Hi. My Name is James Gross

Top 5 Articles of 2011

A Q&A With A Vacuum Cleaner Salesman | The Awl

Written in 2010. So funny. So sad. So perfectly captures the struggle of trying to live the American Dream. 

Rodrigo Rosenberg’s Murder in Guatemala : The New Yorker

Felt like watching The Wire. You were just reading it. 

Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole) | The Wirecutter

I remember when Lam wrote his first post about meeting Jobs when he was at Gizmodo. I also remember the iPhone 4 drama as it unfolded and finally how Lam wrote this story on the night Jobs died. It just got me and is one of the last things I’ve read that is directly related to Jobs. I don’t want to read anything else on him for awhile. 

California and Bust | Business | Vanity Fair

Total Michael Lewis. His depiction of Arnold made me love and hate him at the same time. The rest of the story, well, damn California, I hope they can work it out. 

Consumed The Story of Hendrik Coetzee | Outside Athletes | OutsideOnline.com

Crazy story about a guy that beat to a different drum. Found his fellow drummer and was expecting to live happily ever after. 

Bonus 

Kelly Slater and Andy Irons, Surfing Rivals - New York Times

This story is 5 years old but it is a good one that I didn’t read it till the beginning of this year. I became a bit obsessed with Irons since his death in November of 2010. I guess I’m intrigued by people that have trouble getting older and also people that feel they’ve lost their competitive edge. I hope Irons found peace in the end. 

I’m equally intrigued by Slater. The man who has never lost his competitive edge and is straight as hell but the competitive demons, I’m sure, make for late nights of thinking and he seems to be a loner. He won another championship this year. My biggest takeaway from watching him this year is he simply doesn’t seem to age. Pretty amazing and equally amazing that for a good-looking, American born athlete, he remains largely unknown by the general population. Slate tried to understand why he isn’t more popular in this article back in 2010.