Born in a barn? - I'll take Door #1.

Remember hearing "Were you born in a barn?" any time you left a door open? Back when I was younger it was an expression used to train people to close doors behind them. Parents of course used it but even complete strangers would ask "Were you born in a barn?" if you didn't shut a door when entering or leaving a room or building.

There are lots of good reasons for closing a door, especially one you had to open first... keep the cold & bugs outside, the pets & small toddlers inside, security, privacy etc. It seemed, back then, that closing doors was an expected thing to do and often even considered within the realm of 'manners' - it was good manners to close a door, bad manners to leave it open.

That's how it used to be anyway. Today, things are different. It seems many people no longer consider leaving doors open a bad thing. It's no longer bad manners to not close a door, or maybe calling someone out for not doing so is nowadays... Is vocalizing the rhetorical question "Were you born is a barn" considered bad manners now?

Is taking umbrage with anyone's actions the only form of bad manners left in this new "Me first" world we live in, a society where leaving doors open, spitting on the sidewalk, swearing in public, butting into line-ups and countless other things once considered bad manners are now commonplace?

I live in an apartment building. It's what rental companies like to refer to as a "secure building" because you need a key to gain entry; either that or you must be 'buzzed in' by a tenant or the building manager. This security measure is to ensure our little building community, the apartments serving as people's homes, all have some collective line of first defense to keep out the undesirable elements roaming the city... criminals, canvassers, salesmen, Jehovah Witnesses etc.

Inside the building there are additional secured doors. The storage locker area and laundry room both require additional key entry so just getting into the building doesn't grant access to those areas. (Keeps the salesmen, criminals and Jehovah Witnesses from rummaging through boxes of Christmas ornaments, broken appliances and old books or trying on your underwear fresh and warm from the dryer.)

Having locks on the building's entry points and common-use areas makes sense and these doors should remain closed for good reason. So too should the stairway doors since most of them are designed, in part, to always be closed for reasons of fire suppression and building ventilation system function. Apartment doors should also remain closed to ensure one's cooking odors, noise, pot or cigarette smoke etc doesn't fill the hallway or seep into other people's units.

Keeping doors closed not only makes sense, it's good manners... a consideration to others who might not share your taste for fried fish, Metallica, Colombian Gold or neglected cat boxes. Closing the doors is also a moral obligation not to compromise the safety and security of the community that is the building's inhabitants.

Past experience having demonstrated the best way to keep doors closed is to ensure they will naturally assume that position at rest, all the doors in the building are fitted with a device that will close the them automatically. It's a good system but it only works when people don't purposely screw with it.

A common occurrence is people using some kind of object to hold a door open. This most often happens at the two main entry points to the building and the most used object to hold the door open is a rock from the building's garden area. I understand people doing this while moving in or out of the building - who wants to fight with opening a door while carrying a couch or box of kitchen utensils? I can even sorta understand those who do it while unloading a trunk load of groceries.

What I don't get is why, when they're done moving whatever with multiple trips through the door, they don't close it to return things to the way they were designed and intended to be for the greater good of everyone in the building. Some people do (although hardly anyone ever returns the rock to where they got it, they usually just kick it aside thus creating either a whole new issue or a handy device for the next person to jam the door open - depends how you look at it) but most people just leave the door wide open.

I know enough about human nature and behavior to understand why someone moving out of the building could walk away leaving the door they jammed open as an invitation for anyone to enter. After all, they don't live here anymore and have no further interest in the building's security. It's a pretty good indication that they probably never recognized they were part of a distinct community while living in this building... that they probably only ever think of themselves. I don't particularly like that way of thinking because I find it a symptom of the further decay of our ability as a species to live in close proximity with each other but I get it.

It's harder to understand why the people who are moving in or already live here don't close the entry doors once completing the task that prompted jamming them wide open . They are still here, in this building. Even if they don't recognize their reality as one piece of the whole collective community of building residents, even if they think only of themselves, even if they were in fact born in a barn... wouldn't they, on a subconscious level get an instinctual animal-in-its-den gut feeling recognizing the need for security, a security offered by the simple act of closing a door?

Thanks for reading. Please close the door behind you on your way out.

When Bowie Sings

When Bowie Sings

Behold the girl dancing lightly 'cross the broken glass

Clutching tightly to her bosom a key of golden brass

Does she dance to drive away the cancer deep inside her

Does she know we watch her dance and Death dances beside her

Her mind is like the sunset it changes every night

Her eye are full of long dead candles never showing light

She's imprisoned by the mirror crack and the horror that it brings

But oh what a rush she gets when she hears Bowie sing

When Bowie sings it changes things

His voice

It sets her free

Sometimes it seems when I want to scream

It does

The same for me

Behold the boy painting pictures crayons and Vaseline

Clutching tightly in his fingers a tale of Dragon dreams

Does he paint a portrait of the Demon come to blind him

Does he know we watch him paint and Death watches behind him

His mind is like a blackboard that's never been erased

His eyes are full of tortured screams that never left his face

He's imprisoned by the Scorpion and the horror of its sting

But oh what a rush he gets when he hears Bowie sing

When Bowie sings it changes things

His voice

It sets him free

Sometimes it seems when I want to scream

It does

The same for me

Behold the children running 'round 'neath the darkened sky

Clutching tightly to a daydream they were born to fly

Do they run to the future and its hint of certain doom

Do they know we watch them run and Death will arrive too soon

Their minds are like the sunrise that hasn't happened yet

Their eyes are full of perfect odds but they're too young to bet

They're imprisoned by Human Instinct and the horror that it brings

But oh what a rush they get when they hear Bowie sing

When Bowie sings it changes things

His voice

It sets them free

Sometimes it seems when I want to scream

It does

The same for me

- G Laidlaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

The Superficiality of Beauty

Judging another by appearance is hardly a trait exclusive to humans. One has only to look at the animal kingdom to see evidence of that everywhere. Birds, fish, insects and more judge potential mates, threats and food sources (and those to avoid) based solely on the visual presentation of others.

It's safe to say that all species with eyes have a connection between ocular input and their subjective mind but perhaps only humans take visually induced subjective judgments beyond instinctive needs to survive. Humans judge others purely on appearance all the time.

With that in mind, the following is an original poem by G. Laidlaw

The Superficiality of Beauty

The Superficiality of Beauty

Can cause its share of grief,

If the subjective opinions of others

Impose negative beliefs

On the soul, spirit and character

Of the person underneath.

And from the infliction of such cruelty

Where does a person find relief,

When the superficiality of their beauty

Reflects jealous disbelief

In those too blind to see

True beauty lies beneath?

- G. Laidaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

I Used to be a Werewolf

I was speaking to friend yesterday and he suggested I post this original poem by G. Laidlaw. Written like all the Author's poetry - in one burst of a creative "mind bubble" - and like many of the works that have appeared previously in Dew On The Newts, it is an autobiographical narrative of real life events.

I Used to be a Werewolf

I remember your place

With the funky God's-eye thing,

Hanging on the wall

With your hippy-trippy string.

I stumbled through the doorway

Fell face first in the room.

Threw up beer and whatever else

I drank that afternoon.

It might have been the mushrooms,

It could have been your hair.

Something really freaked me out

When the full moon found me there.

It framed me in the picture window

That I pushed you through.

I'm glad to see you made it.

The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf

But I'm alright now-OOO!

I remember your tires

Leaving rubber on the road.

Is it any wonder your car

Was the first one that I rolled?

Friends don't let their friends

Drive if they are drunk.

So I took away your car keys

And put you in the trunk.

When I checked the rear-view,

I saw the full moon in the sky

Which freaked me so I floored it...

I made that sucker fly!

Skid marks in the headlines,

Graphic footage on the news.

I'm glad to see you made it.

The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf

But I'm alright now-OOO!

I remember your eyes

Tracing circles by the door,

Where you might have dropped a rock

Of crack onto the floor.

It's hardly a good habit

But it still buys you the farm.

From a simple mountain garden

To a gold mine in your arm.

Welcome to my Never-Where.

A world of cheaper thrills,

Where Santa shoots up heroin

And the moon is full of pills.

Someone shouted "Save yourself"

And I forgot to pull you through...

I'm glad to see you made it.

The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf

But I'm alright now-OOO!

- G. Laidlaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Ode to the Wild Side

WARNING!

This original poem by G. Laidlaw contains language 

and imagery that may be offensive to some readers.

The people it's about did exist and their stories are true.

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

ODE TO THE WILD SIDE

Maria Alundra Consuela Ariba

Queen of the Gypsies or last Queen of Sheba

All of her life a woman denied

All of her life a Diva inside

Dressed as a peacock leads the Gay March of Pride

Funny the magic memories bring

I thought I heard Lou Reed's colored girls sing

Jerry came out when he was sixteen

They fractured his ribs and ruptured his spleen

Tough loggers and good ol' boys scared of a fag

Now the kid from a small town dressed up in drag

Is the prettiest corpse in the ugliest bag

Funny the magic memories bring

I can almost hear Lou Reed's colored girls sing

Junked out and bruised is Vaseline Sally

Working her corner in Gasoline Alley

Hep-C and AIDS makes it ten bucks a trick

Horny husbands and fathers use her for their kicks

Do they know what it is that's sucking their dicks

Funny the magic memories bring

Close my eyes and I hear Lou Reed's colored girls sing

G. Laidlaw