Big Gray Reunion slated for April

If you're interested, let me know.

Guests

Guests were a great part of Big Gray's history. Sleepover or not, the presence of guests meant instant parties. That tradition continues at my little apartment in Queens. Yesterday, my wife and I entertained a certain Sam who came suffering guilt about not being there with his loving wife. Wifey and I put him right at ease and we had a very nice time and a great lunch. I love cooking for people, as most readers know. But being a private chef has made me really refine my technique. So I experimented on Mr. B. Made us spinach that I added to a pan of garlic, shitake mushrooms and boiled diced potatoes. I added a few beans and a little bow tie pasta and Shazam! Dessert later was World's Fair, Belgium Waffles! Who remembers them? Made them with organic strawberries I mulled in a little confectioner's sugar. Kitchen's open most Sunday afternoons.

Big Gray for Sale?

Today, John Morse sent me a notice from "Brooklyn Brownstones"saying that the current owner of Big Gray has it on the market for a cool 2.2 million dollars. Who wants a 15 room Victorian for that price? The church who sold it to the current owner paid $70,000 for it in 1972.It was then, and it is now a White Elephant. Besides its age and difficulty to heat, the six story building facing the backyard has weighed down the land so that the building is structurally lower in the back .I think a prospective owner would have to address that at some point. Better to turn it back into a commune. Anyone interested?

Facebook

If you are reading all or any of the posts on this blog, chances are you either lived at Big Gray, or were otherwise a part of our history. William, our last Fire Chief set up a Big Gray Alumni group on Facebook. It's a great way to keep in touch with other members (or not). I would like to invite you to join the group-there is the opportunity to join in a forum, post pictures, comment on pictures or just be silent. I'd love to know who finds there way here. If you were ever in Big Gray, wished you were or are just curious about the communal thing come visit our alumni group.

William FKA Bill and the Last Generation

The topping on the cake. The cherry on top.This group of Big Gray kiddos renewed my faith in the communal mischigas. (I'm sure one of the BG Jews will tell me how to spell that) When Bill (I'm calling him Bill) showed up, and it appeared that he might make it through the process which for him was maybe 3 or 4 days, I awoke from my apathetic slumber. I needed to get with him alone and create an idea for him of how the house worked--how the Fire Chief and the Peace Chief were kind of like "good cop /bad cop", or yin and yang, or maybe Abbot and Costello. Anyway,I wanted him, needed him to buy into my original idea of the house. After all, I was the last guy standing who actually cared. No, that isn't right. I'm sure Joyce, Kim and Kristin cared. On the other hand, there was Maureen who probably didn't care at all. But no one was going to discuss conflict resolution, or how to create a fire chief persona with Bill but me. So we talked. We talked a lot . Like a director and his lead actor, we talked. Bill stepped right into the role and played it to the hilt. The last years were great ones in the house. I have a picture of Bill and I hanging a "sweet sixteen" party gizmo over the front door at our annual summer party. a . That was probably his first summer party , so I'll call those six years till the decommissioning of Big Gray, the time of the Last Generation.

The players were Joyce, Maureen , Kim , Kristin, Bill, John D. , Vienna , Eric and Cathy, Hoopy , Eva, Anastasia, Ken ,Brenna , Judith and me. With the exception of Eric and Cathy who were a mistake , and Maureen who wasn't a strong contributor to group dynamic or our culture, we all contributed in a very positive way to what after all, were our best years as a community.
Many of these people are younger than my kids. But we bonded and the stories which I hope they will all finally contribute, are a fitting last note to my opera. So come on you Last Gen readers, it's your turn. What was your Big Gray experience like?

The Process of Finding Members

Finally, I am nearing the end of this sordid tale, dear readers. I find myself a little sad and nostalgic at writing those words as it means the tale of Big Gray is almost over is almost over. Perhaps it's fitting that Alfred Hoffman, the inventor of LSD died yesterday (at 102), as it was fitting that Jerry Garcia died a few months before the end of Big Gray in 1996. I look for those portends always- signs on the path. Anyway, back to the "Real, Real World" as we later called Big Gray in our recruitment ads. Recruitment was the lifeblood of the house because "house chemistry" was really key to enjoying living at Big Gray where we all, more or less suffered each other's warts, as long as we had that spark between us. For me, because I have always both recognized the need , and enjoyed the result, I sought that "chemistry" between myself and the house "fire chiefs" In meetings, I often took their side, but tried to stay short of creating rifts in the tribal fabric.
But, the prospect of getting someone to replace Sam (a Fire Chief who I bonded with) and Dan (who had a looser bond with me) , and someone who had the vision of Big Gray I did, was not something I looked forward to. The culture wars at Big Gray were becoming boring to me. Recruiting had become a tedious process. I needed someone who I liked, someone who had expertise , someone who wouldn't hide in their room, but instead, and this was always the kicker for me, I needed someone who would vigorously promote the idea of the communal experience. This is why I loved our parties large and small. It opened our home and exposed us, not as people shut off from each other , but rather as family members of Big Gray. If you visited one of us, you visited us all. You weren't just Sam's girl friend, or Kristin's mom and sisters, or Becky's friend or... well, you get the idea don't you? Aside from the "chemistry" component and the communal spirit, there was one other very necessary condition. We always needed someone who took care of business financially.We rarely found all of these traits in the same person. I don't honestly remember a single time in the house where everyone was paying their bills in a timely manner. We had always been home to people in transition. Lovely people with little money. Who among the thousands of people perusing the Village Voice wanted to move to the end of the line in Brooklyn, and live in a huge house filled with people who shared their business? They had to be a little crazy. It was our job on the phone and in subsequent interviews to weed out the very crazy, the very boring and the very poor. Then, we had to reach consensus, or continue our search. It's easier to elect a pope.

Christmas at Big Gray

Here in the real world Christmas is finally behind me. Actually, so is Easter. I managed to keep up the tree and Christmas decorations till January 27, my way of saying I hadn't seen enough of friends and family for the Holiday. At Big Gray, Christmas was a special occasion for me as well. From the time Kim crawled out from the attic and hung Christmas lights around our round window at the very top of the house, Christmas has also been a very public celebration .We decorated in our usual anarchistic way, but always managed to end with a beautiful house. Our dining room with its five over sized windows was a cold place in the winter, but on Christmas was transformed into a spacious warm and inviting place to gather and eat.The party was always on Christmas Eve so I could spend Christmas day celebrating with my actual family. Often, I was in the minority of those who both celebrated Christmas and had a family in New York. But at Big Gray, in spite of our association with the feast, we all did Christmas Eve, had a big Christmas tree, and participated in a sit down dinner for as many as 20 plus individuals. I met many brothers, sisters and parents of family members along with scores of friends during those parties. It was always interesting and informative to meet the families of the people I lived with, particularly when family members stayed as two or three day guests. The dinners were crazy affairs, mixed-up and delicious. I learned a lot about cooking for people doing those big Christmas Eve feasts. As many of you know, I am now a private chef and get to both practice my passion for cooking and get paid for it.If you're interested, my daughter Jenn and I are planning a blog on food. If you think I have a lot of opinions about living with people and are still reading this, you'll love (or hate) my opinionated take on food, restaurant reviews, restaurant customers , cooking, eating and life in general.

But back to Big Gray I loved the way our group of Christians , Jews , Atheists and Goddess worshipers managed to put aside our differences and create a joyous, loving celebration . We evolved a Kris Kringle style of gift giving to create some Advent drama. Sometime before the big day, we all picked names out of a hat and became that person's Secret Santa. I enjoyed the bartering sessions after the hat picking , where we secretly exchanged names so as not to have to buy for anyone we currently hated. Then, we would leave small presents for the person of our choice leading to the surprise final gift session after dinner on Christmas Eve. That was fun.

Inevitably, after one of our long Christmas dinners, there would be a feeling of unrest in the room . A chant would silently begin, then fill the house with a crescendo: "Toothpaste, toothpaste, toothpaste! " the crowd would shout,accompanied by the raucous stamping of feet and wild cheers. Then, I would reluctantly rise to my feet and explain that it was time to repeat an ages old tradition at Big Gray. At one of our first parties, I would explain, in order to entertain the guests, Richard (our first Fire Chief) and I enacted three stirring performance pieces.The three were named, "Toothpaste", "Bacon" and the awe inspiring, "One-Armed Janitor".For those readers who saw them only once, they are I know, embedded in your psyches. No further description is necessary. And for those readers who somehow missed Christmas at Big Gray, all I can suggest is invite me over for a big family meal and get me whacked.