I Finally Know Where it Comes From!

The first chopping motion is at 1:18

I've always wondered where the chopping motion on his arm that David Byrne uses in the video for Once in a Lifetime.

I just came across an interview where the Talking Heads front-man explains the meaning:

Pitchfork: I just had one last question. A friend of mine played a show in Providence and went to a hot dog stand. They're in a band, so the hot dog stand guy says, "Oh, David Byrne used to work here. We've been here 30 years and he worked at this hot dog stand." And at this place, when they do the hot dogs, they line them up on their arm and they take the condiments and they go like this [I make a chopping gesture along my arm, as seen in the video for "Once in a Lifetime"]. "That's where he got that!"

DB: I did work at a hot dog stand, a place called New York System, where you put the hot dogs on your arm like that. But I got that thing from, I saw these Japanese kids dancing in the park in Tokyo, these kind of rockabilly dancers, and then there were these kind of space cadet kids that had a completely different set of movements. I videotaped a bunch of them, and that's where I got that.

So, now you know too.