Lame Adventure 342: Pia Lindstrom and Beer Trucks

On the second to last day of summer, Milton and I attended our last theater production before the advent of fall.  We took advantage of the 20 at 20 discount, a discount that allows theatergoers to get tickets to select off-Broadway shows for $20 twenty minutes before curtain.  The show we chose to see was Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking!, a satirical send-up of Broadway musicals.

A hilarious spoof on Broadway musicals from Wicked to Once to The Book of Morman and many other shows in-between.

Milton arrived at the theater ahead of me so he went to the box office and added his name to the list of people that were hoping to score seats at about 75% off the regular $79 ticket price.  As we were waiting, he recognized a gay male porn star and Pia Lindstrom, daughter of Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman.  The porn star was not attending the show, and Pia was not trying to score a deeply discounted ducat.  In fact, when I checked her out on Wikipedia, I learned that we were all seeing this revue on her 74th birthday.

When Milton said to me sotto voce, “Pia Lindstrom,” I had my usual reaction:

Me:  Huh? Who? What? Where?

Then, we scored our cheap tickets, seats in the middle of the last row of the mezzanine (a fancy name for the balcony).

View from the rafters – nephew of Max Headroom did sink in his seat once the show got underway.

Milton went to the restroom.  When he returned he reported:

Milton:  Pia’s sitting in the fifth row of the orchestra.

Me:  Thank you Pia stalker.

While we were watching from the rafters and Pia Lindstrom from the premium orchestra, everyone laughed uproariously, Milton got wheezy, and then the show ended and everyone left.  Barely five steps outside the theater Milton mutters in a confidential tone:

Milton:  Plaid shirt — that guy from Saturday Night Live.

My head becomes a periscope, I don’t know where I’m looking, I don’t see any guy in a plaid shirt, much less anyone from Saturday Night Live.  I bleat:

Me:  Who?  Andy Samberg?

Milton:  No.  You missed him.  He’s gone.  You know, the fat one.

Me:  Horatio Sanz?

I realize that Horatio’s been off the show for close to a decade.

Milton:  He plays women.

Me:  Bobby Moynihan?  He plays Snooki.

Milton:  I think that’s who it was.

Whenever I am out with Milton, rarely is there ever a time when he does not spot some celebrity on the street that I often miss even after he points them out.  Milton has an excellent eye for noticing famous people.  I don’t.  At all.  I’m almost celebrity sighting blind.

These are the types of sights that catch my eye:

Fallout shelter sign — who knew that these are still around, much less still around the Upper West Side?

1965 Ford Mustang parked on East 66th Street.

Purple stuffed ape in garbage can with wild thing sign.

Wimpy cloud.

Beer truck.

Me if I were a balloon in this past sweltering summer.

Mixed message, “Do I stay or do I go?”

122 responses to “Lame Adventure 342: Pia Lindstrom and Beer Trucks

  1. That last metaphysical question has been brought to by The Clash–Combat Rock– 1982. When you are with Milton it is good to know he’s not having Haley Joel Osment moments. Nothing creepier than someone saying “I see dead male porn stars” while your gnawing on a Nathan’s footlong, let me tell you! Kinda like going to a Cubs game, right?

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    • You’re too obtuse for me today Wingman, but I do know that the porn star wasn’t dead since he walked down the street right in front of us with another guy — not that I was remotely aware of his occupation. He wasn’t carrying a sign declaring, “I’m a gay male porn star.” I just knew that he was the guy in the couple not wearing a hat. He could have been a Stanley Steamer guy for all I knew.

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      • Please clarify what was so obtuse about my earlier post? The Clash reference or the tip of the cap to the You Tube/Cubs/Nathan’s/gay male porn star?

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  2. I can’t imagine what it must be like celeb watchcing the NYC. Meanwhile, catching Max Headroom’s nephew and grape apes is much more impressive.

    PS: I didn’t catch initially catch Playkill.

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    • I can’t imagine what it’s like to be celeb watching in NYC either, Frank, since I’m too busy looking at Fallout Shelter signs and beer trucks. Oh, and I didn’t initially catch Playkill, either. You’re not alone there, buddy.

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  3. Sounds like you and Milton had a wonderful time. I actually saw the guy from Sex in the City (the one that played Charlotte’s husband) walking around the Upper East Side once. I swear I saw Paris Hilton walking into a store, although really why would she be alone and could she figure out the street signs?

    I love your keen observations of NYC though and those things that people don’t notice. I may even go so far as to say, they’re probably more interesting (and with more depth) than some of the “celebrities” that walk the streets. Wherever it is they walk. :).

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    • Was that the bald guy from SATC? I would just as soon think that he was a guy that looked a lot like Telly Savalas, Brigitte. Good Paris Hilton logic!

      I’m infinitely more interested in the things that people don’t notice since I’m so blind to anyone with an ounce of fame.

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  4. When you see a stuffed purple ape in the garbage, you know the end is near.

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  5. I would never notice a celebrity. I am celebrity blind and celebrity-ignorant, I’m afraid. On the other hand, Sara knows the most obscure celebrity trivia, I think she could win major money if the knowledge paid. I don’t know how she holds so much stuff in her head. Hell, I even forget to blind cc. LOL Have a great weekend!
    Hugs,
    Kathy

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    • I’m with you on being celebrity and trend ignorant. That viral video, Gangnam Style, only crossed my radar a week ago after 200 million has already watched it. Milton definitely owns the celebrity recognition factor gene. He can practically recognize both background extras obscure has beens from 20 years ago as well as the most popular current stars trying to go unrecognized such as when he spotted Katy Perry last year. No one escapes the Miltonian gaze even in disguise. I expect one day he’ll whisper, “That guy over there behind the ficus with the bag over his head — George Clooney.”

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  6. So funny! Sometimes I see them and like the ghosts I’ve spotted, I sit there for a moment and think, “Did I really just see them?” It usually hits me later. Celebrities always look shorter except for Cybill Shepherd who is super tall and built like a line-backer!

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  7. Fish Out of Water

    “Nephew of Max Headroom” – I’m still laughing!!

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  8. That’s one tall drink of water you had sitting in front of you. Like if Max Headroom and Lurch had a son. I too am celebrity-blind. I can be walking with someone and they’ll say OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE WHO THAT WAS??? And I miss it completely. I’m too busy avoiding making eye contact with everyone.

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    • That is a good point about avoiding eye contact! Pia Lindstrom did look me square in the face. It was unnerving especially since Milton was the gaga one in our equation. She just looked like an elegant older woman to me, but not someone I’d date. Maybe she felt she was entitled to hearing me gush, “Happy Birthday.”

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  9. The last NY celebrity sighting I had was Abe Vigoda four years ago coming back from that bagel place, H&H?? it closed? Yep, Abe Vigoda, he’s like 4 feet tall. My brother is cool and can hang out with Will Ferrell and football games or play cards with Ben Affleck in Vegas. I would start sweating, fart and have to excuse myself from their company. Too much pressure. Abe Vigoda, I can handle.

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    • I am sipping a beer (not from that truck) and I nearly did a spit take into the wall when you mention having seen Abe Vigoda! Maggie, you seem like someone that would know about people mistaking him for dead. If not, check out this link. It sounds like you might have seen him on the Upper West Side not far from me by H&H Bagels. Yeah, that location closed earlier this year. Back to your Abe sighting, he’s someone that I assumed was tall!

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  10. I love your priorities. Better to see a mixed sign signal than a celebrity, for the chances of seeing the signal are far lower and therefore a Rarity. And the stuffed ape? What are the chances of that? Celebrity, schmelebrity. Your discoveries are generally highly original.

    I did see Olympia Dukakis in Starbucks just off Broadway one Sunday though.

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  11. The only celebrity I’ve ever seen was Karen Allen who was standing behind me in line for the Ladies room at Tanglewood. She looked just like she did in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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    • My pal Natasia was wondering what became of KA after we saw Raiders last week. When did you see her at Tanglewood Cathy? Even though she was a graduate of the Kim Novak School of One Note Acting, she (like Kim), was totally babelicious — and I can say that with authority since I am as queer as a $9 bill.

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      • Yes, she is gorgeous in that kind of girl-next-door way. I loved her in Raiders – the character was spunky and fun and she did a good job in that. I also liked her in Scrooged – which is one of my favorite movies. I’m a big Bill Murray fan – just watched Lost in Translation last week again – Sofia Coppola hit a homerun with that one.

        Anyway, I’m thinking it was around 1999 or 2000. I was visiting a friend in Western Mass and we went to Tanglewood – saw Itzak Pearlman and Yo-Yo Ma and Karen Allen (in the line for the bathroom). Memorable day.

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        • So cool that you’d share share that memory here Cathy! I’m with you about Bill. He’s a King of Cool Dude to me. I saw Lost in Translation a few times. I like what Sofia does with the camera a lot and she’s good with actors, but I think her writing is over-rated.

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          • Well, I guess you can’t be great with everything…On another note, I hear Bill is really good in the new movie as FDR.

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            • I’d still see anything she directs … Hyde Park on Hudson — which I will see (I have visited FDR’s Top Cottage getaway with my bud, Martini Max, several times) is playing at the New York Film Festival, but I’m going to wait to see it when it opens at the multiplex for a cheaper ticket price. When Milton and I attend the NYFF, we try to see less commercial fare. Click here if you’ve absolutely nothing better to do to find out what that is about.

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              • V,
                I adore film festivals. It’s one of the things I miss about the East Coast. Miami, where I lived prior to moving to Colorado had a great film festival.

                Anyway, I grew up in Georgia and visited the “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia many times. It was where FDR went to rehab from polio and also where he died. My paternal grandfather, William McAnsh who worked as a car mechanic for Southern Railroad, went to Warm Springs to remove and replace the window in the rail car for FDR’s casket. He always felt that it was and honor and a privilege to do so. He was an immigrant from Scotland and very happy to be a naturalized citizen.

                I look forward to seeing Hyde Park on Hudson.

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                • That’s a very cool story about your grandfather Cathy. Thanks for sharing! My bud, Martini Max, worships FDR (who died 16 years before Max was hatched). He keeps hoping that one day we’ll have another president with leadership skills like his. I don’t see that happening in my lifetime.

                  Colorado does have Telluride. Have you ever attended that festival?

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                  • No, I would love to attend the Telluride Film Festival. While I’ve been to Telluride, it’s amazingly costly to go and stay there during the festival. It’s a tiny town in the extreme south of Colorado, very exclusive and remote from everything else. Telluride (apparently from the Old West meaning “To Hell You Ride”) is surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains in Colorado, but it is a day’s drive from Fort Collins. Sundance is about the same distance – maybe we’ll go there some time.

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  12. Funny: you spotted Nephew of Max Headroom. I can’t believe Ingrid Bergman’s daughter is 74. Don’t tell me! I don’t know why I should be so surprised — Ingrid Bergman was my mother’s age, so … that makes me, um …
    Well, let’s just say I took your advice and added photos to my blog post “Our Town” and called it “LXXXVI.II Our Town Revisited.” Don’t know why I didn’t think of adding photos myself, unless due to one of those w-a-a-a-y immature senior moments.

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    • That guy’s head was like Cinemascope Samantha! Fortunately, he was a sloucher so it was fine sitting behind him. If anything, between Milton’s wheezing and my quadrophonic howling, we were the problem people amongst our neighbors. When we find something funny, Milton and I are known to indulge our glee.

      Don’t think about Pia’s age, but I must say, for someone 74, she inherited her mother’s beauty, but Milton did say, “She looks a little tight around the face.” Overall, she’s a classy dame.

      Hey! I will check out the pix on your site! Thanks for the head’s up!

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  13. I would have noticed everything that you did…especially the old Mustang. 🙂

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  14. I must live in a cave because the only name I recognized in this whole post was Max Headroom…

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    • You’ve never seen Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa in Casablanca? Really?

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      • gee now I am really not going to admit my stupidity or lack of “celebrity” knowledge or theater.. ok I admit to knowing THAT name but not the movie.

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        • You’ve never seen Casablanca? Wow. In the weeks ahead, film-whore Milton, is going to do a blog about the greatest films of all time. When he posts I’ll probably give him a shout out over here. You might want to peruse that list.

          I’ve easily seen five or six thousand (or more) films in my life, but I’ve only read three books (two written by Seuss), so I’m not going to beat you up over not being a movie maniac since I only have a 310 word vocabulary. My fellow blogger across the pond, Kate Shrewsday, has been force-feeding new words down my gullet which is why I am now a full ten words richer.

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        • Okay. That is totally unacceptable. Simply one of the 3 greatest films ever made. Since I have been in a name dropping mood today, I worked with Paul Henried’s grandniece for years and years…well 6 anyway. (Actor who played Ingrid ?Berman’s husband and the other part of the triangle with Bogart). Okay, I am done tooting.

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          • you might as well be speaking latin dear Mike… talk sweet baseball again please

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            • Yankees coughed up a lead vs. the Oakland A’s in the 9th. Is tied 1 to 1. My beloved BloSox are helping defeat the evil empire in the Bronx by losing to Baltimore.

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              • ok now I love you … really truly love you. I live and breath the sox. They killed me this year. but at least they won when i went.
                I m gonna have to root for the O’s in the post season for sure.

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                • I took D1 to Fenway this summer and we saw them beat Chicago White Sox when Sox were still within a game or two of the wild card. Same night that Youkilis came back for 1st after being traded. Also the nite Papi tore up his Achilles heel. Are you from New England?

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                  • yes… born and raised. I am too near the Evil Empire. I reside in a state that should be more Red Sox and Patriots rather than the Stinkies and Eli Manning. You?

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                    • Born into a mixed household in WMass. Dad and older bro are Yankee fans. Mom and were Sox fans. Though my dad and my uncles all went to Cooperstown when Yaz got inducted in the mid 1980s. Live in NJ now. We have a family brick in the RF concourse at Fenway. I will email you a photo of it some day.

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                    • Fenway is the greatest.. I dream of having season tickets at retirement. Sigh.. all Red Sox fans in my house. I married a Sox fan too.. a prerequisite

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                    • The Bride couldn’t really care less but for Christmas a few years ago she got us a vacation package down to Ft. Myers for spring training. I think it was 2005 or 2006.

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                    • ahh you lucky man.. that is on my bucket list

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                    • I am not sure, but I think LA woman has forbade the use of bucket list on this forum. But I get your point.

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                    • oops ok well I don’t really have a bucket list.. I think they are dumb but it is on my things to do to in the next ten years

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                    • I hope u get there. But I would wait until that nightmare turns itself around.

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                    • ahh I am still high on 2004… went to four games that season!!

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                  • I take D2 with me.. we have a blast

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              • Thank you for that update Sports Center. Now I understand why it sounds like the guy outside is having an out of body fit.

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          • I thought you were unnaturally quiet during these discussions tonight … What a week, Michael J. reveals he’s a distant relative of James Joyce and you and The Bride are making whoopie in Olympia D’s shack — plus you were up close and personal with the niece of Paul Henreid. Let’s educate our bud, Audra, on classic film:

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  15. You might have liked her. Never quite sure which team she played for.

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  16. When I was in New York City, back in 1993 (I was there for a day) I was walking along one of the main streets and walked passed Estelle Getty, who was coming out of a restaurant. Well, I presumed it was a restaurant. I knew it was Estelle Getty though. You certainly do catch some different sights in New York, LA!

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  17. Snoring Dog Studio

    Hilarious. I think I’d notice a celebrity here in Boise. No one shows up here, so a celeb would stand out. I found out the other day that George Kennedy lives in a town just down the street. Should I stalk or should I not? I don’t think my neck could take a night out with Milton. I’d go home with whiplash.

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    • I Wikipediad George. He was born in NYC and resides in Eagle, Idaho. Small world, SDS! If Milton lived in Boise, you would not need to stalk. All you’d have to do is hang out with Milton for half an hour and before you’d know it he’d whisper in your ear, “Green sweater; George Kennedy.”

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  18. Off topic, but someone better than Mrs. Miller.

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  19. I am also celebrity blind. And if I do see someone that looks like I should maybe recognize them from somewhere, I can’t remember where and I sure as heck couldn’t come up with a name. Of course it’s almost the same as I drive past people I know at home – other more important things on my mind. You believe me, right?

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    • Actually, I do, Terri — as you speed past your friends and family thinking about a gathering your planning for your friends and family. That has actually happened to me i.e., being so lost in thought I’m completely oblivious to who and what’s around me.

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  20. 20 at 20 sounds like an awesome idea! I love plays, but don’t get to see them very often these days. I dated a (working! Well, most of her income was from teaching and from a theater-related at-large role with the Kennedy Foundation, but she did get a little $$$ from her work) playwright , and so got to see every PCPA (a local theater company/school) play. These days I’m lucky to see a play or two a year, and that’s usually if we drive up to Ashland for the OSF.

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  21. My biggest claim to up-close-and-personal with celebrities was when I got to meet Jay Leno and take a tour of his Big Dog garage in Burbank, CA where he houses his vast car collection. (My son is the editor and publisher of a vintage racecar magazine and he wangled the invite.) Jay has the bluest eyes…

    My other brushes with celebrity include pawing through the sales rack at a Rodeo Dr. boutique while Eartha Kitt was doing the same right next to me. I also nearly ran into Timothy Busfield (“Thirty-something” fame) in a Home Depot in Sacramento. And when I was with a group of bridesmaids on a dress-hunting expedition, we got a gracious smile and wave from Louis Nye who was in the car behind us.

    Oh, and when I was a kid, I saw Walt Disney at Disneyland.

    But other than that, I got nuthin’.

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    • Those are pretty good somethins’ — especially Eartha Kitt! Meow!

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    • Sounds like me and The Bride running into Howie Mandela firing the St . Elsewhere years early on a Sunday morning in search of bagels on the empty streets of Yorkville on the UES of NYC. Sweet guy, possibly pre-phobia days. Also ran into Anthony Quinn on Central Park South back in 1985. Not to mention all 3 Hudson brothers when they were doing summer stock of Godspell. Stephen Stills during a comeback tour backstage in his dressing toom but he was definitely unaware of his surroundings circa 1980. Odds are neither was I. And best of all, Ronald Reagan’s chair in the White House situation room in 1987. Long story, but I’m afraid I can’t go into much detail.

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  22. I love the purple ape in the trash can with a wild thing sign. Ha! Also wanted to tell you that I nominated you for the Addictive Blogger Award.
    If you want you can come check it out.

    Sometimes Addiction is a Good Thing

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