Tommyland

by: Tommy Lee and Anthony Bozza

The words dirty, naughty, and bad seem to creep up into my vocabulary when trying to describe this book, which would be a surprise to no one, but the ones that did evoke a certain amount of shock were: kind, gentle, loving, optimistic, grateful, and good. In the first two chapters Tommy hits you “big” with a chapter completely devoted to sex and inserts from his “penis” talking. This was to be expected and told without any surprise in Tommy’s laughing fun filled way of one of the worlds biggest eighties rockers and playboys.

But next he talks about being a kid, his amazing family support system, and the love his parents not only shared with him, but each other. In the next chapters he continues to delve into what seems to be your everyday normal man, who happens to be a huge rockstar. In describing his marriage to Heather Locklear, he has only positive things to say about her, and they remain friends even now. He takes responcibility for the end of their marriage, though points out his motivation for his infidelity was sound, though he know realizes he should have ended it before. He also makes a big point of saying when married or engaged he is now completely monogamous to his partner and can’t understand why men would be married or otherwise if they wanted to be single. While this sounds like a “line”, read the book and you’ll believe the guy actually means it.

Onto the Pamela marriage, paparazzi, and jail chapters. Even in these he talks about how hard it was to be together, to have their kids together, how hard the times were, but he still sees the positive from each experience and takes what he’s learned from his mistakes and others and uses it as wisdom for the future. This not only shocked me, but actually gave me my own feeling of glow. He’s not whinning like most stars are about the drug addictions, the falling out of bandmembers, the hard marriages, etc. He is grateful for all he has done in his life and appreciates everything he has.

It was such a relief to read an autobiography that wasn’t focused on the struggles, but on the perservering, about coming out ontop after all of it, about finding yourself and being yourself and loving every bit of it. Tommy may not be the smartest man, but his priorities in his life are in order, and he may continue to cover our tabloids and make ET every now and then with some outrageous behavior, but that’s part of who this guy is and he fully embraces himself. Kudos to Tommy.