Welcome to TommyLand

03 NOV 2004 | Toronto

Some things might surprise you about Tommy Lee, accidental porn star, uncaged animal and erstwhile drummer for Mötley Crüe.

Remember Mötley? "One of the baddest-ass rock bands in history" they~Rre called in his book Tommyland. "We wreaked havoc, scared parents and titillated fathers' daughters." But let this be known about Lee.

Credit: CP/Aaron Harris

1. During his four months in jail for battery against then-wife Pamela Anderson, a woman friend would lift his spirits by playing Sarah McLachlan songs to him over the phone.

"That's one of the misconceptions about me; I'm a melody man," he says, squatting on top of an easy chair, tattooed forearms forward in the latest whistle stop on a book launch tour. "And her melodies are stunning."

Does he think of prison when he hears McLachlan's music now? "I don't, which is weird. But one of her songs - Angel? - that song (expletive) freaks me out. It reminds me of the time my father died. I can't even listen to it now, I'd start cryin."

2. One of his pet peeves is rockers who cheat on their wives. He devotes a whole chapter to this. Recently the New York Daily News did a rock-monster tally, comparing Lee's book with similar chronicles by Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis. They deducted points in the "Random Conquests" category, noting "Tommy is oddly obsessed with staying faithful to his various wives and girlfriends."

"But you should mention that I hands-down won the category of Ultimate Pickup Line, for singing the Oscar Meyer theme song about my penis over the phone to Pamela," he says with a ready trademark laugh, a kind of a free-spirited "hyuk."

Apparently, he wrote out the song which begins "My baloney has a first name, it's p-e-n-i-s", before making the call. "You can't wing something like that unless you~Rre a freestyle rapper, which I ain't."

3. He's collaborating with Backstreet Boy Nick Carter on his next album - OK, this is getting too weird.

One might think the ballad of Tommy and Pam has been told to death by now, and the Mötley Crüe saga was chronicled fairly well a few years ago in Neil Strauss' book The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.

So what does Tommy bring to the party with his own autobiography, besides the entertaining interview with his penis that makes up the first chapter?

"Well, Neil did a good job with that book... But I just turned 42, and I thought this would be a good time to document my life up to now. Another reason is it was selfishly therapeutic, y'know? A good healing 'cause there've been some pretty dark moments in my life. I can throw it out there and hopefully turn the page."

A decidedly non-linear account of his life, Tommyland gives the customers most of what they want - sex tips, surprisingly demure details of life with wives Heather Locklear and Pam and sometime fiancee, Prince's ex-wife Mayte.

But mostly it's about Tommy and his headspace at mid-life, armed with a new attitude he absorbed from reading Conversations With God in prison. Life is his boys, Brandon and Dylan (whose names are tattooed on his hands - he once had one that said Heather, but he blotted out the H and made it read 'eat her').

Based on some of the uglier episodes he recounts of the breakup with Pam, forgiveness can be a tough order. (At one point she shows up at his hotel room with a bottle of champagne for a 'reconciliation' - then later uses the incident as custody fodder, reporting that he'd violated his probation by consuming alcohol). "I had a real hard time with that one in particular," he says. "If she wasn't the mother of my children, I'd never speak to her again.

"But I have to co-parent and co-exist. We're stuck together."

And watch for him next year in an as-yet-untitled NBC reality series in which Tommy (a high school dropout) enrols at the University of Nebraska.

"I'm learning these equations with the speed of light, which is (expletive) crazy."

Jim Slotek, Sun Media, Calgary Sun