The Ron Jeremy Thing

It’s a lot of fun to be told you look like a celebrity. And over the years, I’ve been told that I look like several.

For years I wore my hair pretty long and had a mustache (and sometimes a goatee or beard).

Anyway, during those years, I used to get told that I look like a lot of people. Frank Zappa was one I would get a lot. Another one was Burton Cummings, who was the lead singer for the Guess Who (“American Woman”), a very popular band in the early seventies. Buck Dharma, the guitarist for seventies heavy metal band Blue Oyster Cult, is another one I got a lot.

A girl I used to work with actually gave me a framed picture of Buck Dharma’s one solo album Flat Out, recreated with my face and the title “Out For Beer” one year.

Funny Stuff.

But the one that has really stuck has been the Ron Jeremy thing.

For those reading this who don’t know who Ron Jeremy is, please allow me to enlighten you.

Ron Jeremy is a porn star.

In fact, he is arguably the most famous porn star in the world.

The key to Ron Jeremy’s appeal is that he is this really average looking, even somewhat pudgy guy who happens to have an enormous penis. And to everyday, ordinary guys who can’t get laid — guys not at all unlike like me — Ron Jeremy represents something like the great white hope.

Ron Jeremy’s own story, documented recently in a great film called The Legend of Ron Jeremy (a buddy of mine actually got me the DVD for Christmas as a joke) is actually a lot less romantic, and even borderline tragic.

Anyway, before I cut my hair a lot shorter and lost the mustache, I used to get mistaken for Ron Jeremy on a regular basis.

As in, a lot.

The most recent time, I was in the beer garden at an outdoor concert (I wanna say it was Coldplay) about three years ago and this twenty-year-old kid actually thought I was him. He even introduced me to his very hot looking twenty-something girlfriend.

Now if this sounds like a golden opportunity to some of you with filthy minds out there, think again.

The way I actually weaseled my way out of it was by saying something to the effect of how I’d be happy to show said girlfriend that the films were anatomically accurate.

I don’t think the dude even finished his beer he was gone so quick.

And incidentally, without going into any of the gory details on my own, umm, “anatomy”, I can assure you that in no way do I “measure up” to Ron Jeremy. Not by a long shot, I’m afraid. But at one point in my life at least, I apparently looked a hell of a lot like him.