Interior Complex
Eight weeks of interior fire fighting operations classes
If you’re local to upstate New York, please scroll to the end of this newsletter for a bit of advocacy. It’s about a time sensitive vote for the Becraft Station in Hudson, NY happening on Tuesday, December 9th.
HI! it’s been forever. I have no shows coming up just yet, but something is shaping up for my upstate New York people in February & a Dronechoir may occur in the Netherlands this March. So stay tuned!
Meanwhile, if you didn’t catch it, here is documentation of the Dronechoir I led at Roulette in Brooklyn this past June. I also posted a Substack explaining the history & philosphy behind the piece. The video is documentation, not a polished recording—and I feel strongly that Dronechoir is best experienced in person. A slightly more properly mixed recording of a 24-minute Dronechoir, EROICA, is available here. Ok, enough caveats—enjoy the video.
You can pledge to support this newsletter with cash money right here (if I ever turn that feature on). For now the single best way to support my creative work is attending my shows, buying music on a platform like Bandcamp, or subscribing to Buke & Gase’s Scholars Alliance which has been running since 2018.
Interior FireFighting Operations, one breath at a time
WINTER IS HERE and I’m overjoyed because summer is such a frenetic timesuck. Everyone’s BusyAF1 including yours truly which makes for less social consistency but more awkward moments as you bump into your friends at random places in town saying “OMG how ARE you oh you’re busy TOO wow yeah we should totally hang out gotta go” and then you both zombie strut away like you shared a magical moment only to feel it wear off as you struggle to remember how you know that person in your BusyAF fueled amnesia.
Alora! I need to catch you up on my autumn activities: I started attending Interior FireFighting Operations classes on September 2nd. It was every Tuesday and Thursday, from 6:30-9:30pm (or later) for a total of 18 classes. I’d go to the gym in the mornings, then work my intense landscaping job, so Tues/Thurs were long, active days. There were 19 people in my class, all men but myself and Astrid. Everyone’s a joker, and each night there’s laughter peppered in the right places. Everyone is respectful and kind, in an arm’s-length-bro kind of way. Even me! For example: my assigned team’s Lieutenant was a trickster with at least two aggravatingly funny dad jokes each night. I secretly enjoyed them, even as I teased him to his face that he was wasting my valuable brain space and limited attention span. As the saying goes, “If they don’t bust your balls, they don’t like you,” and I learned that giving it out—as much as taking it—was a valuable social skill.
In one class, we learned how to rescue both conscious and unconscious patients from a building using a ladder. Each student took turns playing both roles: the uncomfortable “patient” and the nervous rescuer. The drill was awkward by design because the rescuer’s knee has to be firmly planted in the patient’s crotch for the entire descent. (You super duper do not make eye contact during this drill.) But everyone treated one another as gently and respectfully as possible.
Picture it: the black night sky as a backdrop to a floodlight-lit ladder leaning halfway up a two-story building. The practice patient faces away from the ladder, balanced precariously on the rescuer’s knee. The rescuer faces them, gripping the ladder and slowly descending, rung by rung. Other students surround them to steady the ladder; the other students are not crowding, but still pretty close, offering encouragement, and advising when a small adjustment is needed to help the rescuer make their way down.
The instructors are there too, sometimes barking a quick order to “hustle up,” other times giving step-by-step directions, but always watching closely. They don’t want anyone to get hurt, but they need all of us to get through the task so we can get home at a reasonable hour.
This sometimes leads to some rushed, preemptive enthusiasm—or, for lack of a better term, bullying. “You can do it!” or “You’ve got this!” are common phrases of encouragement from my fellow trainees, but they can sometimes be delivered in a way that feel anything but encouraging.
When someone says, “I don’t have this!” or “I don’t think I can do it!” our instinct in many situations is to respond with, “Nah! Look at where you are! You’re so close! You GOT this!” Often, the person doing the encouraging is right on. But there are also times when that confidence is just projection. Those moments are a good opportunity to pause and suspend your expectations, at least briefly.
Unfortunately, while Astrid was practicing as the rescuer with her partner, she was injured in what was likely a frustrating chain of miscommunication—or misplaced encouragement. She was clearly heard saying, “I can’t move my foot,” and “I don’t think I can do it.” But instead of an instructor or nearby supporter hearing this suspending their projected expectations by asking if she could use some assistance, she was advised to continue with those harmless-seeming phrases of encouragement.
She did as she was told. She tried to push on. Almost immediately, she and her partner collapsed to the ground, and Astrid suffered a painfully rolled ankle. After the collapse, several of us sat with her while we iced her injury. She was angry and felt she hadn’t been heard.
From the instructor’s perspective, they didn’t think they’d treated her any differently than they would have treated any other student—which I would say is understandable. However, that approach means the next student who voices fear or uncertainty might be injured in the same way, in a similar situation.
Astrid ultimately did not return to class.
I think any of us would have been just as frustrated by that scenario as she was. As we practice these tasks for the first time, we all want to do them right. At the same time, we’re learning as we go—discovering, sometimes painfully, if we actually can complete those tasks successfully and safely. Speaking as a woman who’s always pushed against traditional gender stereotypes in the workplace, I work overtime to prove that I’m strong enough, worthy of the task at hand, and smart enough to do it with more strength-efficiency than others with more body mass. I exercise so I’m familiar with my physical limits, and I study how to adapt tasks to my strength level through practice. I assume Astrid is just as familiar with her strengths and capabilities as I am with mine, which is why I think she needed to be heard and believed more immediately. But at the end of the day, we all want to pass the test—perhaps to impress our comrades in the process…or simply ourselves.
Astrid was not the only person who didn’t make it through IFO due to physical duress, but I sincerely hope they all retake the class next year.
Just another thought: there was no laughter during class on the anniversary of 9/11 as our instructor read a very heartfelt, impactful essay he’d written about his experience in the fire department on that day, touching on both the importance of the job and its inherent dangers. As as a reminder, this isn’t even a job, because no one gets paid to do it unless you live in a larger city like Kingston, Troy, Schenectady, or NYC. That’s why it’s really nice when Bagel Tyme offers us free bagels after watching us put out a dumpster fire by TJ Maxx, or when Stewart’s Gas Station brings coffee and donuts to a structure fire we’ve been working at since 4:50 a.m.
Keep an informed eye open for those who serve your community! Here are easy links to the past installments of my journey into firefighting.
Pt 1: from Freak to Firefighter — Training for the volunteer firefighting squad in a tiny upstate New York town.
Pt 2: Paperwork! Gear! Hound Dog Heroes! — Initiation (hazing?) in the volunteer fire fighter style
Pt 3: Fast Forward FireFighter! — Learning to fight fires without losing my politics
Save Becraft!
Ok now for the Dramarama I mentioned at the top of this newsletter. If you’re a Hudson resident, here’s what I want you to do:
Please vote YES from 6pm to 9pm on Tuesday, December 9th at:
Becraft Fire Station #1
216 Green Street
Hudson, NY, 12534
If you or a family member aren’t directly involved with the Greenport Fire Department, you likely have no idea what goes on there—including the upcoming PUBLIC VOTE that will determine whether the Town of Greenport’s Pumper #2, also known as Becraft2 (Facebook) receives a new ADA-accessible, three-truck-bay addition. (Or, if the vote is “No,” potentially doom the department to extinction, including the loss of insurance coverage for local residents currently served in their coverage area.)
If you are in the department, you’ve probably already heard the pros and cons—often delivered with heavy, martyred bias—so it stands to reason that some additional clarification could be helpful. Below, I’ve quoted materials prepared by the department down below…
Exciting News for Our Fire Department and Community!
Our firehouse has been the heart of this community for decades — a place where dedication, teamwork, and courage live every single day. Over the years, our firefighters have continued to answer every call, no matter how big or small, always putting others first.
Now, it’s our turn to give something back.We’re proud to share plans for an important addition to our current firehouse — a project that will give our firefighters the space, tools, and resources they need to serve even better.
This addition will mean:
More room for modern equipment and vehicles
Improved training and safety areas
Updated living and work spaces for our firefighters
A more efficient layout for faster response times
This isn’t about building something new — it’s about building on what already makes our department great. It’s about honoring our past while preparing for the future.
Our current apparatus bays are antiquated and failing. Repairing them is not feasible, therefore we must replace. Every improvement we make helps keep our community safer, stronger, and better prepared.
So let’s come together to make this happen on December 9th. Let’s support the men and women who never hesitate to answer the call.
To provide a bit more background on my Busy AFness. The past several summers I’ve worked at the Hudson Youth Center’s summer camp. Here is a documentary about the program. Pretty Sweet AF actually!
Becraft sits in the southern section of the Town of Greenport, which is the shape of a horseshoe that hugs the city of Hudson on three sides, the other side being the Hudson River, which is the natural border for both municipalities.
oh jeez, another Editor's Note: It was <3 ALLTOWN FRESH <3 that brought the coffee to the structure fire on Middle Rd that we were at starting around 4:50am.
CORRECTION: This vote is for the Town of Greenport Residents ONLY, NOT Hudson... !