Okay, it’s all right for America to invade Iraq on false pretenses and kill up to a million people, but when Israel responds to an attack and there are tens of thousands of collateral deaths they’re a pariah.

Actually, how many people really died?

Well, you can go to the Wikipedia page “Casualties of the Iraq War”: https://t.ly/wM8Os and see the count varies from 151,000 violent deaths to the aforementioned million. As for how many civilians have actually been killed in Gaza? The figure proffered has been done so by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, and the number is 41,802 Palestinians as of October 4th: https://t.ly/lG0mx Is that an accurate count? How many of these people were civilians and how many soldiers? And let’s not forget fighting an enemy based in tunnels is very different from what was going on in Iraq.

But those damn Jews.

This is a great example not to listen to conventional wisdom, not to cower and cave to pressures from the ignorant and those with a different agenda.

Is Netanyahu staving off a jail sentence? Possibly, but that’s got nothing to do with the war in Gaza. It’s just another way of undercutting the Israelis/Jews, who are now conflated into one, just try being a run-of-the-mill Jew on a college campus, good luck.

So what are all those pro-Palestinian protesters going to say now? Are they going to double-down and defend Sinwar? Well, I didn’t hear these same people or their forebears upset with the U.S. for taking out Osama bin Laden.

All we’ve been hearing for a year is the Israelis must pull back, that the war in Gaza is unwinnable, that you can’t eliminate Hamas and there is too much collateral damage. But when wars are waged elsewhere, there’s silence. What’s the difference? These are JEWS!

It’s in the news every day. This antisemitic attack, that one. Here in the U.S! And if Jews are different from Zionists, if there’s a line between them as so many say, what accounts for this uptick, no this tsunami of antisemitism?

This is me. This is you, the rest of the Jews. This has got nothing to do with Democrat or Republican, Harris or Trump. This is living in these United States today. We may not have a different skin color, but we control the media, the weather, we have space lasers… We are the enemy. People hate us. We are the other.

And we’re supposed to kowtow to the pretenses, the beliefs, the instructions, the demands of the mainstream.

That’s what we’ve been hearing for our entire lives, we are LOUD-MOUTHED JEWS! We’ve got to shut up, be quiet. They don’t want to destroy the culture of the Italians or the African-Americans or seemingly any other ethnic group, but Jews are constantly told to conform.

And when we try to, and so many of us do, it doesn’t work anyway.

Antisemitism creeps to the highest levels. Good luck getting into certain country clubs, certain organizations. Oh, they have a token Jew, a token female, a token Black to get the government off their back, but believe me, they hate the Jews, they want nothing to do with them.

So, Israel fights for a year and gets the head guy, the mastermind, that’s how long it took. The same guy who wanted an endless war until Israel disappeared, that’s what the River to the Sea means.

And if just a little bit of Hamas was left, they would consider it a victory. And Israel is just supposed to lay down arms? When Hamas used all this aid to build tunnels as opposed to feed the people? And do you think these fighters are stupid? They intentionally built strongholds beneath hospitals and homes, knowing that the world would freak out if Israel retaliated. Have you read about all the homes in Lebanon where arms are stored? Yup, imagine having some missiles in your living room, that’s not a fantasy in Lebanon.

So despite all the pressure, from the governments, from the media, Israel stayed the course. Because that’s what it takes to win, to achieve victory. Everything worth doing is hard. But, once again, the Jews are hamstrung, they should not be allowed to fight, not even with one hand behind their back.

And all the propaganda put out by Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran is believed without analysis, whereas everything the Israelis do is pored over in detail, delineated and decried.

So what do you say now?

That’s what I want to know, what do all those pro-Palestinian people say now?

But look at how rich Israel is!

Do you think money grows on trees? Are they not entitled to the fruit of their labor?

But look at how much money the U.S. gives Israel!

Sans Iran Hamas and Hezbollah are out of business.

It’s a double standard I tell you.

They want us to retreat to what once was. With our own clubs, our own universities, our own communities. They want us quiet and out of the way. They don’t want to be replaced by us, isn’t that what they said in Charlottesville?

I’m not going to sit here and tell you I approve of everything Israel does. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I approve of everything every Jew does. Unfortunately, we’ve got bad actors amongst our tribe, however much it pains us.

But thank god we’ve also got people who stand up for what is right.

For the past twenty years especially, we’ve been subjected to this pro-Palestinian nonsense. Israel bad, Palestinians good. To the point where even Jews are parroting this b.s., for fear of being ostracized, excluded.

Am I saying there are no good Palestinians?

OF COURSE NOT!

Am I going to sit here and tell you the West Bank is a paradise?

NO!

But it’s not black and white. It’s complicated. And the bottom line is the Palestinians don’t want to leave the Israelis alone. If you think if Israel pulled out of Gaza and the West Bank there would be no problems… You don’t know that Israel already pulled out of Gaza…and look what happened!

Do I have sympathy for the injured, the dead, the collateral damage?

Yes. But this is war. And Hamas attacked first. Broke a ceasefire.

But all we keep hearing is Israel must bend over backwards.

And by writing this I cement my place on the wrong side of the fence. By speaking up I am excoriated. Don’t I know this is not the leftist position? Well, is that how it is, a litmus test? You must be pro-Palestinian to be a Democrat?

And if you think the Republicans care about Israel and the Jews…if they do so at all, it’s only because the land is the birth of Christianity.

No, we’re alone. Condemned by all.

Not the only outside group, but hated for millennia. Hell, we were on the land first and we’re still not entitled to it. They just gave beach property back to Blacks in Southern California, but the Jews aren’t entitled to their homeland.

And my e-mail tells me not to equate Blacks with Jews. But all I can say to this is… What did Ye have to say about the Jews? And he’s not the only one!

Don’t bring up false equivalencies to try and make me blink and shut up. All my life I’ve been the other. I brought salami on rye bread to a construction site and they made fun of me. I could list a litany of misdeeds, mistrust, put-downs…but all I’m told is to STFU!

Yes, I’m happy today. Not only because Sinwar was taken down, but because this war is now closer to ending. This is what it took. Nothing short of this was going to work. And let’s not forget, the Israelis coughed up Sinwar and 1,026 other Palestinians in exchange for just one Jew back in 2011. That’s how the game works. Or maybe you could just say that Israel values life more than Hamas, is not willing to sacrifice it willy-nilly.

Am I going to defend everything Netanyahu and the Israelis have done?

OF COURSE NOT!

But I’m not going to defend everything the U.S. had done either.

And if we Jews don’t stand up for our identities, our truth, it will be run right over and snuffed out, we will become even bigger pariahs. In a world where the truth is elusive. Where even a hurricane is subject to conspiracy theories, what chance do the hated Jews have to be accepted at face value, to be given the benefit of the doubt?

NOT MUCH!

I don’t want more than you’ve got. I just want the same. And I know this will never be. But if you expect me to lay down and take it, to be quiet, to go with the flow…

YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING! 

Bassist for Black Sabbath!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/geezer-butler/id1316200737?i=1000673421902

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e6ed01bd-35c8-4806-9b5e-4b9014fe384c/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-geezer-butler

Libby and I were very close many years ago and ran around LA together during a particularly crazy time in both of our lives.

We met through Maria Muldaur.
I wrote “Long Hot Summer Nights” about Libby and me-we loved each other, had a lot of fun, wrote songs together, and I even cut some things on her that were not released.

She was a delightful, brilliant, one-of-a-kind human being, a rare bird indeed.

She was also visually one of the most stunning and original women I’ve ever known.

I saw her in New York years later before she connected with Fagen, when she was working at Henri Bendel (of course, those who knew her would say!) in the fur department, elegant and marvelous as ever whether she was rich or poor.

Complex and authentic. Beautiful, troubled, sweet.

Very sad to hear this.

Wendy Waldman

____________________________________

I was a student at Bard College at the same time as Libby Titus (then Libby Jurist). It was certainly a magic time and place. My brother Terence and I were housed in a dorm called Potter Hall, and Libby was in our circle of friends, which included Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Blythe Danner, Chevy Chase, and quite a few others. We all played in various campus bands at the time. On at least two occasions, Bob Dylan, in the famous blue Ford station wagon, would come by and sit around swapping songs with us. Sitting on the foot of my bed, playing my old Gibson acoustic, he sang a song he had just written, “It’s Alright, Ma, I’m Only Bleeding.” Libby knew him quite well from Woodstock, her home town. Her father owned a rare sports car dealership in Nyack.

Libby had a beautiful soprano voice and I often played guitar behind her, usually covering Judy Collins material. Her boyfriend and later husband, Barry Titus, an heir to the Helena Rubinstein fortune, was a frequent weekend visitor. She left school to marry him, but we all stayed friendly in New York City afterwards.

I kept in touch with her sporadically over the years, through the many changes in her life, especially when I produced her song, “Love Has No Pride,” with Linda Ronstadt. When Columbia released her album, we all attended a lavish showcase for it at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I last saw her at a party at my sister’s apartment in Manhattan many years ago. She was a very special person. I will miss her.

Best,
John Boylan

____________________________________

You missed one. Libby Titus was also Mac Rebenac’s (Dr. John’s) partner for years. They lived in NYC together after her relationship with Levon Helm ended and before she fell in with Donald Fagan. She sure had good taste in musicians. All very musical cats for sure. She had a vicious vitriolic knife edge sense of humour that was extremely funny at the same time. She could have been a stand up comedian with her very own dark but brilliant stand up act. Very, very intelligent lady for sure.

Andy Newmark

____________________________________

Libby and I wrote several songs together back in the ’70’s-80’s when she lived out here in L.A.  She was among the smartest, funniest people I have ever known.

Maria Muldaur and I tried to get her to employ her quirky genius to write her memoirs but I doubt that ever happened.

I’m so sorry she’s gone.

Greg Prestopino

____________________________________

I worked the Rock and Soul Revue shows at the Beacon which gave us a great live recording.

Libby Titus ran ( produced – in every sense of the title ) the whole thing- admired for getting Fagen out and enjoying playing, I think it gave him life.

I admire her for that.

Cheers, T.S.

____________________________________

Libby Titus contributed to Donald Fagen’s great solo album from the 90s- KAMAKIRIAD. She co-wrote “Florida Room” which is a terrific jazz fusion number from that album.

Anthony Napoli

____________________________________

Very well said. I knew her from her days with Levon and Eric Kaz. The guys in the Band loved her small soft voice, which in today’s world would be contemporary.

Best Regards,
Bob Tulipan

____________________________________

I knew her first husband, Barry Titus, and her son, Ezra Titus… both died by suicide. Drama.  Sad.  But, the daughter Libby had with Levon Helm is the fantastic artist, Amy Helm. She has a fine new album out.  Please give her a listen.  She is every bit Levon and Libby!  They would both be so proud.

X

Beki Brindle-Scala

New York

She died.

And she’s not the only one. Not a week goes by that someone from rock history doesn’t pass over to the other side, and it’s so weird. It’s not like they were cut down in their prime, but it’s the end of an era. And it’s only going to get worse.

The household names? I used to be convinced that the Beatles would last for at least another hundred and fifty more years, but Steve Jobs is unknown to the younger generation and I don’t see anything happening to make him a latter day hero. And I always cite W.C. Fields, who was an icon in the sixties, we saw his movies, imitated his voice, I don’t think anybody under fifty even knows who he is.

And when I grew up, we could see the beginning of the enterprise, i.e. movie-making, now not only are there decades of movies, almost like books, but there’s footage of events and little is left to the mind to picture.

Now Libby Titus is famous for one thing, she co-wrote “Love Has No Pride” with Eric Kaz. Originally appearing on Bonnie Raitt’s second album “Give It Up,” the song was then covered by Linda Ronstadt and ultimately became a standard.

But Titus was also involved with Levon Helm. And was Donald Fagen’s long time spouse when she died. And there was that physical altercation that made the news, funny that Paul Simon had a similar situation, but if these people weren’t famous no one would know. And although I’ve never been so angered as to touch a woman, and I don’t approve of it, it’s not only musicians who do it, and sometimes women do it too.

What I mean is the story would be average, if the people involved weren’t celebrities.

Not that we really knew who Libby Titus was. I bought her Columbia album, there was an indie LP years before that that was completely unavailable. I needed to go deeper, after all she wrote that song! And I’m not going to sit here and tell you the album is one of my favorites, but I did lay down cash and I did play it and…

It’s completely different today. If you’re interested in someone who wrote the song… You go online, you check out their version, probably don’t make it all the way through, and then you never go back to it ever again.

And that person is wholly available. Not only on Spotify and YouTube, but Instagram, TikTok, X… Although there are aged punters proud of being offline, they’re the exception, and they’re fading away, everybody else is known and accessible, there’s no mystery, and even the biggest acts are cults.

Taylor Swift? Donald Trump? Cults. Trump selling merch is no different from Swift and the rest of the acts doing the same thing. And I can’t seem to find anybody who hasn’t been to the Eras tour who can name, never mind sing, two of Swift’s songs. Ditto on Trump. Who bought stock in Truth Social? Never mind the Bibles and the rest of the chozzerai, but that’s stardom today. Let me be clear, everybody needs something to believe in to get through life. Otherwise you’re dislocated. And since so much happens virtually, you need to tie yourself in, you need to make an effort to belong, otherwise you’re alone and depressed. You’re not a pariah, because no one cares about the left out. There’s just too much going on to be concerned with those outside the game. The classic example here is when someone didn’t know about a record pre-internet, musos would make fun of them. If you make fun of someone for not knowing a song or a movie or a TV series today…I’m laughing at YOU! Is your world so circumscribed, so tiny, that you’re deep into one thing to the exclusion of others? Or are you just one of those pricks who is always jockeying for position…

So this was not breaking news, Libby’s death. It didn’t merit a red headline atop the CNN homepage. I stumbled on it.

Used to be the death of those from the classic era was a big story, a shock, that we all needed to be made aware of, that put us in a bad mood as we testified how great they were.

Now it’s just news.

The one I can’t get over is Christine McVie. 79?? I mean she was not cut down in her prime, but she sat out the Fleetwood Mac reunions, got back together with the band, was as great as ever, and then PFFFT! Gone! And who is going to follow her?

So thinking about Libby Titus, I was reminded of “Give It Up” and I pulled it up on Qobuz, the best-sounding streaming service. You have to wait for the track to spin up, it’s not instant, the service is not the tweaked to perfection Spotify, but the sound…

Is oftentimes better than CD.

But “Give It Up” was not in Hi-Res, 24 Bit/96kHz, but it sounded…

Clear as day, yet primitive.

This is one of my favorite albums. Was the best Raitt until “Luck of the Draw.” Yes, Bonnie is one of the few artists who peaked again, like Bob Dylan with “Blood on the Tracks.”

And for some reason I wanted to hear the jangly opening cut, “Give It Up or Let Me Go.” And it made sense, but then I changed to my absolute favorite, her Joel Zoss cover, “Too Long at the Fair”:

“Jesus cried, he wept and died

I guess he went up to heaven”

Wow, Freebo’s bass.

And then “You Told Me Baby,” which Bonnie actually wrote, along with “Nothing Seems to Matter,” an absolute killer on the first side.

And all this led me to Jackson Browne, actually, the two are buddies.

I needed to hear the piece-de-resistance, “Late For the Sky,” and in this case, it was in Hi-Res.

“All the words had all been spoken

And somehow the feeling still wasn’t right”

This was the song you listened to, the album you listened to after a breakup, even though it’s not considered a classic breakup album.

And Jackson earns his stripes with these words:

“You never knew what I loved in you

I don’t know what you loved in me

Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be”

Genius. Right up there with Don Henley’s “Wasted Time”: 

“So you can get on with your search baby

And I can get on with mine

And maybe someday we will find

That it wasn’t really wasted time”

And of course I played “For A Dancer,” and there was Freebo’s tuba on “Walking Slow” and…

I needed more.

But it had to be in Hi-Res. I wanted to hear “For Everyman,” yet it was not.

But the debut was, and I pulled up my favorite song from the LP, “Something Fine,” and Jackson sounded completely different. His voice was higher and thinner. And Crosby sounded great in the background, and the production was good, and after “Rock Me on the Water” and “Song For Adam” I needed more.

But when it came to Hi-Res…

I ended up playing “Looking East” from the recent live album, “The Road East – Live in Japan.”

And this was a completely different Jackson. He was comfortable with his voice, it was deeper and…

I was stunned how great the lyrics in these songs were. Because that was what Jackson was selling, songs, not his vocals. He was one step above. And very few are. And if you are, people take notice.

And I thought to myself, is anybody writing songs this good today?

And while I’m contemplating this, I’m thinking about Jackson’s age. I remember talking to him about his 70th birthday at the side door of the Orpheum, when was that?

I checked on Wikipedia. Jackson Browne is 76, as a matter of fact, he just had a birthday on October 9th.

Does anybody under twenty know who Jackson Browne is?

And how many only know him from “Somebody’s Baby,” from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Or “Doctor My Eyes.” Both of which don’t even get to the heart of the matter.

He could die any minute.

Or live to a hundred, I don’t know.

But what I do know is time keeps on slippin,’ slippin’, slippin’ away.

I heard Steve Miller’s “Rock’n Me ” the other day, pushing through Spotify. It was next, next, next, next, I couldn’t find a song that satiated me, but then this…

“Rock’n Me” was a comeback. Miller was considered done.

And the stunning thing is “Rock’n Me” is only 3:09, from an era when everybody was stretching out, this hearkened back to the sixties.

And maybe more youngsters know Steve Miller more than Jackson Browne…

But if you’re a boomer, chances are both are part of your DNA… And they’re fading in the rearview mirror as I write this.

Did you see that the Robbie Robertson tribute hasn’t sold out? I keep seeing ads on social media. Impossible. But then a promoter told me…how many people want to see 75 year old guys? And Eric Clapton and Van Morrison are pushing 80, just one year away.

Time marches on.

But we didn’t expect it to be this way. We thought we’d rule until we died. Everything we deemed important would remain so. But then they kept making more people and along came the internet and despite so many trying so hard to hang on, the conveyor belt keeps humming along, ready to push us all over the edge.

Icons!

But when they come to town, the whole burg doesn’t know about it, like we did in the seventies. There’s just too much information.

And younger acts that can’t hold a candle to the legends are selling tickets. More commerce than music. Closer to Trump than Libby Titus.

And life is too hard to be a songwriter. You may never make it. And then you won’t be able to afford health insurance, and when your car breaks down you’ll be SOL and then you’ll be on your deathbed and someone will start a GoFundMe…

It’s just plain weird.

I know who Libby Titus is. And I’m stunned reading the obits that she had a whole life. They all do/did. But we didn’t think so. We thought they made records, performed live and were rich and lived a much better life than the rest of us, that we could aspire to but never reach.

But this didn’t turn out to be true. The more time that goes by the more they’re like me and you. They couldn’t go to the grocery store, and now no one even bugs them if they do.

All I’m saying is it’s positively strange.

I didn’t anticipate this phase of life.

But here we are.