Everyone's Up. I'm Ahead.

Browse Category

Blog

Disappointment Viewing

July 30, 2026
I have some regrets about the years I spent as a rock critic/entertainment gadfly. I trashed a lot of acts, some of which didn’t, in hindsight, deserve it. I remember crapping on Blondie at Ontario Place way back in the 70s and then paying for it when, years later, I asked for an interview. Deborah Harry had a long memory as it turned out. I also remember, with some remorse, grandstanding at the expense of Tom Horn, one of Steve McQueen’s last films, a revisionist western that has actually held up over the decades.…

The Last Run

May 14, 2026
Two life events happened in the past couple of months. First, I resigned my membership to Soho House and second, I went on a ski trip to Aspen. I know what you’re thinking, in the midst of all the famine, pestilence and drought, Gross is struggling with the service in the first class lounge. Stay with me.…

The Final Destinations

January 30, 2026
I recently returned from a month in Italy. That’s right, a month. Your first reaction is ‘How can he afford it?” The answer is threefold. First, I have some loose change from the sale of the business. Second, I had no place to be and that pretty much continues to today. Third, everybody says that when you retire you’ll have all kinds of time to travel. So I did.…
In Memoriam

In Memoriam

December 22, 2025
This past year was shaping up as a pretty thin year for deaths that struck close to home. Until a couple of months ago it just would have been the celebrities at the bottom I had the pleasure of knowing or just admiring.…
A shelf with toy figurines and mementos

The Urge To Purge

December 1, 2025
I’m in the middle of a major geographic move which I will write about in detail in coming posts. However, the first step in an exodus is to start clearing the underbrush of life so that your final freight situation is not only manageable but of a narrowed breadth and depth that is compatible with, wait for it, a fresh start.…

The Bittersweet Smell of Success

September 1, 2025
It was difficult to find the right cinematic metaphor for the feelings coursing through me as I exited my office for the final time at the end of June. Jump cut to several Hollywood prison release scenes and after trying on a few for size (couldn’t wear Clooney’s cool in Ocean’s 11) the best I could come up with is James Whitmore's parole in Shawshank Redemption not only leaving a place that he had called home for decades but arriving in a world he didn’t quite recognize.…
Go toTop