrate on writing poems about me, asking me what my bag was, and then reading said poetry to me while they charged me a lot for a simple cup of coffee. No mistake; these were beatniks.

Why me? No one can say. But they did say—apparently I'm one major-domo angry cat. Or, as Pie-Daddy said, "Yo, normally we ain't down with the anger thing. Some bad-mood Charlie starts his mantra on us, we all like, 'Chill, Franklin.' But your rage, man, it's like a thing of pure beauty. That kind of rage glows forever, like a firepit in a down-and-out steel mill that burns in hopes of one day…" And at this point I stopped listening. What he clearly said, as far as I can tell, is that my anger is better than everyone else's. The rest was superfluous.

I figured I would stick around with them, for just a short while, and give back something to the artistic community—especially since we've tried to remain good friends, the community and I, ever since that truce we signed back in 1971. If I can take a few hours out of my busy schedule and inspire a whole new generation of beatniks, it's the least I can do. But no more than a few hours, I told them, because I have shit that isn't going to do itself, frankly.

But these cats (check me out; I'm catching on already!) weren't content to just let me sit around and be a muse. They kept asking me questions, like how I grew up, what my relationship with my mother was like, and what made me so damned disappointed with life that I had to go around in a constant rage. I could only tell them I'm just lucky, I guess. But they still pressed me. Answer this, answer that! Only they had actual questions instead of "this" and "that," which actually aren't. I got bored of all that fast. I have angry columns to write and X-M radio distributors to boycott, I can't waste all of my time answering questions. Sitting around not answering questions, much less of a drain on my time. The questions had to go.

We couldn't come to an amicable agreement, the beatniks and I, so I crafted an elaborate escape plan. I carved an exact duplicate of myself out of soap (the nose was particularly hard to get right) and then, once I had it all tucked into my bed, announced I was going to the local grocery store to get enough soap to do models of them as well. It worked brilliantly, and I, of course, never returned.

I feel a little bad, abandoning a life as inspiration to the poets of tomorrow. But Rok Finger's always been a doer, good people. Not a doee. Nor a doe—ignore any type-O's suggesting that.

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