“Hi, everybody. I’m living proof that anybody can get laid.” That likely will be Ron Jeremy’s opening line when he hits the Middle East this Friday to perform stand-up comedy “about the business.” Jeremy’s business being, of course, pleasure.

Jeremy is a porn star, and he is proof that size does matter. Other than his nine-and-three-quarters-inch penis, his physical attributes are few: he’s a bit on the roly-poly side, he’s well into middle age, and he’s no one’s model of Hollywood handsome. If all this makes him an unlikely porn star, it’s also what makes him everyone’s favorite porn star, especially among men, who figure they’re better-looking than the guy getting the action on screen.

Alas, Jeremy’s most popular feature won’t be on display this Friday, when “Ron Jeremy’s Sideshow” arrives at the Middle East. But he will be performing his Borscht-Belt-meets-Boogie-Nights stand-up comedy routine, and he’ll be supported by girls, girls, and more girls: oil-wrestling girls, girls participating in a banana-eating contest (for the boys, there’s a cherry-pie-eating contest, with the pies conveniently placed between the legs of, yes, girls), and punk-rock-playing girls dressed up in Catholic-school uniforms. Needless to say, there will be audience participation.

“We go to the extent that the law will allow,” Jeremy explains over the phone from his Los Angeles home while fighting off a mild case of the hiccups. “That way people are getting the skimpiest show possible. In other words, if a club will allow topless, we’ll go topless. We had a few clubs in the Midwest where you can go nude. We went nude. Not me. Lord knows I’d wipe out the front row.”

Blame it on the Blue Laws, but no one will be taking off any bras or panties at the Middle East. Still, Jeremy seems, if not orgasmic, then excited about coming to town. “I have relatives in Boston. My mom’s father’s brother owned a very popular bookstore in Harvard Square. Mandrake. [Specializing in art books, Mandrake was for many years a Square institution on Story Street.] You can put that in the paper. Let the relatives call me and curse. No, we get along great. My brother also went to Harvard, got his master’s in business. I think he was valedictorian as well.”

Jeremy himself is no intellectual slouch. He’s got a master’s in special education from Queens College in New York, and he even taught for a short stint. “I was in Hawaii recently, and I saw some mentally retarded kids, and I got all choked up because I felt like maybe I had deserted them, that maybe I’d have been a great teacher someday and really helped them out.”

But what could he do when, in 1978, his then-girlfriend snapped some shots of him au naturel that ended up in the pages of Playgirl? Porn films, some 1700 of them, followed. These days, he’s basking in his porn-legend status while also inching his way into bit parts in mainstream films because, as he puts it, “What do I do if the old penis falls off?” And for a man who’s been nicknamed “The Hedgehog,” Jeremy’s also living pretty high on the hog. “I used to work out in the gym, now I work out in the buffet. You get to that age, and you know, you have a blonde over here and a nice surf ’n’ turf over there. And you’re torn. [Now] I’d probably fuck the blonde. But any day now, I think I’ll go to the food.”

Of course, he’s already been accorded the requisite honor for any veteran of the biz: a documentary of his life. Pornstar: The Legend of Ron Jeremy took first place at the NoDance Film Festival in January and may get a wider release this fall. “What made the documentary so interesting is there weren’t really any skeletons in the closet. Out of New York, master’s degree in special education, taught a year and a half, quit, did theater, went to porn. It’s a pretty happy-go-lifestyle.”

“Ron Jeremy’s Sideshow” plays the Middle East, 480 Mass Ave in Central Square, Cambridge, this Friday, June 1. Call (617) 864-EAST.

Issue Date: May 31- June 7, 2001