Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

"CD USA" co-host John Wynn admits he's girding himself at the prospect of doing live TV with wildman rocker Tommy Lee.

"My goal is not to die," says the Asian-American hottie, whose show is broadcasting America's Party, the annual New Year's Eve celebration, from the Vegas Strip. "Anytime you get to spend New Year's with Tommy Lee, you know it's going to be fun and exciting. I'm sure Tommy's going to be like, 'Let's jump off the roof of this building.' But if I follow Tommy Lee, I might not be alive, because I think there's only one in one million that could live that life. Tommy's built for that. I'm a little more fragile. I could break."

Also a singer/songwriter, who's working on a solo album for release in 2007, Wynn recalls a Lee moment when the drummer "lit himself on fire" during a Motley Crue performance, "and the drums turned upside down. That alone makes you like a rock god! I probably won't touch that ever in my life, but I can admire it from afar."

The hope, says Wynn, is for "CD USA's" broadcast of America's Party celebration from the Las Vegas Strip — which this year includes such acts as Five for Fighting, All-American Rejects and Smash Mouth, as well as Rockstar: Supernova with Tommy Lee — to become an annual tradition. "Every year, watching the ball drop is a taped delay for the West Coast," Wynn points out. "We're starting at 8 p.m. so even the people on the East Coast can get a piece of what we're doing live."

NOT FORGETTING: Just as the dust from Michael Richards' videotaped racist rant at a comedy club in November is finally beginning to settle, shock comic Carlos Mencia declares he's not about to let sleeping dogs lie.

Next month, Mencia starts shooting the third season of Comedy Central's second-highest rated program, "Mind of Mencia," and among the sketches he plans are "'The Lost Episodes of Seinfeld.' Turns out we get a copy of one of the lost episodes of 'Seinfeld,' in which a black family moves into their building," he says. "It's all about Kramer's reaction to the family when he has this dialogue with Jerry."

But Richards need not feel singled out by the Honduran comic, who prides himself on being an equal-opportunity offender. "We gotta tackle Mel Gibson, of course. And we also have to tackle the fact there are no Latin superheroes. We've had some black X-Men, but no Hispanic X-Men, and there's going to be a change to that." He says he's leaning toward a Latin superhero called "'Beanerman,'" then breaks into a rap, "'He came from outer space in a giant bean, he's the most amazing Beaner you've ever seen.

He'll spot immigrants pickin' lettuce, when we're in trouble, he'll never forget us' ... something like that." Alrighty then.

Meanwhile, Mencia just wrapped his "The Punisher Tour" that began back in September. "We ended up doing 100 shows, and I pretty much went to every major city in America," he says. "It has been so amazing. I got to see that I had every mix in the audiences — grandparents with their sons and grandsons, Asians, blacks, Hispanics … That was a huge source of pride." The stand-up tour was taped, but he says bits and pieces "will probably just end up in the show in some ways. My 'No Strings Attached' (comedy special) just recently came out and the DVD of season two of 'Mind of Mencia,' so I don't want to oversaturate the market."

HOT PURSUIT: Although TV bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman is facing "deprivation of liberty" charges in Mexico for his June 2003 capture of fugitive convicted rapist Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir, Chapman's wife, Beth, wants to assure us he's as popular as ever with his fans thanks to their A&E reality show. "We've never been this famous, so we're not used to 12 to 15 buckets of mail a day. My sister, who goes through the fan mail, told me she had been reading mail for four-and-a-half hours, and the box only moved an inch," claims Beth.

"They say we've changed their life, their children are getting off drugs, people are asking us to find their loved ones. These people are astonished that there's a real Batman." Now if the non-caped crusader can just stay out of jail!

ONE HAT'S ENOUGH FOR HIM: Former Lakers star/actor/producer Rick Fox says he didn't even consider doing a cameo in "Hysteria," the upcoming indie horror thriller he produced last summer. "To produce something from preproduction to post-production, you can't really have two jobs," says Fox, "I was working 16-hour-days just producing." Fox just wrapped an arc on the CW's "One Tree Hill" and pops up in a recurring role on FX's new Courteney Cox Arquette series, "Dirt," debuting Jan. 2. "I was blessed to wrap shooting of the film three days before I went to start shooting my work between 'Dirt' and 'One Tree Hill,'" he says, "the timing worked out perfectly."

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2006 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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