by Tommy Lee
Steve-O
LESBIAN TESTIMONIALS
The following opinions were gathered in various Los Angeles locales, from Hollyweird to Malibu. The names have not been changed at the request of the lesbians.
Catherine: I thought Tommy seemed really sweet and tonight I met him and now I know he’s really sweet. He just acts like a little boy. You know, he jumps up and down and he gets excited about everything. That innocence is fucking hot as hell. It’s like he’s a little baby, as wild as he is. It helps that he’s adorable, but the hotness is way more about the way he is.
Lenny: Tommy Lee is so fine that I want to be him. I want to be him because if I were him, I would get all his chicks. He keeps it sensitive and he rocks, and since he’s a drummer he has that, like, math brain. He is superhot and sexy with his little shirts and his man muscles. And he’s got a sweet, sincere smile to go with his realness. I love him, and later tonight when I fuck my girlfriend I’m going to make her call me Tommy. I’m going to call my girl Pamela, Mayte, or whoever he’s with. Fuck it, I’ll call her all of them.
Lenny’s girlfriend: I’ll be whoever you want, baby. Why don’t you just say, “What’s your name again?” Then we’ll switch. I’ve got to be Tommy too.
Lenny: Fuck yeah, it will be good. My turn to be the bitch.
Jozie:* Here’s the thing. I’m a man-hating lesbian but I love Tommy Lee. He really should feel very excited to know that. He’s got amazing tattoos and his little nipples are pierced. I get angry because guys don’t hold up the same degree of personal hygiene that girls do. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that Tommy shaves his arms, which is very, very hot. That wins him many, many points. Tommy’s got hair on his head and not on his back. That’s cool—that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Tommy: I like to keep it where it’s welcome.
Don’t worry, I’ve saved the best for last. Here they are, my best friends, the elusive and way too cool, including the answers, if any, that were given by their representatives in response to our request.
Lenny Kravitz
Madonna
Christina Aguilera
P. Diddy
Method Man
Bob Costas
Angelina Jolie: She will not be able to participate. Sorry.
Martha Stewart: I received your recent email to Erica Schwartz requesting a testimonial from Martha Stewart regarding Tommy Lee. Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide this testimonial, due to the volume of requests that we receive. Thank you for considering Martha for this project and if you have any additional questions, please let me know. Samantha Schabel
Julia Roberts
Elizabeth Hurley
Jim Carrey
Bill Clinton
Kevin Spacey
Al Pacino
Robert De Niro
David Bowie
Chris Rock
Jenna Jameson
Howard Stern
Robin Williams
Kid Rock
Richie Sambora
Prince
Naomi Campbell
Johnny Depp
Missy Elliott
Ronnie Wood
Keith Richards
Michelle Pfeiffer
Dave Grohl
Conan O’Brien
Carmen Electra: Carmen is going to be passing on your offer, but thank you for thinking of her and best of luck with the book! Take care, Nicky
Brad Pitt: I’m sorry but he’s not available. Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you.
Adam Carolla
Snoop Doggy Dogg
Shaq
Hugh Hefner
Woody Harrelson
17
STATE OF LOSS
a.k.a.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
As my dad was dying, my mom took care of him every single day. He was bedridden and she would change him, feed him, bathe him, massage his body when his muscles were sore. To me, that is true love. She took care of everything. I just had to pull my mom aside one day and tell her how amazing she is and how amazing it was to see her be that way with him. I said, “Mom, you are still in love with him.” And she just looked at me and said, “Yes, as much as always.”
My dad died of multiple myeloma, cellular cancer that invades your red and white blood cells. It’s treatable, but it’s not curable. I spent a lot of time with him when he was sick and I’m glad I was able to. I couldn’t stand seeing him spend his last days in a hospital bed at home surrounded by four stupid walls, so I rented a houseboat for five days where he could wake up in nature on the water every day. I wanted him to wake up and not see walls—just water, mountains, and blue sky. He deserved to smell the barbecue and have a fishing pole in his hands one last time, because fishing was my dad’s favorite pastime. My assistant Viggy* and I lifted him out of his bed and into his wheelchair, and rolled him out to the deck. We put his cowboy hat and some shades on him and there we were, fishing together one last time. He had the biggest smile on his face and I did too, even though inside I was crying because I knew, and so did he, that this was it. I felt lucky to have this time with him because I really didn’t see him enough when I was younger. I really didn’t see anybody but my bandmates from the time I was seventeen until I was thirty-eight. It was a gift to share my dad’s last days with him and tell each other all those things we didn’t say earlier in our lives.
Just before he died, I was with him, and tears start coming out of his eyes when he looks at me and says, “I’m not scared.” I start crying too, and he says, “I’ve got amazing kids. I’ve had an amazing life. I’m ready. Don’t worry about me, it’s okay. This is okay, I’m ready to go now. I love your mother and I’ve loved my life. I’m ready now.” We were crying together and I’ve never felt closer to someone and more heartbroken at the same time. He was also hallucinating from the medication he was on, so he was also talking to other people whom he was seeing. It was the most intense moment of my life.
My dad died at home, during the week of September 11, 2001. I’m sitting there in his room with him, just watching him die. On the television in the corner, I see the most insane act of terrorism in the history of mankind. I really wasn’t sure what was real anymore. How do you prepare to lose your only role model? How do you do it while the world is exploding? I had never seen so much death and I hope I never do again. My life was changing forever while the lives of everyone around me, around all of us, changed forever too. With that one act, that one event, those fucking assholes tore a hole in the world and changed everything as we know it. I kept thinking of how deaths come in threes. I sat there for a week, looking at my father and the television, thinking about the three bombs that had dropped on my life.
Dad,
We all miss you terribly, and Mom is so lonely without you. Don’t worry, I’m okay, Dad, because I feel like you’re watching me and with me all the time. I was sitting on the balcony writing lyrics last year and I knew you were there. A black crow landed just inches from me and started squawking at me. He wasn’t mad, he wasn’t scared, he was just trying to talk to me. I sat there, staring at him, and I asked him if he was you. He stayed for a while and we talked, and in my soul I hoped it was you. Was that you, Dad?
I love you.
Thank you for just being you, Father.
Love,
Your son, Tom
18 STATE OF SHOCK
a.k.a.
LIGHTNING STRIKES NOT ONCE BUT THRICE
By then I was numb; the first bomb that had dropped in my life was like Hiroshima. It was the tragic death of a little boy named Daniel in my pool. We were celebrating my son Brandon’s fifth birthday, and it happened in the summer of 2001. The other two were soon to follow. That fall my dad passed away, and the Twin Towers fell, our country went to war. All of it was tragic, but the worst happened first: that beautiful little four-year-old boy dying at my house. It’s still very hard for me to even think about, and sometimes it’s impossible for me to even look at that side of the
pool. I’m in the pool almost every day because I love the water, so he’s never far from my thoughts. It never gets any easier and it probably never will.
It was the first birthday party I’d thrown for the either of the boys after Pamela and I divorced—it was my first effort as a single dad. The day was June 5, 2001. I’d planned a small get-together: my nanny, Melissa, handed out the invitations at school. People started showing up at about noon, and we had between thirty and forty people there, including kids and adults.
Gerald, the man who had seen me through all the changes I’d lived through since going to jail, was with me that day, helping out. We made all the preparations and once the party was under way, he relaxed by the pool with me and talked to me about life in the wise way that he does, teaching me to open my mind like no one I’ve ever met.
To get a picture of what happened that afternoon, I need to tell you about my pool. It really is amazing. It’s more like a natural lake or pond than anything else. There is beautiful beige slate stone around the deck, and the bottom is easy on your feet and looks like tan and black sand. It winds around to the left and, like the rest of my yard, there are trees and plants all around it. It has a beach entrance so when you wade into it, it’s like walking into a peaceful ocean: It’s very shallow and slowly gets deeper.
That afternoon Gerald and I are sitting at the table by the pool under the sun, taking everything in. People are here and there, and everyone is having a great time. All of a sudden we hear this woman scream, “Oh my God!” Gerald and I jump up and run to the beach entrance where a woman is pulling a boy out of the water. I see what is happening so I run to call 911. A friend of mine runs over and helps pull the boy out. He gets him on the deck and starts pumping his chest. As I tell the 911 operator what is happening, I’m watching Daniel throw up all over the place.
Daniel had been tearing it up all day, floating around the pool with his big water wings on. I’d seen him having a blast: squirting everyone with his squirt gun, swimming, splashing, and doing all the things a four-year-old loves to do.
I watch in disbelief as Daniel is pulled from the water and laid on the deck. I’m relaying instructions to the adults caring for him, shouting to them how to administer CPR. Everyone is hysterical. I’m yelling, “Fuck! Listen to me! They’re telling me what to do!” I give the phone to Renee, a woman whose son goes to my son’s school, and tell her to give 911 the address because I don’t want to be on the phone—I want to go over and help.
Time stopped for me. It seemed like half an hour, but the paramedics probably showed up ten minutes later. There is a circle around Daniel and we are pumping his chest and calling his name, hoping he’ll start breathing again, but he’s still completely unconscious. All the other kids don’t understand what is happening. I tell Melissa to take my boys inside because I don’t want them to see this. The ambulance shows up and the EMTs bring out an oxygen tank and start pumping Daniel’s chest, hoping to revive him. They know that time is of the essence so they load him onto a gurney and transport him to the nearest emergency room.
Daniel’s parents weren’t there at all that day: They’d sent him to the party with his nanny, a German guy named Christian. I’d met Christian for the first time that day, when he came up to me halfway through the party to tell me that he was going to the Wango Tango festival, a concert held each year in downtown L.A. He pointed out a woman across the pool and informed me that she would be responsible for Daniel for the rest of the day and that she’d also drive him home. I say, “Okay, as long as someone is watching him, that’s cool.” I recognized the woman he had pointed out, so I didn’t worry. I thought she was a teacher’s aide at our kids’ school. All the kids at the party had a nanny or parent to watch them, I made sure of that.
As Daniel is being pulled out of the water I look for the woman who is supposed to be covering for Christian and she is nowhere to be found. As I’m on the phone with 911, I shout for her, over and over. I found out later that while Daniel was drowning she was taking her dog for a walk in my front yard. I fucking lost it—this is not happening. She’s supposed to be watching him, he’s in the pool, and she’s walking her dog?
When she comes back to the pool and sees the paramedics she says, “Oh my God! Am I in trouble?” Fuck yeah, you are. After that she just turns and runs out of there with her dog. I point at her, shouting, “You were supposed to fucking watch him! Where the fuck have you been!”
Daniel’s parents show up as he is laid on the gurney, and of course they lose their fucking minds. His father screams, “What the fuck happened?” The police are there by then and they have to restrain him. Daniel’s mother is crying, doubled over, hysterical. I can’t even imagine showing up to a party and seeing one of my boys lying there with paramedics all around him. I pray that I never do.
I have no idea how to approach them. I want to comfort them in any way I can. I want to tell them what happened. They are so hysterical—and I don’t blame them. Daniel’s father is so enraged and out of control that I know he won’t hear me if I try to talk to him. I know that if I were in his shoes, I would be acting exactly the same way. He wanted answers—NOW.
I feel helpless, so I go inside to make sure that my sons are okay. The boys don’t really understand what is going on at all. To them, this is Brandon’s birthday party and all they want to know is when they can go back in the pool. They had seen a little bit of what had happened, and they ask me what is wrong with Daniel. It takes all I’m made of to hold it together. I tell them that Daniel swallowed too much water and that he’ll be okay after he goes to the doctor. I want to believe what I’m saying too.
I talk to the sheriff for a long time, walking him around the yard and the pool, answering all his questions. I don’t hear one word he says to me because all I’m waiting for is the phone to ring, hoping the voice on the other end will tell me that Daniel is okay.
My assistant, Viggy, went to the hospital with Daniel’s family to help out if he could, while I looked after the boys and spoke to the police. Half an hour after they left, I hear the phone ring and I run to answer it. Everything goes into slow motion as I hear Viggy on the other end. I ask, “Is Daniel okay?” He is quiet for a moment and he doesn’t have to say anything. I know what’s coming next. “He didn’t make it, bro.”
I hang up the phone, I sit down, and I cry. My nanny is with my boys and I hope that they don’t come looking for me. I pace around the room like a zombie, contemplating so many things that I hope no one ever has to handle: How can I tell my sons that their friend died in their pool? How can I even try to express my deepest sympathies to Daniel’s parents?
I go to my bedroom and write Daniel’s parents a letter. This is the letter no one ever wants to write. I’m a parent, so I can imagine what they are going through. Still, I really have no idea—imagination is one thing, reality is another. After I get through it, I fax it to them right away. I got no response. I understood. Later, I heard through friends of theirs that to them my letter looked like something that a publicist wrote, and that broke my heart. I really, really, really wish they had been there that day.
For an entire week afterwards, I stay locked in my room. I’m scared to come out, I don’t eat, I don’t do anything. All I do is watch the satellite transmitters rising up on the trucks in front of my house. I sit in bed watching the news feeds live from my street and listen to the helicopters buzzing above my house. I feel as if I’m being hunted down like a fugitive: My room shakes every time they pass overhead to snap another picture of my pool. All I can think about is that none of this can really be happening. I had spent the last three years doing my best to clean up the mess in my life and I had made myself a better person. I felt that all I had done, in one instant, because of one unfortunate accident, was meaningless.
My phone wouldn’t stop ringing, everyone from my mom to friends I’d lost contact with were calling me. It was nice to hear all of them saying such wonderful things like, “We’re so sorry, Tommy.
Just know that it wasn’t your fault and that we’re here for you.” I’m glad to hear all those voices, but I can’t talk to anyone. I’m so sad that I could only leave my room to go to the kitchen to try to eat something every few days.
I don’t know for sure, but I heard that the woman who pulled Daniel out sold her story to The National Enquirer for $10,000. Fuckin’ bitch. When I hear this I call her and ask her if it is true. No return call—of course; she had already bailed. A friend of mine who knew her said that as soon as she got the money, she ran out of town. I read The National Enquirer story eventually. It’s all about how she was in the pool and how she reached over and grabbed Daniel. The tabloids deal in the lowest common denominator—everyone knows that. Selling them a story about a crazy night out on the town is one thing. I couldn’t believe that anyone would go so low to make money off a little boy’s death. I was so disgusted with humans. Fucking disgusted.