“Thanks For Sharing”
I just read something I wrote in the 90s, ostensibly to a friend but I didn't send it. Oh no, I put it online instead! Though the color combination & text style I chose was, I believe, intended to discourage readers! See, it was many years before I came out to myself, and the unsent note is addressed to a straight guy friend. We were in our early twenties! I could say a lot more some day when I have time but the basic conundrum is that this guy was drawn to hanging out with me, because I'm one of the most interesting people to talk to 🙃 and at the same time I made him uncomfortable. I am emotionally open, nearly always as much as possible, going back decades. His interest/discomfort puzzled me. In the note I reference a then-recent interview I had seen, starting by saying that I was:
thankful... that we're even able to talk about any of this at all. When Mike Leigh was on Charlie Rose, Charlie made some comment how in “Career Girls” these two old roommates meet up and talk very intensely, about serious personal matters + how Charlie thinks this works cause they're women. Or, really he said: “Women talk about things like this, and men don't. ...I find when I'm with other guys I'm talking about sports or politics.” This made me want to retch — mostly because I don't like Charlie Rose. But anyway I think, before pondering making a similar film with male characters, Mike Leigh just said, “Some men do talk like that.”
So I'm glad to be among the “some” of Mike Leigh than the “all” of Charlie Rose. Of course, that doesn't mean I feel entirely comfortable.
There's a video on YouTube titled, “Terrible Interviewer, Great Interviews” & that's how I felt about Charlie Rose always. Truly I'm not speaking in hindsight. I always felt personal dislike for Charlie Rose while avidly consuming his interviews as a rare example of intelligent conversation on tv. The exchange that I quote above pretty well explains it. For the demographics of his audience Charlie would have on a Mike Leigh. But Charlie is going to talk as if “all men are like ____,” because (as the whole world now knows) Charlie Rose is demented. His conscience clearly wasn't adequately developed, though that did not prevent his ascendence to the heights of broadcasting. Such revelations should cause a thorough reexamination of our media culture, but instead the powers that be in US society will pantomime outrage at a small number of individual failings while ensuring that current systems endure. They will stoke rumblings that changes—any progressive changes ever—are “going too far” and that stability demands regression to the mean, a state in which the powers at be remain the powers that be, minus one Charlie Rose. Even those minor penalties, of individual scoundrels chased from polite society, are only temporary. America can abide no improvement at all, for improvement implies that we weren't already perfect. Exceptionalism!
As of Sept 2025 this site is Rob Middleton's “any topic but himself” blog (from my point of view). Also see RMiddleton, my personal update blog.
This is the day the blog has changed,
let us rejoice & be glad in it
| this blog | th'other blog | |
| AFTER | writings on topics | personal writings |
| dotart.blog/humanissome | dotart.blog/RMiddleton | |
| BEFORE | “weekly” blog | anytime blog |
As of Sept 2025 this site is Rob Middleton's “any topic but himself” blog (from my point of view). Also see RMiddleton, my personal update blog.
Worried sick
I I can't I can't do I can't do anything
Maybe tomorrow
As of Sept 2025 this site is Rob Middleton's “any topic but himself” blog (from my point of view). Also see RMiddleton, my personal update blog.
Weekly, weakly I blog
The left is actually doing pretty well, considering.
It's easy to get mad at the people who vote for evil. I'm mad. I hate my fellow white people including former friends and my mom. Think about that. I hate my mom. [1]
But do we get mad at people who eat at McDonald's or only buy Crest or Colgate or shop at Home Depot or who own iPhones? Advertising works.
Fighting Antihumanism
Fighting anti-humanism is my life's work. I talk about humanism a lot, an annoying amount, and I name half my internet entities humanissome. I do this because I believe that the problems in our world reflect a pervasive anti-humanism. Standing up for humanism is the ultimate fight, the effort to rescue each individual and simultaneously all humanity.
to post or not to post?
It's hard for me to adhere to a weekly schedule (or any schedule). When I wrote my most recent blog post at https://dotart.blog/rmiddleton I said, “Rob, maybe you should make this your weekly Rworld news post,” and replied, “but it's only been half a week! What if I ever did have subscribers who wanted to hear from me no more than once a week?” Now the weekly post is several days late and though I have ideas — I always have ideas — I do not have the energy to write those. What I am going to do is paste over a series of Mastodon toots I just wrote that I have mixed feelings about (you'll see why). That way I get to let some feelings out somewhere more under the radar than my main social media.
A little better
8 June I went to Trader Joe's, the store where I still have gift credit. I came home and ate and swam. Made a video while swimming, using my lav mic clipped to my hair.
1 June
to read with a soundtrack play embedded video at bottom of this post
| Weekly Rworld News |
|---|
Remember when we made lists in shared notes of things to do, movies to stream, restaurants to go to — and then when we were together we never consulted the lists?!
I can be a broken record. [What a funny metaphor today!] I have discussed before in a blog that I struggle with lists. What does it mean to make a plan & not follow it? That's a big question for my life.
I went to college, didn't finish. What was my plan? My only plan was to get out of my home & my hometown. So once I did that much I ran out of momentum.
What to say?
I have preferred abstract imagery over words for expressing my thoughts because writing feels finite & imagery feels infinite.
A reason that I live in the city where I grew up is that it feels less like a choice than moving. Here is here, I've thought; whereas Elsewhere is... where? Why choose one place over all the others? As I prepare to move Away I'm drawn to the practice of regular written reports as a way to share my progress with others — and to help keep me motivated.
In other words I'm plunging myself into circumstances that I dislike: committing to make a choice from an array of options in where to lay my head in 2026 & in what to write about weekly & monthly.
There's one thing that painting and writing (and even where I'll live) have in common — the pejorative question, Who cares?!
week 4 Rworld news: still going well while not going well
This week's newsletter is divided into 2 parts: Fun & NoFun. The Fun part is about pop culture, specifically Star Wars: Andor season 2 (mild spoilers). The NoFun half is an inward rumination that builds on last week. Read either or both or none. Yay consent!