Abubilla Music

Famous Adoptions

Written by Jimmy

The combination of Steve Jobs’ passing and new government debates about adoption policies has compelled us to ask about famous adoptions.  And, as all things internet, the answer is a click away:  click here.    As we’ve investigated, you pretty much get big adoptions in all the big categories:

• Ancient Kings, Warriors and Philosophers:  Alexander the Great and Aristotle.   Aristotle was taught by Plato and in turn became Alexander the Great’s tutor, although in later life they didn’t like each other much.   As a political philosophy major, I might argue that we should read deeply into Aristotle’s view of music, as this should be instructive to Abubilla Music.    And you are free to do so, as his views are neatly compiled here:  click here.  But as with all things Aristotle, he sucks the life out of every topic you throw at him.  I tried to refresh myself on his thinking and I might summarise as  follows:  music is a heck of a lot of fun (like sleep and drinking) and our little fellas should learn enough to be able to judge whether music is good or not when they go to a performance.   But don’t distract the little guys too much and make them work too hard at it – better they keep focused on phiolosophy, politics and war.  Leave serious music to the gyrations of animals and slave girls.   Sounds pretty good to me.
• Religious Figures:  Jesus (by Joseph) and Moses (by Prince of Egypt).   On Moses, there’s a great Golda Meir quote:  ‘Let me tell you one thing the Israelites have against Moses.   He took us 4o years through the desert in order to bring us  to the one place in the Middle East that doesn’t have oil.”  We all have to agree that good ol’ Joseph has to win the prize hands down for coolest adopter in history.  Imagine the conversation:
  • Her:  I’m pregnant.
  • Him:  But not my me.  We haven’t actually ‘done it’ you know.  Lord knows I’ve tried.
  • Her:  Yeah, well this is where things get a bit complicated.  You see I’m still a virgin.
  • Him:  Are you takin’ the Mick?  I sort of know how babies are made you know.  I AM a carpenter.
  • Her:  Yeah, I thought this was going to be difficult.  This is well… sort of the Lord’s son.
  • Him:  Lord’s son.  Who the hell is Lord?  And how do you know it is a son?
  • Her:  Yeah, well this is where you might want to sit down.
  • Him:  No, I’m fine right here.  hovering rather aggressively over you with my hammer.
  • Her:  It is the Lord’s son… and the little guy was technically divinely conceived.  The angel when on about an immaculate conception, but I’m not really sure what that means.
  • Him: Immaculate conception?    Are you putting me on?
• Writers:  Mark Twain (he’s on the list, but I can’t verify – I think he adopted his pen name and others got confused) and Charles Dickens.  That’s good company.  A number of good quotes from Mark Twain on music:  click here.  My favourite:  “All of us contain music and truth, but most of us can’t get it out.”   For Charles Dicken’s views on music, there’s a full book, that you can download for free:  click here.   Here’s a ‘fact’ (at least on line):  Dickens created a total of 989 characters.  And here’s another fact – if you add a 1000 to that number, you get 1989.  Like a Prayer by Madonna was a top single in 1989.   That might be important.  I leave it to others.  Two favourite Dickens’ quotes:  “To a young heart, everything is fun.” and “There is nothing better than a friend.  Unless it is friend with chocolate.”
• Business Leaders:  Steve Jobs (founder of Apple) and Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle).   In Issacson’s book on Steve Job’s there’s the following passage, where Job’s is talking about how much he hates the current head of Apple that he is about to replace:

That spring Larry Ellison saw Amelio at a party and introduced him to the technology journalist Gina Smith, who asked how Apple was doing. “You know, Gina, Apple is like a ship,” Amelio answered. “That ship is loaded with treasure, but there’s a hole in the ship. And my job is to get everyone to row in the same direction.” Smith looked perplexed and asked, “Yeah, but what about the hole?” From then on Ellison and Jobs joked about the parable of the ship. “When Larry relayed this story to me, we were in this sushi place, and I literally fell off my chair laughing,” Jobs recalled. “He was just such a buffoon, and he took himself so seriously. He insisted that everyone call him Dr. Amelio. That’s always a warning sign.”

• • Singer Songwriters:   Nat King Cole,  John Lennon, Debbie Harry and Bo Diddley:   When Lennon first came to America he was asked which American act he was most eager to see.  He replied Bo Diddley (click here for great article).  When Bo retired, he didn’t want to listen to new music, he retired to listen to Nat King Cole.   For wonderful pictures of Blondie and the Early Beatles, click here.    Let’s just listen to the importance of Bo Diddley’s work, by going through various versions of I’m a Man, starting with his original:
    • Bo Diddley:

• • • John Lennon:

• • • Jimi Hendrix:

You can’t talk about John Lennon and the Beatles any more than talking about Korea.  I know it’s crazy but true.  This is why:

:

In closing, adoptees  are actors, politicians and lots of plain ol’ folks that have been adopted and they are sometimes intertwined – be it Aristotle and Alexader the Great/Diddley/Lennon as Teacher/Student or Ellison and Jobs laughing over a row boat with a hole in it.    Let’s be thankful that Joseph ultimately bought Mary’s story…  A final adoptee was Art Linkletter and the following clips on Kids Say the Darndeest Things seems an appropriate way to end a blog on adoption:

Jimmy