James Bowie Quotes

Crockett and James Bowie got what was coming to them,” Mom said, “for stealing this land from the Mexicans

Texas was where the action was. It became a lodestar, pulling an enormous number of the men—Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and others—who were already in some way legends on the old frontier. As one historian wrote, Texas seemed to cast some sort of spell, to make men who were cold, pragmatic, and opportunist in the main, want to go and die.

Bowie blushed. “You have more red flags than a car dealership.

So, you have been to jail,” Bowie said, tensing.  “I’ve been to several.”  “That’s…” Javier wiggled his brows. “Hot?”  “I was going to say alarming,” he countered, voice clipped.  “Liar,” Javier said.

Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, which affected the Anglo-American settlers' quest for wealth in building plantations worked by enslaved Africans. They lobbied the Mexican government for a reversal of the ban and gained only a one-year extension to settle their affairs and free their bonded workers - the government refused to legalize slavery. The settlers decided to secede from Mexico, initiating the famous and mythologized 1836 Battle of the Alamo, where the mercenaries James Bowie and Davy Crockett and slave owner William Travis were killed.

Bowie himself said, “Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.”2 After reviewing his troubled early years, British psychologist Oliver James wrote, “What seems to have been the trigger for his shift from distressed and tortured to emotionally healthy, was his adoption of personas in his musical career.”3

Rock has always been the Devil’s music…I believe rock and roll is dangerous…I feel we’re heralding something even darker than ourselves.” – David Bowie, Rolling Stone, February 12, 1976

How do you do this every day?” he asked, hating the sound of his own voice. It felt like he’d spent the night gargling glass. They said he had minor trauma to his throat and vocal cords. Whether it was the screaming or the forced oral sex, Bowie didn’t know.

Bowie had believed her. He’d ached for her. But he hadn’t known it was like this, hadn’t understood the feeling of being…violated. Violated in a way that felt like the person had invaded you on an atomic level, changed your DNA somehow. Nobody could know—could possibly understand—until it happened to them.

For my mother, the experience was emotional. When my music was evolving, I hadn’t allowed her to hear it. For years up on Cloverdale, I had always locked myself in my room, not letting anybody hear what I was doing. Then, after I moved out, I never invited her to hear me working in the studios. So, when Let Love Rule was released, she was completely shocked. She could hear how everything that I had experienced on my journey came alive in that album: Tchaikovsky; the Jackson 5; James Brown; the Harlem School of the Arts; Stevie Wonder; Gladys Knight and the Pips; Earth, Wind & Fire; Miles Davis; Jimi Hendrix; Led Zeppelin; KISS; the California Boys’ Choir; Prince; David Bowie; Miss Beasley’s orchestra; the Beverly Hills High jazz band; the magical spark between me and Lisa; the spirit of our daughter. More than anyone, Mom knew that I had poured every aspect of my life into this effort. That was enough to make her proud. But what blindsided her—and me as well—was the sight of thousands of fans singing lyrics that I had written—and most of those fans didn’t even speak English.

kissing Bowie was death by paper cut, slow, torturous, exhilarating.

by refusing to repeat it, much to the despair of their record companies. Both wrote gorgeous sci-fi ballads blatantly inspired by 2001—“Space Oddity” and “After the Gold Rush.” Both did classic songs about imperialism that name-checked Marlon Brando—“China Girl” and “Pocahontas.” Both were prodigiously prolific even when they were trying to eat Peru through their nostrils. They were mutual fans, though they floundered when they tried to copy each other (Trans and Tin Machine). Both sang their fears of losing their youth when they were still basically kids; both aged mysteriously well. Neither ever did anything remotely sane. But there’s a key difference: Bowie liked working with smart people, whereas Young always liked working with . . . well, let’s go ahead and call them “not quite as smart as Neil Young” people. Young made his most famous music with two backing groups—the awesomely inept Crazy Horse and the expensively addled CSN—whose collective IQ barely leaves room temperature. He knows they’re not going to challenge him with ideas of their own, so he knows how to use them—brilliantly in the first case, lucratively in the second. But Bowie never made any of his memorable music that way—he always preferred collaborating with (and stealing from) artists who knew tricks he didn’t know, well educated in musical worlds where he was just a visitor. Just look at the guitarists he worked with: Carlos Alomar from James Brown’s band vs. Robert Fripp from King Crimson. Stevie Ray Vaughan from Texas vs. Mick Ronson from Hull. Adrian Belew from Kentucky vs. Earl Slick from Brooklyn. Nile Rodgers. Peter Frampton. Ricky Gardiner, who played all that fantastic fuzz guitar on Low (and who made the mistake of demanding a raise, which is why he dropped out of the story so fast). Together, Young and Bowie laid claim to a jilted generation left high and dry by the dashed hippie dreams. “The

Davy Crockett and James Bowie got what was coming to them," Mom said. "for stealing this land from the Mexicans"—and