It’s been traumatic enough for me to handle the fact that CBS couldn’t even get their shit together to air a season of either The Amazing Race or Survivor this summer. That’s just plain lazy. But I realized that summer 2005’s TV programming had hit really hit bottom and stared to dig when I found myself tuning in to the premiere of NBC’s Tommy Lee Goes To College this past Tuesday. I expected to witness a total train wreck, but instead I was oddly compelled to watch back-to-back introductory episodes of Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee’s highly contrived bout with higher education. Honestly, this show reminded me a lot of this reoccurring dream I have, where I’m back in school and it’s one week before final exams. One day I wake up and remember that there’s this math class I’ve somehow forgotten to attend all semester…

So not only am I trying to figure what the fuck I’ve been doing all semester that’s kept me from going to this one class, but I’m in a total panic over how I can possibly make up an entire semester’s worth of homework assignments, take the final and possibly swing an incomplete in the course. Jesus god, what a nightmare.

But Tommy Lee Goes to College, which depicts affable rock n’er do well Lee as a sort of ‘Curious George’ of The University of Nebraska, kept me entertained with just the sheer hilarity of putting a high school drop out in an organic chemistry course that would put me in a coma and expecting him to stay awake. It didn’t hurt that Lee also looked really hot in nearly every scene where he wasn’t wearing some kind of stupid hat. I think I’ll be tuning for the entire 6 week (or however long it runs) season. I mean, hot rock stars are in short supply on TV these days. And Survivor doesn’t start for two more weeks.

The craziest thing about the show, however, is the fact that it induced me to have sex dreams of Tommy Lee all night long. Needless to say, I did not awake in the morning feeling well-rested. Thoughts of jumping Tommy Lee’s hotness continued to distract me at work all the next day and then suddenly I remembered: I have Tommy Lee’s email address. I decided to write him an email:

“Hey Tommy,” I wrote. “I watched your TV show last night (you looked hot) and then I had sex dreams about you all night. HOT!
Ok, rock on.”

Several minutes later I received the following reply from Tommy:

“Hahaha!! Nice!…gotta love those sex dreams!! I’m so pumped dude!!…the NBC show was their highest ratings this summer!!!…Can I get a “FUCK YEAH.”

I love that Tommy called me “Dude.” Anyway, that’s something fun that happened this past week.