Billy Joel Graduates From Mitch "Blood" Green Driving Academy



The Best Show On WFMU's Artist Of The Year has had yet another car wreck. From Lisa "not in this lifetime" Pulitzer and Dan Kadison of the NY Post :

Singer Billy Joel was in no mood for a melody yesterday afternoon when he crashed his car into a Long Island home, damaging both the house and his classic roadster, cops said.

Joel had hopped into his 1967 Citroen to drive to a mom-and-pop pizza joint in Bayville for a slice at around 4 p.m. when he encountered "slick" roads less than a mile from his home on Centre Island, police and witnesses said.

His European-made, maroon and gray car skidded, jumped the curb, crashed through the bushes of the house at Bayville Avenue near Third Street and then struck its foundation, leaving it cracked, and a 6-foot skid mark in his wake, cops and locals said.

"I said [to Joel], 'Are you all right? Is everything OK? Do you want me to call an ambulance?' " recalled Joan Albano, who lives in the house next to the crash site.

"He said, 'No, no, I'm alright, I'm alright,' Albano said. "He looked really shaken up. He had a small cut on his finger."

When police arrived minutes later, Joel, 54, told them: "I'm OK, don't worry," Albano said, adding that he then said, "I was just going to get a pizza. I'm tired. I just woke up."

No one in the house was hurt.

It was the third car wreck for Joel in two years.

"[He] seemed embarrassed that he lost control of the car," said Thomas Phillips, who lives nearby. "He said, 'I can't believe I got in another accident.' "

Early last year, the Big Shot wrapped his Mercedes-Benz S600 around a tree in Sag Harbor after rounding a dangerous bend. Joel also crashed a car in June 2002 in East Hampton and, in 1982, he fractured his wrist and broke his thumb when his motorcycle hit a car in Huntington.

The Piano Man was probably just depressed and distracted after learning that "We Didn't Start The Fire" failed to make the top ten of that Blender list.

Posted: Mon - April 26, 2004 at 10:19 AM      

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