Checking Into Hotel California

Bowling With "The Jesus"

First written in 2021, among my first posts on Substack. Critical Conditions will be four years old in a month or so I’d like to ask those who can afford it to take out a paid subscription. Paid subscribers ($54 a year, $7.50 a month) amount to slightly more than two percent of the total. Most of my “never paywall” colleagues are putting up paywalls. If you are a heavy user or longtime free subscriber, I’d ‘preciate you’ (I’m watching Ted Lasso again) if you can afford to do so.

Last week my daughter Jackie went to see The Eagles at Madison Square Garden. Her husband Joe, a lawyer, got free tickets, so they said, why not? Joe said they sounded like a country band, but that guitarist Joe Walsh fired up the crowd. And that the late Glenn Frey's son Deacon had been an adequate replacement. Son-in-law Joe is just getting his pop culture wings, so he'll enjoy most well-played events. Jackie is more critical: a flute major in college, a vaccine lab scientist now, she has her particulars, and…