Ruud the Dude - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I'm a senior teacher in Dutch language and literature at the Oostvaarders College (preparing my kids for university) in Almere near Amsterdam in The Netherlands (that's in Western Europe; just for American ignorants (no offence if you're not...).
I've got a nice wife Ellen and two rocking teenage girls, Lysanne (16) and Nina (14). Lysanne is playing electric guitar (Fender Strat) and Nina is singing and playing on her Yamaha keyboard and on her Richwood western guitar.
Except with teaching I'm pretty busy with directing and training our debating club at school. In 2004 we won the national debating contest for schoolteams called "Op Weg Naar Het Lagerhuis" (On the road to the House of Commons in Great Britain). We've actually visited the House of Commons in London, guided by a senior MP!
Furthermore I'm a MUN-director (Model United Nations). Every year we're attending at THIMUN in The Hague (in The Netherlands), the biggest and first Model United Nations in th e world. About 4000 students of over 100 nationalities take part in THIMUN. Every school delegation represents another country. Each student-delegate brings a draft resolution to the conference and prepare him/herself for the topics on the agenda. The delegates then lobby and discuss their resolution in their respective commissions in order to come to a resolution (a written solution to a problem). Resolutions that are passed during the week are bundled together in a booklet and sent to the UN in New York, the idea being that they offer new insight and ideas to the members and councils of the United Nations.
And now for something completely different: I'm a music addict so I go to various styles of music concerts as often as I can. Often once a week in Amsterdam (Paradiso or De Melkweg). Always big fun with friends and lately also with my oldest daughter Lysanne. She's addicted to music too, I fear... Check her my space site (see my friends list). When Nina, my youngest daughter, reached 13 she had her maiden concert: The Rifles in de Melkweg Amsterdam. She was thrilled! Now she's addicted too, I guess. Our last concert was Kimya Dawson in Paradiso Amsterdam. It was fun! Also after the show with Kimya. She was very nice and signed and draw funny things on Nina's arm and boot and Lysanne's 7 inch and my poster of Kimya ('Drop out of school!').

My Interests

Music, art, architecture and literature. And my every year summer holiday land Italy!
Click to zoom in on my visitor map!

I'd like to meet:

Chet Baker

Stevie Ray Vaughan

and Jimi Hendrix

All too late I know. But in real life happy and funny people to get drunk with, especially at live concerts! When I'm not drunk I like to discuss life with interesting people. Then we get drunk anyway.

Music:

ROCK: Gogol Bordello, Frank Zappa, The Doors, The Flaming Lips, Green Day, The Allman Brothers, Bromheads Jacket, White Cowbell Oklahoma, The Beatles (as a teenager), The Rolling Stones (later), Sex Pistols, Shane Macgowan & The Pogues, Flogging Molly, The Zutons, David Byrne and Talking Heads, The Misfits, Dropkick Murphys, Lou Reed and Velvet Underground, The Subways, Simple Plan, Jimi Hendrix, Me First and The Gimme Gimmies, Silverstein, Sugarplum Fairy, Colosseum, Butthole Surfers, Ten Years After, Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, Blink 182, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, Franz Ferdinand, Black Lips, The Fratellis, Less Than Jake, Steve Earle, Leningrad Cowboys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!;
INDIE: Animal Collective, Antony and the Johnsons, Bright Eyes, Two Gallants, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Daniel Johnston, CocoRosie, Death Cab For Cutie, Yo La Tengo, TV on the Radio, Tiny Dancers, Belle and Sebastian, Handsome Family, Moldy Peaches (Adam Green and Kimyah Dawson), Willard Grant Conspiracy Pilgrimage Orchestra;
BLUES: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Allman Brothers, Walter Trout, Johnnie Winter, Eric Steckel, Ian Parker, MOFRO, Luther Allison, Muddy Waters, Freddy King;
WORLD MUSIC: Amadou & Mariam, Manu Chao, Fela Kuti, Buena Vista Social Club, Kaizers Orchestra, Cristina Branco;
JAZZ: Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Billie Holliday, Stan Getz, Thelonius Monk, Bird, Benjamin Herman and his Cool Collective, Van Morrison, Chuck Mangione.
I saw almost everyone of them live! Life is great when there's music in the air!

Movies:

Control (Ian Curtis), Bird (Charly Parker), Straight No Chaser (Thelonius Monk), Let's Get Lost (Chet Baker), Down by Law, La Vita e bella, Cria Cuervos, Una Giornata Particolare, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Death in Venice, La Grande Bouffe, Magnolia, Basquiat, 24 Hour Party People, Bird, The Godfather, Down by Law, La dolce Vita (and all other Fellini's), Leaving Las Vegas, El Mariachi, Ray, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), Metropolis, The Full Monty, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, O Brother Where Art Thou?, 2001 A Space Odyssee, Schindler's List, A Clockwork Orange, Blow Up, Last Tango in Paris, Underground, Angst essen Seele auf (and other Fassbinders), The Blues Brothers, Easy Rider, The Commitments, One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest, Frankenstein, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain, Pulp Fiction (and all other Tarantino's), Moulin Rouge, Lola Rennt, Smoke, La Strada, Trainspotting, Idiots, Padre Padrone, Cabaret, American Beauty, Hable con ella, Memento, Leon, Winterschläfer, Lucia y el Sexo, The Last Picture Show, Rashomon, The Fabulous Baker Boys, De Wisselwachter (The Point Man), School of Rock.

Television:

Arthouse movies.
In the old days: Pipo de Clown, Ivanhoe, Catweazle, All in the Family, Whiskey a Go Go, Monty Python's Flying Circus!

Books:

Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Robert Musil), Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov), The Brothers Karamasov (Dostojevski),The Martyrium (Elias Canetti), Die Verwandlung (Franz Kafka), Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), Ulysses (James Joyce), The Painted Bird (Jerzy Kosinski), Faust (Johann Wolfgang Goethe), Abesinian Chronicles (Moses Isegawa), The Quincunx (Charles Pallister),Humboldt's Gift (Saul Bellow), The Life of Dubin (Bernard Malamud), Le Petit Prince (Antoine Saint Exuperie),Elementary Particles (Michel Houellebecq) Don Quichote (Cervantes). In Dutch: De Joodse messias/The Jewish Messiah (Arnon Grunberg), De ontdekking van de hemel/Discovery of Heaven (Harry Mulisch), Gran Café Boulevard (Tomas Lieske), De koperen tuin/ The Brass Garden (Simon Vestdijk), Geheime kamers/Secret Chambers (Jeroen Brouwers), De donkere kaner van Damocles/The Secret Chamber of Damocles (Willem Frederik Hermans), Het woud der verwachting/The Forest of Expectation (Hella Haasse), Het verdriet van BelgiÃ« / The Sorrow of Belgium (Hugo Claus).

Heroes:

Che Guevarra (killed for his ideal)
Nelson Mandela (almost lifetime in prison for his ideal)
Pim Fortuyn (killed for his ideas)
Theo van Gogh (killed because he sympathised with Fortuyn's ideas about integration and assimilation and didn't shut his big mouth when radical fundamental muslims said so).
Who's next?