Early this month I spent five lonely days in lovely Braidwood,NSW. I described this town to my family as a Woodland, CA (my hometown)circa 1884. It looks like one of those gold rush towns whose facadecould be the set of an old Western. But there is no Hollywood actionto be found here, mostly it is a few cafes and quilting shops. Mymother actually emailed me to say that she had learnt of it's quiltingfame through google and asked if I wouldn't mind stopping by the shopand picking up some fabric for her. After announcing my purpose at thestore, I bought her a ten pack selection of indigenous aboriginalpatterns for about $50 and sent it off along with the Encyclopedia ofAussie Animals I picked up at Corrumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Nothinghas changed much over the course of time in Braidwood, and the town boasts a population of around 2000- though the sign welcoming you to the town says 1,100.
And so I came to Braidwood on
assignment for my role as a multimedia officer for the NSW Fire
Brigades. The brigades had organised to burn a house in this town for
fire research. This house was actually more like a shed, which
recently was cleared of asbestos and reinforced with some simple dry
wall and carpentry. I was told that the project was a cooperative
effort between the NSW Police, Arson & Forensics, NSW Fire
Brigades, and some pioneering researchers from universities in Sydney.
As it turned out, I found myself mainly associating with the university
researchers as they were the youngest and most eccentric of the bunch.
Hamish stood out immediately, with his early 90s death metal look of
long hair shaved on the sides and held tightly in a ponytail, black
gothic clothing and constant sardonic commentary. I loved him
immediately, and his techie geek / mad scientist persona did not cease
to entertain me at every turn. He was on board to test out some goggles
and special cameras which he designed for the firies to wear as a point
of regard in their attacks on an incident. Some of the footage which
survived was absolutely amazing and will serve to supplement nicely my
wide shots on the exterior of the house burns. Debbie in contrast was
a soft spoken young lady who was graphing the various temperature
changes throughout the rooms of the house as they were burnt one by
one. She also happened to be easily the most popular member of our
trio as she was more or less the prettiest thing in a sea of
testosterone (I don't count myself of course, these blokes wanted
blondes!) :P
The schedule of the burns was straightforward: one or two burns a
day, starting at 9am and more or less finished by 2pm. Each experiment
started with a planned scenario, such as a crime scene with actual
human blood samples or a pig carcass. The photographer from the police
took "Iswrap" images which basically were meticulous 360° records of
the rooms before and after. Later, he would stitch these together with
software on his mac and create a virtual world from the images.
Suffice it to say he was the fourth component of our gadget nerd clan,
and we all somehow would get stuck with one another at meals each
evening. This was another highly organised affair, with a different
pre-arranged location every day. On the first night at the local
pizzeria, the death metal geek got my blood boiling when he retold an
experience working with some firies on another occasion. Basically he
was saying that in a video they dedicated to him, these firemen asked,
"What do you think of that guy Hamish, seems like a bit of a poof don't
ya think?" The firies then all agreed and had a good laugh at his
expense, which he didn't seem to mind and somehow felt it necessary to
reiterate here now. It was almost as if he were putting his lack of
masculinity on display, or in effect rendering harmless a homophobic
incident by offering himself as the brunt of the joke. It worked, he
elicited laughs from the table and broke the ice for the men I suppose.
I kept my head down and tried to not react, but this went noticed by
one of the senior firies who had asked me earlier why I moved to
Australia and knew about Brian. He immediately involved me in
conversation and asked if I wouldn't like another beer. Yes, I very
much would I replied.
We continued on to one of the local bars and I attempted to shake
off the comment from dinner but felt a bit alienated. Memories of
growing up in a small town in the Central Valley of California came to
me. I decided I wouldn't bother getting to know any of the people here,
they were bound to dissapoint. Instead I chose to peruse the jukebox
and make my selections for everyone, Santana. . . Queen. . . Tom Jones
singing "Burning Down the House". I thought the last one was cheeky
and would get a good response, but before the song came on I got a call
from Bri and went into the pokies room. By the time my selections were
through the bar had emptied and everyone was gone! Ah well, I was
drunk and ready for bed.
Back at the motel where I was staying, the lodge owners reassured
me that mine was the "dearest" of the rooms and to not mind the
supernatural visitors should they decide to come around. This didn't
creep me out nearly as much as the lace draping from the bedposts or
the various little dolls which stood on the mantle- sort of out of
place and imposing in a miniature freak show way. I was just grateful
to be alone, and have some space to stretch out and do my editing.
Evidently the Assistant Commissioner from the Police force was arriving
the next night, and I was warned about the arson guys who were staying
there. "Those boys like to play hard, they will be keeping you up all
night with their drinking" said Bob Alexander, head of Fire
Investigations & Research Unit. Sounds like my kind of party! But
mostly I chose to spend the afternoons alone, returning to a wifi
hotspot on a street I discovered and going on "smoking" drives along
the road leading to Araluen. I found myself in the pleasant company of
many cows along the way and found an impressive a grove of gumtrees
which shaded the sinewy road alongside a cute little creek.
In fact, I did manage to get my drink on each night with the
geeks. By the last night I was chatting easily with most of the firies
and some of the police who offered me advise on applying for civilian
jobs in their image capture department. The firefighters were by far
the most personable, and very loyal in their friendships. I was asked
repeatedly about why I came to Australia and took each opportunity to
talk about my relationship with Brian. On one of these occasions I
noticed Hamish in my peripheral. I know that he didn't mean to offend
with his earlier story, and I figured he was interesting and queer
enough in his own way to let it slide. Besides, I'm sure I did more to
alter some of these guys perceptions of gays by simply refusing the
traditional closet. I could swear some of them got friendlier the more
they got to know me, and this made me feel very good about it all.
On the final day of the burn, today, I witnessed some awesome
displays of natural power. Most you know that I worked with a visual
effects studio for the last three years I was in San Francisco. None of
that compared in the least to being physically present at the site of
the burn today. It was like a mini Burning Man Festival, with
everyone's anticipation building day by day. When we finally got that
little house a cracklin there wasn't an operational staff on the block
who didn't have their camera out or the mouth wide open. The heat from
the fire alone caused me to back away with my tripod three times. I
felt that I was dangerously close to it and watched in complete wonder
as the fractals of flames would build more and more and occasionally
dare to lick toward me. When the roof collapsed on one side, there was
a tea kettle effect which forced flames to shoot out one side. At one
point the frame of the house was charred and everything was a hellish
inferno inside, billowing smoke parted for an instant and a random
flock of white cockatoos screaming bloody murder cut through the
background. On more than one occasion I heard the firies exclaim in a
whisper, "beautiful!" or "awesome!" I was told that firefirefighters
love what they do, and above all have a reverence for the element that
employs them. But I had only the night before heard the horrors of
their discoveries; children who accidentally kill themselves with
blankets thrown on heaters, elderly whose only evidence of attempted
escape are scratch marks on blackened doors... I did not expect this
level of aestheticism to come from them I suppose, and I had a whole
new respect for their love and choice of career.
I will finish here with a funny story about a vivid "dream" I had
on my last night. This occurred to me after all the talk of ghosts and
such (and I am not a believer in such things, or very spiritual for
that matter). I had fallen asleep on my bed after unwisely sharing two
bottles of unwooded chardonnay with my team at a pub. The police had
entrusted me with all their master tapes so I was racing against time
to capture them to my laptop. On either side of me I had the laptop
wired to the DV cam which were both plugged into external power
sources. Furthermore, my electric blanket was on and I had the
portable furnace going. Not a cute scenario after all the real horror
stories we heard this week. Anyway I did wake up at 3am to turn these
off and hurriedly go back to sleep, only to be "awoken" about an hour
later by strange noises. First the bed shook gently, then again a bit
more violently. Then I heard what I can only describe as electronic
sounds of gremlins moving beneath me from one side to the other. The
bed shook again and then I found myself wide awake and with heart
beating fast. I wasn't scared. In fact I was hoping to have a
confrontation with these so called spirits. Only later did I realize
that I had instinctively launched into an Our Father in spanish to
repel these thoughts- seemed to do the trick. I also noticed with each
hour that dawn approached that I was very hungry indeed- so hungry that
my stomach made these interesting growling gremlin sounds.
