I Know It When I (Don't) See It

I’m off to the first of what will be, before it’s over, a grand total of four dentists appointments in a single calendar week – two for fillings (the third filling-appointment falls in a different week all together, so that one will be a piece of cake), and two to re-root canal the tooth that fell apart. Beats me how you re-take out a root that went down the drain eleven years ago, but I guess that’s because I went to college for something else instead of sadistic stick-your-fingers-in-a-bunch-of-strangers’-mouths school.

Some other day, I’ll tell you all about how I managed to get myself in this oral predicament (I’m sure you’re chomping at the bit, waiting with baited breath, drooling in anticipation – badump-bump) but for now I you might like to chew on this (badump…) while I suffer stoically my acts of contrition for my sins of omission by a dental technician (…bump! oh, I’m hot this morning).

I was reading this book, which you should all read and which I bought because a friend was reading it and I already love the author from his column in Esquire. I had to buy it because I don’t even really know this friend in real life, so I couldn’t just steal it from her when she was done. Something I would never do anyway, never, because everyone should buy books at full cover price because authors (and their Super Agents) need to be getting themselves some kind of paid. Remember that. (Actually, you can just file it away. I’ll remind you later when it’s really important. Anyway…)

I was reading this book (still) and there’s an essay in there all about how Pamela Anderson is (or was) the Marilyn Monroe of our times (of our younger times – this essay is like ten years old). I’m not going to go into the whole thing here, but feel free to leave a comment if you disagree or buy the book and read it for yourself if you want to see what it is you’re disagreeing with before you leave a comment – either way, no skin off my teeth. But in the essay, he talks a lot about The Tape.

He seems to assume that we’ve all seen it. Tommy’s monster schlong and Pammy’s barely literate paean to it. He acted like it was the goddamn Charlie Brown Christmas special or something, the way he referenced portions of it and expected us to just know what he was talking about. That sad little tree that with a modicum of love and attention from Our Hero becomes a mighty tannenbaum. Or something.

But I’ve never seen it.

I’ve heard about it, sure. And it’s not at all fair to say I couldn’t understand his references without the visual imagery in my mind, but still. I finished the essay feeling like I’d missed out on something. He makes a compelling argument: Pamela Anderson just might be the Marilyn Monroe of our time. And if she is, then this tape is her Some Like It Hot (or at least her Some Like It a-couple-more-adjectives-that-I-won’t-list-because-I-know-my-Nana-and-Mommie-Dearest-are-out-there-somewhere).

It’s not that I’m a prude; I’ve never seen anything Pamela Anderson was in – except maybe an old episode of “Home Improvement” back before the Toolman gave her the old heave-ho. And I’ve never seen anything Tommy Lee was in – except maybe Pamela Anderson in an old episode of “Home Improvement,” back before the Toolman gave her the old heave-ho.

And I’m not going to pretend that I’ve never watched an ounce of porn. Of course I have. I watch the Discovery Channel, don’t I? But I’ve never watched internet porn. In fact, I was shocked just the other day to discover dirty talk on a wiki slang dictionary (add all the technological advances that you want, but you give adolescent boys a dictionary, they’re still going straight for the cuss words). And I’ve never watched celebrity internet anything. The closest I’ve gotten is a few old clips of Dirty Boy from his pre-Dirty, QVC days. (And let me just state here for the record: not prurient at all. I haven’t watched them twice and, knowing my love for Dirty Boy, that’s saying something.)

I just don’t do the whole paparazzi/voyeur thing. I never even watched the OJ trial -- nor will I watch the redux. It’s not that I think I’m above it all, more like I think that I’m below. Of course I’m curious, but it just feels wrong. These are people’s lives, and turnaround’s fair play. Not that it would ever happen, but I know I wouldn’t want anybody looking that closely into mine.

So I don’t read People, EW, Us Weekly, or the Enquirer. I do read Vanity Fair, which is really just Entertainment Monthly For Rich People Who Fancy Themselves Socially Conscious – and since I don’t qualify for either of those last two categories I guess you’d have to say I read it for the articles where Jennifer Aniston finally cries over being publicly cuckolded by Brad Pitt (or is cuckolded the right word here? Is there a word for women? Pussbooted, perhaps?). But at least while Jenny cries, she has her clothes on. (She later takes them off for GQ, however, which I also read, so maybe that invalidates my point. Whatever. That’s not the point I set out to make here anyway.)

The point is, I read the essay (remember the essay? The one about Pam and Marilyn that started this whole thing?) and I put down the book. I heaved a heavy sigh and I thought to myself: “Oh, alright, fine.” And I went to the computer. It was time. If this was Some Like It Hot for my generation, then I didn’t want to be the lame kid at the Piper party. Mommie Dearest missed out on watching the moon landing back in 1969 because she was busy squeezing out wee tiny me – how do you think that feels? The one experience the whole world was a part of and she has to hear about it second hand forever. At least this hole I could fill. So to speak. Quit giggling.

So I said “ooooookaaaaay” very slowly and I went to youtube. I took a deep breath and typed “tommy lee sex tape” really fast. And then I sat and stared at it a while. The words, I mean – stared at the words. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to pop my you-know on something as base as this? Shouldn’t I ease in to it with a little Britney ’tang, then move up to gelfling Paris Stilton before I go the whole nine yards?

But no, none of those would have happened without this. This was the proverbial Grand Daddy of them all. Okay, there was Rob Lowe in 1988, but that’s just embarrassing – and at least one of those girls was underage, I think, so watching that would open up a whole new kettle of sick that is just never going to be a part of my world. And besides, I don’t think Tommy had Robbie in mind when he was hoisting sails, whereas I can’t help but assume Paris’s grainy blow job was, at least on some level, an homage to Mr. Lee.

Please let me interrupt here to point out how much I manage to know about all of these things without ever having seen any of them. And also to apologize to MD and to Nana for having gone to dark places I never meant to go.

As for the dark places that I did intend to go, I gave myself a little pep talk (“Come on, Erin, you can do this!”) and hit “search.”

Nuthin.

If you type “tommy lee sex tape” into youtube and hit search, you get this. The first few sites are trying to sell you something. I don’t remember what. I clicked on two of them, and they were both the same so I moved on. The next few are people making their own homages to the original (which just, ew). I didn’t click on those. And then it moves on to old Motley Crue footage and, I don’t know, “Home Improvement” episodes. Further down, for some reason, both Trainspotting and Jimmy Swaggart make appearances on the list. I didn’t click on them, either, but I still might. I’m dying to find out what the connection is.

And so that’s as far as I got. I didn’t search in Google for it because I didn’t want to end up clicking on a pile of dead ends and wind up with a Compaq full of dirty cookies and an inbox full of spunky spam.

It’s probably just as well. After all, if the Pam & Tommy Show is such a seminal experience, then maybe it is the gateway drug for all the rest. Maybe, if I saw it, I’d understand why Britney wants to flash her beaver, and why people want to look. Maybe I’d start spending random minutes trolling the internet looking for the latest hoo-ha shot. I hear Janice Dickinson has got one. I bet it’s loverly. I bet her publicist suggested it to quell the rumors that she died ten years ago and this thing embarrassing itself all over basic cable is actually a drag queen impersonator (you see? you see how much I know about these things without even trying?).

So I’m okay with being left out of this little piece of cultural awareness. I’m busy enough as it is, I don’t have time for trolls.



Johnny sanded the bathroom yesterday and found out it needed some more patching. But he's back to work this morning (yay) so I fear it will be a few more months before we have progress to report on that front.