SubpagesTropers
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Tropers: Midnight Rambler
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And if you ever catch the Midnight Rambler
I'll steal your mistress from under your nose
I'll go easy with your cold fandango
I'll stick my knife right down your throat, baby - and it hurts.
All right, ramblers, let's get ramblin'.
Why, hello there.
I hail from the Netherlands, the beautiful Netherlands - more specifically, from their second-largest city, Rotterdam. I was spawned in that mighty city in 1993, carrying a beautiful set of XY chromosomes which I've taken good care of so far. Right now, I am a student of Electrical Engineering. That's right... taste my lightning.
I am a self-proclaimed intellectual with Social Democratic, atheist and rationalist views which I will defend passionately. I am a proud and active member of the Dutch Green Party. If you speak Dutch, you might want to read my blog , where I share my intelligent, beautifully crafted essays about philosophy, politics, music, and literature... oh, who am I kidding? It's mostly elaborate The Reason You Suck Speeches against our current right-wing government.
And of course, I'M A ROCKER! I play keyboards and sing. My taste is pretty damn conservative, centering on classic rock, Heavy Metal, Stax soul and the blues. I enjoy a nice spot of Classical Music from time to time, too, especially Johann Sebastian Bach's organ works. If you want to know more, and don't mind a Long List, open the "Music" folder below.
Midnight Rambler provides examples of:
A lot of tropes
- All Issues Are Political Issues
- Always Male: Last I checked...
- Ambiguously Autistic: *
Hey, when was that article deleted? I FIT THIS TROPE, BITCHES! I MOTHERFUCKING FIT IT! Even after extensive examination over the course of several years, the psychologists couldn't decide whether I had Asperger's or not. No, seriously.
- Badass Biker: On a bicycle, that is. Who needs combustion engines when you have PURE MANLY MUSCLE?! My personal record is 230 kilometres (about 140 miles) in one day - on a 3-speed utility bicycle, not a racing bicycle.
- Badass Longhair
- Badass Longcoat: I rarely wear it anymore, though - it's Awesome, but Impractical.
- Black and Gray Morality: I think this trope applies to most of Real Life.
- Black Comedy: I love this trope, to the point where my jokes actually scare some people.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Oh so very, very much. I have an IQ of 153, but I'm a real slacker, so my grades aren't all that impressive.
- Casanova Wannabe
- Cursed with Awesome: My Ambiguous Asperger's.
- Deadpan Snarker: On occasion.
- Entry Pimp
- Fanboy: Of Judas Priest in music and George Orwell in literature.
- Gloved Fist of Doom
- Grammar Nazi
- Gratuitous German: I do this a lot, because I love the German language and as a way to practice it.
- Hard On Soft Science
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Duster, boots and gloves all made of black leather.
- Horrible History Metal: I once wrote a metal song called "Foot Soldiers Of The Revolution", about the Spanish Civil War.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- Kinsey Scale: To quote Susan (ridiculously out-of-context) in this El Goonish Shive strip, 'A solid zero. I take pride in this score.'
- Lawful Neutral: Emphasis on the "Lawful". A love of order and structure is absolutely central to my Ambiguous Asperger's.
- Ludicrous Precision: Inverted. Having taken quite a lot of physics and engineering classes, I automatically round off any number - whether it's the time of day, a sum of money, or some measured value - to a relevant level of precision, even in conversation.
- Memetic Molester: A popular subject of jokes among my friends. Not that hard to see where it came from; see Black Comedy and Chivalrous Pervert above.
- Metal Head: Although my musical taste includes much, much more than Heavy Metal, this is the subculture with which I identify most in day-to-day life. I more or less look the part, what with the long hair, combat boots, and Slayer shirt; also, 90% of the concerts I go to are metal concerts (because almost all non-metal music I listen to was made before 1990, making it less likely that the performers are still touring actively).
- Min-Maxing: For most of my childhood, I was ridiculously far ahead of everyone in analytical thinking and general knowledge... but I royally sucked at social interaction and anything requiring fine motor skill. Over the years, it's balanced itself out somewhat, but nowhere near completely.
- Patriotic Fervor: I'm very fond of my country and its national symbols (such as the flag, the monarchy and the national anthem). People who know me sometimes find this odd, given my position on the political left; however, I love the Netherlands precisely because it is - or used to be, at any rate - such a nice left-leaning country.
- Religion Is Wrong: Yes. Yes it is.
- Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: In the front lines for the Enlightenment side!
- Serial Tweaker
- Straight Edge: Not really, but unlike many of my friends, I have never touched tobacco or drugs, nor do I intend to. Alcohol is fine with me.
- Technician Versus Performer: I'm very much on the Performer end.
- Theme Music Powerup: Certain songs really unleash the beast in me.
- TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life: The quantity of your sleep, to be specific.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: I've lived and breathed by this trope since I was 2 or 3 years old. As mentioned above, I was born in the Netherlands in 1993; hear me out about history, music or politics if you like.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The reason why all my attempts at writing a long piece of fiction so far have failed rather miserably.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: I've lost count of the times when I was really looking forward to a date of one kind or another, and the girl called it off (usually due to practical reasons, though I suspect some of them might have been making up excuses).
Midnight Rambler likes:
Comic Books
Film
- Apocalypse Now: The most hauntingly beautiful film I've ever seen.
- Black Snake Moan: This film brings together two major sources of badassitude in American culture: The Blues, and Samuel L. Jackson. 'THE BLUES, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SING IT?!'
- The Blues Brothers: The funniest film I've ever seen. The suits, the lines, the music, the moves... these guys are coolness incarnate.
- A Bridge Too Far
- A Clockwork Orange: See under "Literature".
- Il Conformista
- Grindhouse
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Indiana Jones: All three. Oh, and that Crystal Skull business.
- Kill Bill
- The Lion King: Meant for small children, I know, but it comes back for me to obsess over every few years. Also, it has James Earl Jones.
- The Longest Day
- Monty Python films:
- The Muppet Christmas Carol
- The Producers
- Pulp Fiction: Some films have characters in them who are so funny, adorable and/or Badass that they're just... just... awesome. Pulp Fiction is filled to the brim with such characters. The dialogue is awesome, too.
- Reservoir Dogs: You've probably spotted the Tarantino fan by now.
- Soylent Green: Great plot, set against the most plausible fictional Dystopia I've come across so far.
- Star Wars: Seen all six, of course.
- Terminator: The first Terminator film is pretty good, and the second is just awesome. The third is crap, though, and the fourth is worse. Also, I find it vaguely amusing how many things in these films make no sense whatsoever, and how often the films flatly contradict each other.
- This Is Spinal Tap
Literature
Oh dear, I hope the Lit Fic (and "serious" Non Fiction Literature) won't mind being thrown in here with Genre Fiction and even children's books. The English word "literature" covers a much too broad category.
Music
- NOTE: Not meant as an exhaustive list of everything I listen to. The list is long enough as it is. My favourite favourite favourites - the All-Star Platinum Hall of Fame - are in bold.
- Genres are sorted by how long they've been around. Artists are sorted alphabetically within genres (going by the surname rather than the first name, when it's a personal name).
- None of the artist names link to their pages. Why not? Because I'm not going through the trouble of finding out which ones have a page and if so, in which namespace, that's why not.
Classical Music
- I listen to a lot of old Socialist anthems, patriotic songs from several different countries, and war film themes - sometimes because of the beautiful political and/or patriotic messages in the lyrics, but more often than not, just for ham. As these songs come from a lot of different artists/composers, many of whom I only know one song of, I thought I'd mention them separately.
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Franz Liszt
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Sergey Rachmaninov
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Richard Wagner
Folk and Country
- Blaas Of Glory: HEAVY METAL MARCHING BAND!
- J.J. Cale
- Captain Gumbo
- Jim Croce
- Johnny Cash
- Bob Dylan
- Free Beer
- Paul Kuhn
- Leadbelly
- Steeleye Span
Blues
- Canned Heat: One of the great bands of The Sixties... AND I'VE SEEN THEM LIVE.
- Cuby & The Blizzards
- Fats Domino: The greatest boogie-woogie pianist ever, period.
- Fleetwood Mac (first incarnation)
- Buddy Guy
- John Lee Hooker
- Son House
- Howlin’ Wolf
- Robert Johnson
- Albert King
- Alexis Korner
- Little Walter
- Livin’ Blues
- Mississippi Fred McDowell
- Muddy Waters
- Professor Longhair
- Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- Seasick Steve
- Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers
- Big Joe Turner
- T-Bone Walker
- Sonny Boy Williamson II
Rock & Roll
- Chuck Berry: The most important of the '50s rock and roll stars.
- Bo Diddley
- Buddy Holly
- Jerry Lee Lewis: The most fun of the '50s rock and roll stars. Goodness gracious, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!
- Little Richard
- The Ventures
Reggae and Ska
- Prince Buster
- Madness
- Bob Marley
- The Police
- The Selecter
- The Specials
- UB40
Soul and Funk
- The Blues Brothers
- Booker T. & The M.G.s
- James Brown
- Aretha Franklin
- Wilson Pickett
- Otis Redding
- Sam & Dave
- Sly & The Family Stone
- Swamp Dogg
- Ike & Tina Turner
- War
The British Invasion
Blues Rock
- The Allman Brothers Band
- The Blues Project
- Alice Cooper
- Cream
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Grand Funk Railroad
- Jimi Hendrix: The Creator I Worship.
- Little Feat
- Lonnie Mack: The forgotten hero of Blues Rock guitar, even more so than Buddy Guy. This man put out an album full of guitar solos that would put Eric Clapton to shame, in fucking 1963 - and yet I only heard about him in the first place because he guest-starred on Morrison Hotel, playing bass.
- Santana
- Status Quo
- Steppenwolf
- Ten Years After
- The Yardbirds
- ZZ Top
Psychedelic Rock
- Blue Cheer
- Arthur Brown
- Grateful Dead
- DeWolff
- The Doors
- Iron Butterfly: Dun dun, da da doo dun DAN dan dan...
- Jefferson Airplane
- Traffic
- Quicksilver Messenger Service
- The Velvet Underground
Hard Rock
- AC/DC
- Aerosmith
- Black Sabbath
- Deep Purple
- Led Zeppelin
- Pretty Maids
- Uriah Heep
- Wishbone Ash
Progressive Rock
- Amon Düül II
- Birth Control
- Ekseption
- Emerson, Lake & Palmer
- Focus
- Gentle Giant
- Jethro Tull
- King Crimson
- Pink Floyd
Arena Rock
- Meat Loaf
- Queen
- Bruce Springsteen: The Boss!
(Proto-)Punk
- De Boegies
- The Clash
- Dead Kennedys
- MC5
- Nina Hagen
- The Levellers
- Nashville Pussy
- Peter Pan Speedrock
- The Pogues
- Iggy Pop
- The Sex Pistols
- The Stooges
- Die Toten Hosen
Heavy Metal of old
- Diamond Head
- Forbidden
- Gamma Ray
- Helloween: AAAAAAAH! It's Halloween.
- Iron Maiden
- Judas Priest
- Kreator
- Metallica (strictly the first three albums, though)
- Motörhead
- Picture
- Saxon
- Sepultura
- Slayer
- Sodom: Rrrrrrrhhhh.... A-GENT ORANGE!
- Testament
- Venom
More recent Heavy Metal
- Alestorm
- Onkel Tom Angelripper
- Children Of Bodom
- Dimmu Borgir
- Ensiferum
- Finntroll
- Forefather
- HammerFall
- Knorkator: Their lyrics are really Zappa-level funny. If you know German, that is.
- Korpiklaani
- TrollfesT: The future of metal!
Stuff from other genres
- The Amazing Stroopwafels
- David Bowie
- Dire Straits
- Gruppo Sportivo
- Joe Jackson: Now that's one man who knows how to snark.
- Janis Joplin
- Robert Long
- Steve Miller
- Drs. P: A true master of the Dutch language.
- Lou Reed
- Simon & Garfunkel
- Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht: Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral!
- Marius Müller-Westernhagen
Defies categorisation
- The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
- Raymond van het Groenewoud: Quite possibly the most awesome human being ever to come from Belgium.
- Frank Zappa
Tabletop Games
Television
Video Games
Webcomics
Real Life
- Cheap Scotch whisky.
- Women. Especially Ladettes. Not that I'm in a position to be picky...
- Explaining stuff to people.
Midnight Rambler has started the following articles so far:
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