New Jersey Turnpike - Laurie Anderson

{It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority

to drive in the wrong direction on the New Jersey Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive in the right direction in reverse on the New Jersey Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive herds of hooven animals on the New Jersey Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive vehicles with metal tires on the New Jersey Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive in the wrong direction on the entrance and exit ramps of the New Jersey

Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive in the right direction in reverse on the entrance and exit ramps of the

New Jersey Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive herds of hooven animals on the entrance and exit ramps of the New Jersey

Turnpike

It is against the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to

drive vehicles with metal tires on the entrance and exit ramps of the New

Jersey Turnpike.}

PETER: There was an old couple who decided to drive cross country in their car.

Both of them were almost legally deaf.

About ten miles away from home,

the burglar alarm for their car door went off and got stuck in the «on»

position.

They drove all the way to San Francisco like this.

You could hear

them coming from three miles away

The alarm didn’t seem to bother the old woman at all.

She thought it was sort

of pleasant.

Near Chicago, she said to her husband, «It sounds like faraway

bees on a summer day.»

Her husband said, «What?»

LAURIE: You can read the signs.

You’ve been on this road before.

Do you want to go home?

Do you want to go home now?

PETER: One of the major airlines used to run a kind of lottery, mostly to give

passengers something to do while the plane was waiting in line on the runway.

The stewardess would hand out lottery tickets and you peeled the sticker away.

If you had the right combination of numbers, you won a free trip to Hawaii.

If you didn’t, you didn’t win a free trip.

The airline discontinued the game

when there were too many complaints about the timing of the lottery.

They said:

Our surveys tell us that our customers felt that waiting on the runway was the

wrong time to play a game of chance

LAURIE: In my dream, I am your customer, and the customer is always right

PETER: He said, you know, to be _really_ safe you should always carry a bomb on

an airplane.

Because the chances of there being _one_ bomb on a plane are

pretty small.

But the chances of _two_ bombs are almost minuscule.

So by carrying a bomb on a plane, the odds of your becoming a hostage or of

getting blown up are astronomically reduced

LAURIE: You’re driving and you’re talking to yourself and you say to yourself:

Why these mountains?

Why this sky?

Why this road?

This big town.

This ugly train

PETER: In our eyes.

And in our wives' eyes.

In our arms and (I might add) in

our wives' arms

LAURIE: How come people from the North are so well organized, industrious,

pragmatic and--let's face it--preppy?

And people from the South are so

devil-may-care?

Every man for himself

PETER: I know this English guy who was driving around in the South.

And he stopped for breakfast one morning somewhere in southeast Georgia.

He saw «grits» on the menu.

He’d never heard of grits so he asked the waitress,

«What are grits, anyway?»

She said, «Grits are fifty.»

He said, «Yes,

but what _are_ they?»

She said, «They're extra.»

He said, «Yes,

I’ll have the grits, please.»

LAURIE: Over the river and through the woods.

Let me see that map

PETER: A sideshow.

A smokescreen.

A passing landscape

LAURIE: I was living out in West Hollywood when the Hollywood Strangler was

strangling women.

He was strangling women all over town, but he was

particularly strangling them in West Hollywood.

Every night there was a panel

discussion on TV about the strangler--speculations about his habits,

his motives, his methods.

One thing was clear about him: He only strangled

women when they were alone, or with other women.

The panel members would always

end the show by saying, «Now, for all you women, listen, don’t go outside

without a man.

Don’t walk out to your car, don’t even take out the garbage by

yourself.

Always go with a man.»

Then one of the eyewitnesses identified a

policeman as one of the suspects.

The next night, the chief of police was on

the panel.

He said, «Now, girls, whatever happens, do not stop for a police

officer.

Stay in your car.

If a police officer tries to stop you, do not stop.

Keep driving and under no circumstances should you get out of your car.

«For a few weeks, half the traffic in L.A. was doing twice the speed limit

PETER: I remember when we were going into outer space.

I remember when the

President said we were going to look for things in outer space.

And I remember

the way the astronauts talked and the way everybody was watching because there

was a chance that they would burn up on the launching pad or that the rocket

would take off from Cape Canaveral and land in Fort Lauderdale five minutes

later by mistake.

And now we’re not even trying to get _that_ far.

Now it’s more like the bus.

Now it’s more like they go up just high enough to

get a good view.

They aim the camera back down.

They don’t aim the camera up.

And then they take pictures and come right back and develop them.

That’s what it’s like now.

Now that’s what it’s like

LAURIE: Every time I hear a fire engine it seems like the trucks are running

away from the fire.

Not towards it.

Not right into it.

They seem like monsters

in a panic--running away from the fire.

Stampeding away from the fire.

Not towards it.

Not right into it

PETER: In Seattle, the bus drivers were out on strike.

One of the issues was

their refusal to provide a shuttle service for citizens to designated host

areas in the event of a nuclear attack on Seattle.

The drivers said, «Look,

Seattle will be a ghost town.»

They said, «It's a one-way trip to the host

town, we’re not driving back to that ghost town.»

LAURIE: A city that repeats itself endlessly.

Hoping that something will stick

in its mind