Tommy Lee shows his nicer side

Less than 24 hours after “Tommyland,” Tommy Lee’s autobiography detailing his life of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and police run-ins, hit bookstores last month, he was busted. Again.

The notorious rocker’s latest scrap did not go down outside a Sunset Strip nightclub. Drugs and alcohol were not involved. Groupies, paparazzi and ex-wife Pamela Anderson were nowhere in sight. The incident didn’t even wind up on “Entertainment Tonight.”

Lee was late to a photo shoot at a friend’s house high in the Hollywood Hills on a rainy morning when he crossed the line -- literally. He was nailed by a Los Angeles police officer for going over the white line at a boulevard stop. Worse, he wasn’t driving his own car -- he had borrowed a friend’s car.

“Dude, that cop was really workin’ me,” Lee said when he finally stepped inside the house, clutching a ticket and relating his exchange with the officer, who had lectured Lee at length about the infraction. But instead of displaying traces of his fabled bad temper that has landed him in brawls with his ex-wife, jail and anger management classes, he was all smiles. He wished one buddy happy birthday with a hug, then handed the ticket off to the car’s owner, jovially admitting, “Dude, I don’t even know what to do with this!”

But those in the room who feared that a pod from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” may have taken over Lee minutes later got a bit of reassurance that Lee had not abandoned all of his outrageous tendencies. With some encouragement, he lifted his shirt to proudly display the ornate tattooed word across his stomach that sums up his life for the last 20 years: “Mayhem.”

He’s long been one of rock’s baddest boys, starting at age 17, when he first hooked up with heavy metal group Motley Crue through his high-profile marriage to actress Heather Locklear and his later stormy union with Anderson through the tragic drowning of a child in his swimming pool. But now Lee has embarked on a mission to leave the hard-driving life on stage and not incorporate it into his life.

Lee says he’s using the “real valuable tools” he acquired in anger management class to deal with life (“I can’t even remember the last time I got crazy. Maybe that’s a good sign”), and employs a “life coach,” Gerald Rafferty. He’s going to parent-teacher conferences for his two sons, with whom he shares custody with Anderson.

He’s even gone back to school, taking classes in horticulture and chemistry at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Though he seems earnest about this endeavor, there’s a bit of calculation as well -- he’s being followed by a camera crew chronicling his back-to-school adventures for an NBC unscripted series airing next year.

“It’s all part of the turning point,” he said recently while perched on a stool in a studio, wearing a “The Beatles” T-shirt, puffing a cigarette and sipping on a protein drink, a far cry from the mountains of cocaine and heroin consumed during his Crue days. “I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of. I have no regrets. But I’m cranking it down a few notches. Hell, I’m drinking a freakin’ smoothie!”

New image

“Tommyland” is the first step. The title was inspired by the impromptu carnival Anderson concocted to celebrate one of Lee’s birthdays (Lee says it was his 30th, while Anderson, who contributes some of her views on their union in the book, insists it was his 33rd birthday.)

The tome is Lee’s candid take on the numerous episodes which turned him from rock group drummer to tabloid icon: A seven-year marriage to Locklear, shattered in 1993 after his tryst with a porn star. A four-day courtship in 1995 of “Baywatch” star Anderson that ended in their wedding on a beach. The birth of their two sons. Fights with paparazzi. Lawsuits. A Lee-Anderson sex tape stolen from their house that became a video cult classic. Growing tension between the couple that escalated into a fight in 1998 in which he struck her while she was holding their infant son Dylan. Serving four months in prison for spousal abuse. Divorce, reconciliation, breakup, reconciliation. Her affair with Kid Rock. His engagement, since broken off, to Prince’s former wife, Mayte Garcia.

He felt that everyone in the media had weighed in on his life; he illustrates his point in typically unsubtle fashion on the back cover of “Tommyland,” which features a picture of Lee with a huge bull’s-eye on his back. But his view on his high-profile escapades had remained largely low profile until now.

“During all the time that all this stuff was happening, I took the high road and stayed silent,” Lee said. “Now it’s time to get my truth out there. I wanted to purge and let all of this stuff go. Then everyone could join me and turn the page on this phase.”

Not that he’s letting all of it go. Lee still peppers his speech with words like “dude” and “awesome.” He proudly speaks on how others tell him how good he looks at 42, and that his lifestyle has not ravaged his looks. Beautiful women always seem to be in close proximity.

He recounts how he was approached by a group of female students at Nebraska while he was with his roommate, a male student who scores higher on tests than he does with women.

“They introduced themselves, and I said, ‘It’s nice to touch you,’ and they were very pleased,” Lee said. “My roommate got to see how that worked. He’s helping me be a student, and I’m helping him with some of his stuff.”

But college, where he is taking classes in horticulture, chemistry and other subjects, is proving to be more of a challenge than he expected. “I didn’t know it could be so hard! A lot of people don’t know this about me, but I’m really into horticulture and trees. I can name and spell almost every tree here. But in Nebraska, all the trees are different. I had to take a test the other day. I think I aced it.”

Although NBC is staying largely mum on the project, which does not yet have an air date, the show’s producer, Eddie October, called the show a “slice of college life. Tommy is working very hard. He’s up at 6 a.m. to go to band practice at 7. He’s really applying effort to his classes.”

But even as he starts on his new path, at least one of his associates wonders whether Lee can really make the transition from bad boy to good man.

“For a while, he’s been in a place where he wants to put his past behind him,” said veteran music producer Bob Rock, who has worked with Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Metallica and other groups.

“But he’s really tied to his past,” Rock continued. “It’s what he’s famous for, that’s kind of like who he is. He’s still the guy I met during ‘Dr. Feelgood’ [Motley Crue’s 1989 album that went to No. 1]. He’s still living that life. But he wants to go on and not be recognized as that thing.”

Passion for music, women

More than one pop culture critic has suggested that Lee is going the desperation route to revive his declining career -- a route previously visited by Crue lead singer Vince Neil, who appeared in “The Surreal Life,” another fish-out-of-water “reality TV” concept.

Lee doesn’t look concerned by the outside skepticism. “I really don’t pay any attention to that,” he said. “I just smile and move on.”

The softer, vulnerable side of the heavily tattooed and pierced Lee is one of the book’s revelations that run counter to Lee’s extreme image: his great love of nature; his joy when his parents watched him perform in concert with Motley Crue for the first time, finally understanding his passion for music; writing a ballad after the birth of his first son; the pain over the death of his father; the anguish over the drowning.

But fans of Lee need not fear that he’s written Tommy Lee Seagull. “Tommyland” is still laden with Lee’s characteristic bravado, X-rated exploits and self-help tips, such as why foursomes are ultimately more gratifying than threesomes. The introduction is a dialogue between Lee and a fabled part of his anatomy, which declares that he (or it) is the true star while Lee is merely a “personal assistant, the Batman to his Robin.” (The body part chimes in regularly throughout the book.)

Though he feels he’s addressed some of his demons, Lee is still concerned about a future audience for the book -- his two sons. “I really talk about what happened between me and their mother, but the whole thing about the sex tape will still take a bit of explaining,” he said. “I may need a little help on that one.”

Summing up his relationship with Anderson, Lee writes in “Tommyland”: “Pamela and I are passionate people by ourselves. Put us together and it’s off the block. We make each other crazy and when it’s good it’s so [expletive] good. But when it’s bad, it’s all bad.”

Pamela land

One of the book’s highlights revolves around Lee’s and Anderson’s different perspectives on the evolution and eventual deterioration of their bliss. Lee said outside pressures led Anderson to pay more attention to their children than him, and he felt abandoned.

Anderson, in one of her several inserts in the book, writes: “I know Tommy started to feel helpless and it drove him crazy. It was too much for anybody ... Instead of being on the same team, we started blaming each other. I withdrew and got really into the kids. And Tommy would be like, ‘What about me?’ and I’d say, ‘What do you mean, what about you?’ It started getting weird. He wanted me to wear a pager on the back of my ‘Baywatch’ bathing suit. I had to be on call for him.”

Counters Lee, “Babe, we both had pagers. I was on call for you, too. Isn’t that why we got them?”

Right now, he says things between him and Anderson are “better than they’ve ever been. We’ve finally gotten to be friends, finally got to the point where we’ve got a lot of that crazy stuff out of our way. We’re co-parents. We get together for soccer games with the kids, we can hang out.” The serendipity between the couple appears to be inescapable: Anderson released her first novel “Star” only a few months before “Tommyland.”

Still, he’s not in a rush to marry again. “There’s times when I want to be in a serious relationship. I love being in love. I have sons, and would love to have a daughter. I’m really old school, and like being romantic. I’m seeing a couple of different girls right now. I’m very much enjoying being single.”

And despite harsh words about Neil in “Tommyland,” there’s also the possibility of a Motley Crue reunion. Said producer Rock: “There’s really a great energy with these guys. But there’s also a darkness that comes with it. We’ve already cut four songs with the original members.” But he quickly adds, “I didn’t say they were all in the same room at the same time.”