by Tommy Lee
They got us! The press, the stress, the public, etc.
We let ’em destroy us!
6/1/98
To P. Lee
Could we dig up this treasure
Were it worth the pleasure
Where we wrote love’s songs
God we have parted way too long
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead
Could we live it all over again
Were it worth the pain
I remember we used to meet
By a swing seat over the piano
And you chirped each pretty word
With the air of a bird.
And your eyes, they were blue-green & gray
Like an April day
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed
I remember I could never catch you
For no one could match you
You had wonderful luminous fleet
Little wings on your feet.
I remember so well the hotel room
Fun in the sun in Cancún
That beat that played in the living room & La Boom
In the warm February sun
Could we live it over again
Were it worth this pain
Could the passion past that is fled
Call it back or is it dead
Well, if my heart must break
Dear love, for your sake
It will break in music, I know
Poets’ hearts break so
But strange that I was not told
That the heart can hold
In its tiny prison cell
God’s heaven and hell
Undated letter to Jay Leno
Jay,
Pamela asked you not to go there and you did! Pam said she talked to you after the show, and told you she was upset. And she told me you said to her don’t worry, this will be good for her career.
Is there anything you’d like to say to me about this? I consider what might have been called our friendship to be seriously damaged.
Tommy Lee
P.S. The stand-up guy I thought you were might go back on the air and apologize for having given me a long-distance sucker punch. I’m not suggesting that you take my side publicly, I don’t need anyone to do that. Without knowing all the facts, my private life should not have been grist for the mill of your program!
6/2/98
Pamela,
Please take Brandon aside and read this to him, okay?
Thank you.
Brandon,
Daddy is at work playing the drums and wishes he could be with you on this special day. Daddy is always with you in spirit today and every day. (You may be too young to understand, but I plant the seeds.)
“You are perfect just as you are,”
“Love is all there is,”
and “Now is all we have.”
So enjoy today!
Happy Birthday Loverboy.
I miss you!
Daddy!
P.S. Pamela, please squeeze him really really really tight for me from Daddy—OK? (You can’t even imagine what this is like for me to miss this.)
6/25/98
“My Cell”
This tiny room sounds so still
It smells like stale sulfur in the water
It seeps through the walls
It tastes like death
The floor has a sticky slime that
Is detriment to body and soul
I spin not in circles but in squares
From the shape of this room
6/26/98
Ahh Soooo
There was a little geisha girl ho from Tokyo
Said she could blow so I said let’s go
Yo! Jump in my limo
Back to the no-tell motel for a little kiss ’n’ tell
Damn, my dick’s starting to swell
So I gave her two glasses of panty remover
hoping to subdue her
So I could screw her
I had no clue the bitch knew kung fu
Then my rubber blew
Oh my god what’s this green goo?
Now I might have AIDS
At least I got laid
Wasn’t worth what I paid for this pussy
Should I be afraid
Naw, just spray your dick with some Raid
Shit, I’m going crazy. What the fuck am I writing? I hope no one sees this.
7/28/98
Hi baby,
Here I sit in a cage on the rooftop with, for the first time in weeks, sunshine on my face. They only let me up here at 4:00 P.M. and I just caught what’s left of the sun——wow! Squinting from the rays that I’m not used to. I cried as sadness and pain remind me of why I’m here constantly like a permanent scar. I hate it here & I’m never coming back. God, I miss the sunshine.
I heard you ask me what my fantasy was on the phone the other day. And I hesitated to say it because I didn’t want to create any pressure about it! But, I’d love to share it with you, and a letter is safer than a phone call. That way you can know what I’m feeling without feeling the pressure of having to say something.
My fantasy is that when I am released from jail that… I could see you & spend some time alone together or, perhaps, find some time alone together. We have so many things to talk about. I would love to share with you how my life is going to be in so many ways different!
When I look ahead into the future I see a lot of happiness for Tommy. I’d also love to share all the new things I’ve learned with you… I miss your sparkling eyes. Also, I miss your phone calls! And that smile that makes me weak.
7/31/98
Pamela,
Please don’t send me your meaningless letters! How can you write that shit after fucking someone else?
The president can admit his infidelity, but you can’t? I don’t trust you. Please leave me alone. You have no idea what love is or passion. My love is powerful. If yours was you would have been able to stay home & be a mother and kept your panties on! You’re right: You do need to keep your distance from me—I don’t wanna look at you, I’ll throw up. You took my dream from me—my Family!!
I will not let you kill my dream, I will one day find someone special who truly loves me! And you’re right, there will never be another man like me!
You make all this sound like I forced you into this—I think you’re trying to make yourself feel better about yourself and the infidelity and choosing another man. This is all your choice not mine!
Can you say guilty? It will eat you alive! You have nothing at all to fear and certainly the boys don’t. I will not pursue you! I will answer your letter later; you’ve made the biggest mistake of your and the childrens’ life!
P.S. Hope you weren’t wearing the cross I got you while you were getting fucked.
8/7/98
I’ve got 4 weeks left in here and I need to get my head straight.
Can you talk to me about this?
I deserve to know!
I need truth & clarity!
I got to make some decisions!
Every human thought and every human action is based in either love or fear. Which one are you basing your decision on?
8/16/98
Soft, tender, nurturing.
Who am I? A father of 2 boys; a creative and talented soul with a passion for music & a love of life and nature, the ocean and its creatures; sunsets are my fave time of day. I’ve always loved children! I’ve also loved sex, movies, music, fast cars, drawing, painting, water skiing, fishing, dirt bikes, boating, camping.
An addictive personality would be accurate. I can be manipulating too—only in fear of losing her.
Who did I marry? Pamela is sexy, sensitive, shy, nurturing, loving, passionate, sometimes crazy, and scattered! She is a caretaker. She is also controlling, sheltered, closed; she needs lots of attention; she needs to live! Go outside in nature and enjoy. I can’t remember the last time we walked together
. I would ask a lot but no response!
Don’t blame yourself, Tommy.
8/16/98
Oh GOD! I just heard Pamela’s voice on the phone. I’m trembling with tears. I miss her soooo much! Back to the walking thing—we were trapped a lot. (Prisoners of our own celebrity.) Nobody understands what it’s like to be trapped in jail without my family! The pain is unbearable! Christy spent hours with Pam last night and didn’t really have any info for me. Bummer. I could really use some in here! The day before I spent 2 hours on the phone with Christy. She had to mention me. The silence is killing me. (I feel like my childhood is here: silence.)
9/1/98
I will be there for you no matter what.
When I get out:
Karate
Steak
Bath
Hawaii
When I get outta here there are some things I desire to do: Eat a steak. Take a long look at the sunset at the beach. A long bath with lots of bubbles (with you would be awesome too… Ha ha … that too with you wouldn’t suck). Some karate lessons and boxing again. Also, Hawaii for seven days.
Pam, I want you to know that I will always be there for you, even if things don’t work out for us … no matter what, okay?
9/4/98 (written on a Post-it note) Love
Stay Centered
Strength
I’ll never forget that bus ride from the courtroom, chained to the fucking seat, still in the suit I had been wearing in front of the judge only fifteen minutes before.
As they marched me into the jail, the first thing I heard was a loud cracking noise. I turned my head to see a little Latin dude lying on the floor of his cell with blood pouring out of his skull. I looked at the officers who were leading me to my cell and asked, “Isn’t anyone gonna help that guy?”
“Oh, that happens all the time,” they said nonchalantly. “He’s just having a seizure.”
I looked back at him and he was just lying there on the ground, not even moving. They brought me into a nearby room and undressed me. I stood there scared shitless and butt naked except for the rings in my nipples, my nose, and my eyebrow. An officer ran to get wire cutters. He clipped my nipple rings and my nose ring, but he couldn’t get my earrings off because they’re surgical steel. He begrudgingly let me keep them on. Then he handed me my jail gear: blue shirt, black shoes, and a bedroll with a towel, plastic comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste.
The officers led me back into the corridor and I noticed that, after half an hour, they were finally taking the Latino prisoner to the infirmary. It looked more like a fucking stroke than a seizure. As they led me past the other prisoners, I saw rows of gnarly motherfuckers, yelling shit like “Welcome, man” and “I’ll teach you how to treat a lady.” Half were excited, the other half wanted to kick my ass for fucking with a chick they probably whacked off to every night. The walk seemed like a mile, and I was so scared my knees buckled and the cops practically had to drag me. They threw me in an isolated cell and shut the heavy door, which sent a loud metallic thud reverberating through the cellblock. It was the loneliest fucking sound I’d ever heard.
This was the room I was supposed to spend the next six months in. It was basically a rock of concrete broken up only by a metal bed with a useless half-inch mattress. I had no one to talk to, nothing to write with, and dickshit to do. Whenever guards walked by, I would ask them for a pencil and they would ignore me. They were trying to let me know that I wouldn’t get any special treatment from them. The spoiled little brat in me was about to be taught a lesson. Because if he didn’t grow into a man in this place, he never would.
That evening, a big no-necked guard woke me up, banging on the door. “Get over here,” he barked.
I walked to the door, unsure whether I was about to receive a favor or a punishment. “What the fuck do you got earrings in for?” he asked.
“They left them there. They couldn’t get them out.”
“What are you, then, some kind of fucking faggot?”
I was prepared for the worst: a beating, a fucking, whatever. “Oh, dude, why are you hassling me?”
“No, I think you’re a faggot. And do you know what we do with faggots in here?”
I went back to my bed and ignored him. I didn’t know what to do. The fucker could have opened my cell door, clubbed me senseless, and in the morning no one would have cared.
After six or seven days of just sitting there going crazy with the knowledge that I had five months and three weeks of this shit left, a half-sized pencil came rolling under my door. A day later, a Bible materialized under the door. Then little religious pamphlets called “Our Daily Bread” started appearing every few days. I’d lie around with the Bible and pencil reading “Our Daily Bread,” and thanking whoever had given me these priceless gifts because I needed something to get my mind off the boredom and the torture. I must have replayed every moment of my relationship with Pamela in my head a thousand times.
I couldn’t understand why Pamela had followed through with pressing charges. She was probably scared and thought I was some crazy, violent monster, she probably thought she was doing the right thing for the kids, and she probably wanted an easy way out of a difficult situation. As much as I loved Pamela, she had a problem dealing with things. If something wasn’t right in her life, she’d rather get rid of it than take the time to work on it or fix it. She fired managers like I changed socks. Personal assistants and nannies would blow through our house like pages of a calendar: every day there was a new one, which always pissed me off because I wanted the kids to have someone consistent in their lives who they could trust and who would grow to love them almost as much as we did. So, the way I understood it, what Pamela did to me was basically fire me. I was fucking fired.
I needed to stop torturing myself and get some fucking good out of the experience, so I came to the conclusion that my mission was introspection. I needed to search inside myself and find the answers I was looking for. And the best way to do that was to stop finding faults with Pamela and other people and start finding the faults that lay within myself. At first, I just started writing on the walls. Most of what I wrote began with the word why: “Why am I here?” “Why am I unhappy?” “Why would I treat my wife like this?” “Why would I do this to my kids?” “Why don’t I have any spirituality?” “Why, why, why?”
After a few weeks, a guard asked me if I’d like to go up to the roof. “Dude, I would love that,” I told him. I could hardly remember what air smelled like, what the sky looked like, what the sun felt like on my face. I couldn’t wait to stand on this rad jail rooftop and take in the mountains and the city again.
They chained me, brought me to the roof, and my jaw dropped open, bro. The walls around the roof were so high that it was just like being in another cell. There were no trees, mountains, oceans, or buildings in sight. They stuck me in a cage up there called a K10, which is something the judge had ordered so that I’d be protected from the other inmates. It was about 4 P.M., and the sun was starting to sink out of view behind the wall. Its last beams were hitting the top corner of the cage. I pressed myself against the front of the cage and stood on my tiptoes so I could feel the sun on my face. As soon as its warmth spread over my forehead, nose, and cheeks, I burst into tears. I closed my eyes and cried as I bathed in the last ten minutes of sunlight left on that roof, the last ten minutes of sunlight I’d see for days, weeks, or months. Dude, I had taken the fucking sun for granted all my life. But, stick me in a dark, cold cell for a few weeks, and it was the greatest thing anyone could ever fucking give me. It felt like the most beautiful day of my life.
When I lost my little piece of sun, I pulled myself up on the dip bar they had in the cage and exercised. Before going to jail, when I was free on a fucking half-million-dollar bail, I had worked out for a month straight to prepare for the worst.
Outside the cage, the general population was playing in the yard—and I was a sitting target for all kinds of abuse. Huge gang-bangers would throw shit at
me and yell, “You’re lucky you ain’t with us, you motherfucking pussy. Hitting girls. Shit, come out and play with the big boys.” It was humiliating, but I just kept my head down and my mouth shut, and thought about the sun.
As time passed, I began to have more contact with the outside world. No one was allowed to send books to the jail, because people would mail novels with pages dipped in acid and shit. But through my lawyer I was able to order three books every ten days on Amazon. I fucking needed mind food. I picked up books on the three things I most wanted to improve: relationships, parenting, and spirituality. I put Tai Chi diagrams up on my walls, learned about pressure points underneath my eyes that released stress, and became an expert on self-help books and Buddhism. I was determined to give myself a full-blown psychological, physical, and musical tune-up. I wanted to fix the problems that were holding me back: myself, my relationship with Pamela, and my restlessness in Mötley Crüe.
Though the judge had forbidden me to contact Pamela, there was nothing I wanted more than to speak to her and work things out. I was pissed at her, but I still felt trapped in a misunderstanding: a fucking missing stirfry pan had ruined my life. They eventually installed a pay phone in my cell, but it was a nightmare trying to reestablish contact with Pamela, who was still fuming over our fight. We began speaking through three-way conversations with our lawyers and therapists, but every time the conversation quickly degenerated into a mud-slinging fest and blame game. Eventually, a friend turned me on to an intermediary named Gerald, who was supposed to patch up all my relationships—with Pamela, with my children, and with the band.
I don’t know anything about Gerald’s credentials or training, but he had common sense. He told me that I had thrived on attention ever since I was a kid doing things like opening up my window so that the neighbors could hear me play guitar. In some sick sense, as much as I loved Pamela, she was also the guitar that I wanted to show all the neighbors I knew how to play. Only it turned out that I couldn’t play it that well. When the lights dim and the disco biscuits are gone and you’re sitting alone in a house with another person, only then does a relationship begin; and it will succeed if you can work through your problems and learn to enjoy the other person for who they really are without all the pats on the back and thumbs up from your bros. Perhaps that’s why celebrity relationships are so difficult: everyone puts you both on such a high pedestal that it almost seems like a disappointment when, at the end of the day, you discover that you’re just two human beings with the same emotional defects and mother-father issues as everybody else.