Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

E-Online (via GoogleNews):

Billy Joel: great piano player, lousy motorist.

What began as a Sunday trip to the pizza parlor ended with the Piano Man parked in the side of a Long Island house.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer had taken out one of his vintage cars, a 1967 Citroën, to fetch the pie from a Bayville, New York, pizzeria, but the accident-prone pop star lost control of the vehicle on a rain-slicked road and plowed in to the residence of a 94-year-old woman.

Joel, 54, reportedly walked away from the crash relatively unscathed, suffering only a cut on his left ring finger. He declined medical attention

This is sad on a whole number of levels. In the first place, what’s Billy Joel doing fetching his own pizza? I mean, c’mon Billy, spring for a couple of bucks for the delivery boy. Second, if he’s out driving in the rain, shouldn’t he have been on his motorcycle rather than a friggin’ 1967 Citroën?!

A ’67 ‘Vette I could understand. . . .

Also, when did he join the Bee Gees? What happened to the jeans and sportcoat?

And I know that 54 is a typo. I mean, Glass Houses just came out, what, three years ago? [Um, twenty-three. -ed. ]

The saddest thing, I think, is that I actually get all of the lame song title gags in the article.

Update: I corrected the image above as per Terry Ogleby’s comment below. That was actually the image I expected to find when Googling the ’67 Lemon but I instead found the convertible I originally posted:

I was giving Joel the benefit of the doubt. I mean, why would you collect something as ugly as the actuall ’67 Citroën?

FILED UNDER: Popular Culture,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Boyd says:

    22-year-old fiancée? Oh, my. It’s good to be a musical star.

  2. The REALLY sad thing is that he wasn’t driving the spiffy red DS19 cabriolet in your photo, but rather a 2CV6, a fine vehicle that is somewhat more weatherproof than a bicycle. Although not quite that much faster.