The Cultural Ambassador (Live) Lyrics

The Cultural Ambassador(live版) - Laurie Anderson

Anyway I was in israel as a kind

of cultural ambassador

And there were lots of press

conferences scheduled

Around the performances

The journalists usually started things off

By asking about the avantgarde

So what's so good about new they'd ask

Well new is interesting

And what they would say is so

good about interesting

Well interesting is you know it's interesting

It's like being awake you know

I'm treading water now

And what is so good about

being awake they'd say

Finally I got the hang of this

never answer a question

In israel always answer by asking

another question

But the Israelis were vey curious

about the gulf war

And what americans had thought

about it and I tried

To think of a good question to

ask and answer to

This but what was really on

my mind was that the

Week before I had myself

been testing explosives

In a parking lot in tel aviv

now this happened

Because I had brought some

small stage bombs

To Israel as props for this

performance and the

Israeli promoter was very interested in them

And it turned out that he was on weekend duty

On one of the bomb squads and bombs were

Also something of a hobby during the week

So I said

Look you know these bombs are

Nothing special just just a little smoke

And he said well we can get much

better things for you

And I said

No really these are fine and he said

No but it should be big theatrical

It should make an impression I mean

you really just the right bomb

And so one morning he arranged to have

About fifty small bombs delivered to a parking lot

And since he looked on it as a sort of

special surprise

Favor I couldn't really refuse so

we are on this parking

Lot testing the bombs and after

the first few explosions

I found I was really getting pretty interested

They all had very different characteristics

Some had fiery orange tails and

made these low paah

Paah paah popping sound others

exploded mid air

And left long smoky slinky trails

and he had several

Of each kind in case I needed to

review them all at the end

And I'm thinking

Here I am a citizen of the world's largest arms

Supplier setting off bombs with the world's second

Largest arms customer and I'm having a great time

So even though the diplomatic part of the trip

Wasn't going so well at least

I was getting some instruction in terrorism

And it reminded me of something in a book by

Don deLillo about how terrorists

are the only true artists

Left because they're the only ones who are still

Capable of really surprising people

And the other thing it reminded me of were all the

Attempts during the gulf war to outwit

The terrorists and I especially

remember an interesting

Liist of tips devised by the us embassy in madrid

And these tips were designed for americans

Who found themselves in wartime airports

The idea was not to call ourselves to the

Attention of the numerous foreign terrorists

Who were presumably lurking all over the terminal

So the embassy tips were a list of mostly don'ts

Things like don't wear a baseball cap

Don't wear a sweat shirt with the name of

An american university on it don't wear

Timberlands with no socks don't chew gum

Don't yell ethel our plane is leaving

I mean it's weird when your entire culture

Can be summed up in eight giveaway characteristics

And during the gulf war I was traveling around

Europe with a lot of equipment and all the airports

Were full of security guards who would

Suddenly point to a suitcase and start yelling

Whose bag is this I wanna know right now

Who owns this bag

And huge groups of passengers would start

Out for the bag just running around in circles like a

Skud missile on its way in and I was carrying

A lot of electronics so I had to keep unpacking

Everything and plugging it in and demonstrating

How it all worked and I guessed

I did seem a little fishy

A lot of this stuff wakes up displaying led program

Readouts that have names like adam smasher and

So it took a while to convince them that they

Weren't some kind of espionage system

So I've done quite a few of these sort of impromptu

New music concerts for small groups of detectives

And customs agents and I'd have to keep setting

All this stuff up and they'd listen

for a while and they'd say

So uh what's this

And I'd pull out something like this sayfilter and

Now this is what I'd like to think

of as the voice of authority

And it would take me a while to tell them

How I used it for songs that were you know

About various forms of control and they would say

Now why would you want to talk like that

And I'd look around at the and the undercover

Agents and the dogs and the radio in the corner

Tuned to the superbowl coverage of the war

And I'd say take a wild guess

Finally of course I got through with this after all

American made equipment and the customs agents

Were all talking about the effectiveness no the

Beauty the elegance of the american

strategy of pinpoint bombing

The high tech surgical approach which was being

Reported by cnn as something between grand opera

And the superbowl like the first reports before the

Blackout when tv was live and

everything was heightened

And it was so euphoric

The Cultural Ambassador(live版) - Laurie Anderson