Mailbag Monday 42

Hello dear readers, it’s MAILBAG MONDAY again!  On this special day I will search through my mountain of reader mail and answer the five most pressing questions!

What’s that you say?  Do I really get that much mail?  Well, I’ll admit…the contact section of this website doesn’t get used that often, but, one of the perks of wordpress stats is that I can see the google search terms that people use to find my site.  And I’m going to go ahead and pretend that these search terms will count as reader mail, since they are often entered in the form of a question.  So as you read these, remember that each “question” was something that someone actually typed into google that brought up my site as a hit which they then clicked on thus letting wordpress stats report to me the search they used to find my site.  I could make up the questions myself, but it turns out the actual google searches are far better than anything I could come up with!

This month I answer the following questions:

• In the bible did cain mate with an ape?
• I walked into a room after have [sic] read: it’s pitch black, you are likely to be eaten by a grue?
• Childhood metal music hobbit D&D?
• When is it ok to hit a woman?
• Corpse paint funny?

So, without further ado, it is time to dig into the old Mailbag to see what kind of things have been on my readers’ minds in the last month!

In the bible did cain mate with an ape?

Alright, let’s settle this issue of Cain’s wife once and for all.  See, christians love to whine and moan about non-believers teasing them about this question in everything from the Scopes trials to Contact.  I believe that the official stance is that Adam and Eve had many children and Cain just married one of his sisters (totally ok because their old DNA was like, really pure, and that’s how DNA works, so inbreeding totally wasn’t an issue).  But, after carefully poring over my NIV study bible, I hate to say it, but I’m pretty sure the official stance is totally wrong (ok, I love saying it, sue me).

Let’s look at the quotes and see what the good book says.  First, in Genesis 4:

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Well, I think we all know what happened next…god totally mindfucked Cain into killing his brother.  Cain was pretty bummed, as you can tell in Genesis 4:16:

So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.

Yeah, that record scratch sound is god bumping the turntable when he suddenly realized that night he got really drunk and got that lower back tattoo he must have also made another woman in that totally bitchin land of Nod.  Could Cain’s wife just be one of his sisters that was not mentioned as an offspring of Adam and Eve? Based on this quote from Genesis 4:25, I don’t think so:

Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

Now see, this comes right after the stuff about Cain banging his wife, which really suggests that Seth was the third child of Adam and Eve and there were no weird incestuous sisters before Seth.  And really, it definitely says child, not son (maybe they can change that in future editions of the bible?)

Not to mention this quote from Genesis 5:3:

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.

After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

Bam, there are all the other daughters for the rest of Adam’s sons to get busy with.  Based on this evidence, I really don’t think Cain’s wife could have been human, since the only humans would have come directly from Adam and Eve.  Based on Genesis 1:20, which lists the only other things that were on the earth at the time, she would have have to have been:

• a living and moving thing with which the water teems
• a winged bird
• livestock
• a creature that moved along the ground
• a wild animal

Thus, to answer your question, yeah, ape seems the most likely choice.  Maybe that “perfect” DNA somehow got around the usual interspecies infertility.

Oooh, or she was a mermaid!  Though, in order to sire a line of evil people doomed to be destroyed in the flood, it would have to have been a slightly less awesome but more funcitonal mermaid with human lower half I guess.

I walked into a room after have [sic] read: it’s pitch black, you are likely to be eaten by a grue?

Ok, see, this is why Grue deaths are on the rise, because people ignore blatant warnings as to their likelihood of being eaten by a Grue. Is that room pitch black? Then DON”T GO IN! Everyone knows light scares away Grues (except for rare daytime Grues), so find the lamp, turn it on, and bring it up to the attic, you’ll be fine.

Of course, I will have to admit that while I, er, the ISLEY AI, informed Princess Jessica that the escape hatch slide (that she found in her recent EPIC ADVENTURE) was pitch black, I did not include the requisite warning about being eaten by a Grue.  Still, I did her a favor really, that (increasingly less rare) daytime Grue that was turning the key in the lock before she jumped down the pitch black escape slide was a much nastier customer.

Kidding, it wasn’t a Grue.  It was just her father’s guards, ready to chase her into a pitch black, grue infested area if she decided not to go of her own volition.  Re-Zork is totally not fair like that.  Or, as Jessica, who had just been tricked into drinking shitwater, put it:

4:43 PM – Jessica: (Aw man. This game is a jerk.)

Childhood metal music hobbit D&D?

You would think, based on the content of this blog, that I was a metal listening, Lord of the Rings reading, D&D playing all the way back when I was shitting yellow.  But no, I’m afraid I was a bit of a late bloomer on many of these.  So here, for the first time, I give you the secret history of Isley’s horrible interests!

A Tale of Hobbits

I discovered Lord of the Rings first I guess, but nowhere nearly as early as I should have no thanks to my dad.  I was probably 8 years old, and was at my grandma’s and found my dad’s old copy of The Hobbit on her bookshelf.  I distinctly remember asking my dad if it was any good, and his response, and I quote “eh, it’s alright, yeah, you might like it.”  Also, if I remember right, he probably didn’t even find the need to tell me there was a sequel.  My dad has only failed me as a parent once in my life, but based on the magnitude of the failure, he’s lucky I forgave him.

A Tale of One Nerd Shop

D&D was a bit later.  I think I was maybe 10?  I was out running errands with my mom and we passed some game store and I was like “huh, what’s that?”  She had no idea the Pandora’s Box of horror’s she was opening as she pushed the door open and was like “let’s go check it out, might have some fun games in here!”  Well, I started by looking at a strange game called ASL while my mom, after taking a look at the clientele  just slowly tried to get me to back out of the door with her.  But I wasn’t about to give up so easily.  I put the ASL box back on the shelf (for 15 years) and somehow talked her into buying me an Advanced Dungeon’s & Dragons 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook.  Sure, I didn’t actually find anyone who knew how to play the game for another 8 years when I moved into a magical place called a “scholarship hall,” but that was pretty much the beginning of the end for me.

A Tale of Collective Soul

As for metal, I didn’t even know it existed until well into my teens.  My first concert was a free concert from Collective Soul at the Kansas Colosseum when I was 14 or so.  And, like they said, (and I quote) “people always want to know if we are a metal band, or an alternative band…we’re just a fucking rock and roll band,” they were totally not metal.  A few months later I happened to catch “Enter Sandman” during one of those rare times when I happened to have the radio on in a car with my dad.  We both agreed it was pretty good (don’t worry, I eventually learned how not kvlt that song was), my dad said he thought maybe it was Judas Priest.  So I spent a few weeks listening to Judas Priest songs at Blockbuster Music, trying to find that one I liked on the radio.  They were all pretty weak sauce (don’t worry, I eventually learned how awesome-sauce Judas Priest is).  And yes, this was like 1994 and I had never heard anything off Metallica’s Black Album, I told you never listened to the radio back then.

Anyway, somewhere in 1995 I finally figured out it was Metallica, bought Master of Puppets and finally tracked down this dude in my school called Brian who was rumored to have knowledge of all things metal.  He said, and I quote, “yes, Master of Puppets is good, but have you ever heard of a band called Morbid Angel?”  It was pretty much all downhill from there.

When is it ok to hit a woman?

In general there are only ever three times you should hit a woman.

1. You are both in kindergarten and she is bigger than you.  Or at least this is the reasoning I gave my kindergarten teacher after getting in a fight with a girl: “Why can’t boys fight girls? Girls are bigger and stronger than us!”
2. She has just punched you in the nards without provocation   In this situation you are allowed one vag punch of equal force as payback.  Opinions differ on who is getting the worst of that exchange.
3. Your name is James Bond or John Wayne and the woman is acting “hysterical.”  In this case a single stiff slap across either cheek is permitted.  It’s really the only way to snap her out of it.  Warning, if your name is not James Bond or John Wayne, such behavior may lead to a nard punch with does not meet the “non-provocation” clause.

I hope that cleared things up.

Corpse paint funny?

Ok, damnit, for the last time, CORPSE PAINT IS NOT FUNNY. I mean, it is designed to make you look like a corpse, so unless corpses are funny, it isn’t either.  Now, I suppose I should cut you some slack.  After all, there are a lot of people out there who really have no idea how to apply corpse paint properly, and I could see how you would find it a bit funny:

Thus, to avoid disasters like that, I decided to go ahead and lay out some helpful corpse paint application tips right here!  See, recently, I went to a local Halloween themed metal show in Kansas City with Jock Danny, Jock Chris and Jock David.  We all decided to go in corpse paint (guess whose idea that was).  As you will see, there were some corpse paint issues…  Thus, with the help of pictures from that concert, I give you:

How to Properly Apply TR00 KVLT Black Metal Corpse Paint

DANNY

All things being equal, Danny did a decent job here.  Yes, we argued long and hard about his decision to do the Warpaint finger-streaks down his face, but damn, they did end up looking kind of bad ass.  Still, there were a lot of beginner mistakes made here:

• Corpse paint should not go above the eyebrow.  It is meant to mimic the inky black depths of a skull’s eye socket, not the inky black depths of an ICP fan’s taste in music (like I have room to talk).
• In a related point, both eye sockets and lids should be completely black.  I see that white lower eyelid Danny and I do NOT approve.
• Ears.  Unless you are wearing a hooded cloak (common), ears must be corpse painted too.  Otherwise you just end up looking silly.
• Careful with the application.  Corpse paint is messy stuff, sure, but only a n00b would get corpse paint smears on their badass Beherit shirt.

CHRIS

Ok, so Chris had some issues.  I mean, to be fair, this was his first time, and you can’t knock a properly grim and kvlt corpse paint job out of the park first try every time, but still, let’s discuss what one can do to keep this from happening:

• When you mix black and white paint together, you get grey.  Thus, care must be applied in the application of corpse paint to avoid turning your entire face into a grey mess.
• Eyelids.  Yes, it’s totally scary thinking you’ll accidentally get some of that stuff in your eye, but it really is essential to go the extra mile and cover your eyelids in black as well.
• Corpse paint will go wrong, it happens.  But whatever you do, don’t panic and just draw a black line down the middle of your face.  That’s not what corpses look like.
• A quick note on concert attire.  Black is the only acceptable choice for shirt color.  If your blue shirt is sticking out from underneath your totally rare Enslaved Hordane’s Land LS, people may suspect you just borrowed it from a friend.

DAVID

I don’t know what to say about this one.  Honestly, I blame myself…I should have paid closer attention to what David was doing as we all applied our corpse paint in front of the big mirrors on the Riot Room’s wall.  I’m kind of like Schindler that way, if only I could have saved one more person from corpse paint disaster.  Still, let’s try to make some sense of the worst mistakes here:

• First, and this is pretty simple, Groucho Marx is neither KVLT nor TR00.  This is why we don’t go above the eyebrows folks.
• Skulls have big holes where the nose should be.  This leads many to think that the nose should be completely black.  Don’t do this, it will make you look like a puppy, trust me.  But, the nose should have some black on it, if nothing else to call attention away from your big Groucho eyebrows.
• I don’t care if you think The Dark Knight was badass, giving yourself smeared black joker lipstick really isn’t that metal.  Especially when it ends up looking like a Groucho mustache.
• Never, under any circumstance, smile.  Totally not grim.