l. kent wolgamott column

I spent a couple of hours Saturday keeping a pretty close eye on Tommy Lee and four more on Sunday breezing through "Tommyland," his just-released autobiography.

And I've got a word of advice for those who are whining and moaning about the former Motley Crue drummer coming to Lincoln to shoot his reality TV show: RELAX.

What I saw Saturday was a down-to-earth, 42-year-old celebrity having a blast with a bunch of kids half his age.

Lee joined the Cornhusker Marching Band at the Baylor game as part of his proposed "Tommy Goes to College" NBC-TV show.

He didn't march in with the band or play in the opening show. Instead, he stood on the sidelines, looking surprisingly cool in the dorky band uniform and cheering on his new bandmates. He then joined them in the East Stadium stands for the first half.

Lee cheered on the Huskers and did his best to join in with the rhythms the drummers play throughout the game, glancing at those around him to get the pattern, then joining in enthusiastically. And that took place when the NBC cameras weren't anywhere to be seen.

The real tipoff to how much fun Tommy was having came when Conrad Good carried Der Wiener Schlinger in front of the band near the end of the third quarter. Offered a chance to shoot the air-propelled, hotdog-shooting cannon, Lee came bouncing out of the stands and fired a foil-wrapped frankfurter high into the air.

"It's awesome, dude," he exclaimed. "You can launch a wiener."

It was so awesome that when offered an opportunity to take another shot between quarters, Lee came down again, loading the cannon with three dogs and sending them skyward, clapping his hands and laughing.

That was a goof. But Tommy's taking this stuff seriously. Word is, he practiced a couple of hours a night to get ready for the band's halftime performance — and he pulled it off, joining the band in a Latin-themed show, getting cheers each time his image appeared on the HuskerVision screens.

Then the drumline traversed the field and Lee stayed in perfect step and beat.

I waded into the drumline when it left the field, close enough to see Lee banging knuckles with the other drummers, posing for pictures and raving about how much fun he'd had: "It was awesome, absolutely great," he said.

That kind of joy can't be faked.

 Neither can the revealing honesty that pervades "Tommyland."

Lee co-wrote the book with rock writer Anthony Bozza. But, unlike many celebrity autobiographies, this one sounds like it's in Tommy's voice from start to finish, and it's an often hilarious confessional.

It explains his good looks (Mom was a former Miss Greece), his status as a high school dropout (Motley Crue got its record deal two months before he was to graduate from high school) and talks about his three marriages and engagement to Mayte, Prince's former wife. He talks plenty about sex, but also about being a father to his two boys and about his relationship with his dad.

He touches only lightly on the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll debauchery of Motley Crue.

That's likely because the band's story has been told in "The Dirt," an equally honest, hilarious and horrifying book.

But Lee deals frankly with the domestic abuse conviction that has created much of the controversy since his arrival in Lincoln.

While admitting he was wrong, Lee's version of the fight that landed him in jail is more nuanced than his detractors would have you believe. In the book, he says that his ex-wife, Pamela Anderson, punched him in the jaw during a quarrel. He responded by kicking her in the backside with his soft-soled shoe. Later he pulled one  of their sons out of her arms, breaking one of her fingernails.

Anderson called the cops, and Lee was arrested. Then she showed the police his gun collection, and he was doomed. Lee was on probation for beating up a photographer.

Possessing guns was a violation of his probation, and some of those guns were illegal.

Rather than face the more serious gun-related charges, he pleaded no contest to the domestic abuse charge and spent four months in solitary confinement in the Los Angeles County Jail.

In the book, Lee says he's changed his ways and will never do anything to wind up behind bars again. Given the sincerity of the entire book, whether he's talking about his problems or orgies with porn stars, I'm inclined to believe him.

It's also worth noting that he and Anderson have patched things up to the point they now go out together with their boys. She also contributed to the book, giving her impressions of events early in their relationship.

The impression I came away with from Saturday's observations and Sunday's reading was essentially that what you see is what you get: Tommy Lee is an all-American rock star who has paid the price for his mistakes and still lives his life to the fullest. To me, that's not a bad thing and he's not a bad guy.

No matter what kind of guy he is or what he thinks of Lincoln, Tommy won't be putting the TV show together. That's the job of directors and editors, and they could very well make us look like backward rubes on occasion. Beyond a thought that sometimes the truth hurts, it's important to realize a fact of life in today's media-saturated culture:

There's no such thing as negative attention.

It's all about getting in the spotlight, and Tommy Lee has put the university and, to some degree, Lincoln there. There's no gain to be made in fighting that, so sit back, enjoy the show and don't take it personally. With Tommy's track record, it's guaranteed to be entertaining.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.