Ron Jeremy...

Ron Jeremy showing off his post-operative surgical staples-

Jeremy giving the world a big thumbs-up with the aid of an ICU nurse-

Only in America can the most prolific male porn star/sex symbol look like a diseased, overweight hedgehog, and no one bats an eye at this seemingly untenable contradiction. It makes absolutely no sense, which is why it makes perfect sense. Ron Jeremy has been released from Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles after undergoing two heart procedures, and the home office at "Busting Chops" and it's worldwide subsidiaries have been inundated with messages of support for this, the "hardest" working man in show business.

Jeremy was feeling a little funny one day a few weeks ago while driving to the airport to catch a flight to his sister's wedding, so he peels over and hightails it to the hospital. According to the medical staff, if he had gotten on that plane he would have died. There have been better looking porn actors with dicks almost as big as his, but somehow he is celebrated as the All-American Sex Symbol that other celebrities who get their fair share of ass are jealous of. He's been getting laid on camera since the 1970's and hasn't stopped since, and he's fucked everybody there is to fuck, both publicly and in his private life. His biography will be something to behold, and hopefully he will begin to work on it now that he's gotten the scare of his life.

Ron Jeremy, reminding all of us why it's so good to be him-

The only man Charlie Sheen is jealous of-

Ron Jeremy at Corey Feldman's 35th brithday party-

Funny enough, Jeremy, the world's preeminent adult film star, didn't start out as the hairy, disgusting, lardass porcupine from the sewers of Hell he looks like today. He just kept getting increasingly fatter and more grotesque over the years and never gave a fuck. That didn't mean his female co-stars liked it, but so many considered screwing him a form of career advancement that he kept getting work. Don't really understand the logic of that, but hey, whatever. They're porn stars, who the fuck ever said their thought process makes any sense. The other odd thing that happened was celebrities from more legitimate walks of life took to hanging out with him and adopted him as sort of the guy they wish they could most be like, a sort of uncrowned king of hedonism that Hugh Hefner portrayed behind closed doors. Unlike with Hefner, there was nothing clandestine about Jeremy's lifestyle-his shit was out in the open, and because of this his legend grew.

Portrait of the porn star as a young man. Ron Jeremy's high school year book picture (Dios mio, que bestia)-

For the last dozen or so years, Jeremy has been one of the few industry male actors who are signed under an exclusive contract to a specific company, which means he makes more money performing in a limited number of films per year than the average porn star, and at the ripe old age of fifty-nine he can't go on forever. But this grotesque fat fuck managed to dodge a bullet here, because he suffered from the same condition that took out actor John Ritter. Somehow, the absurdity of life is encapsulated in this man's improbable career arc. The phrase "who would have thought" applies to this man more than anyone else. And as I always knew it, regardless of how or when he goes out, Ron Jeremy will always have the last laugh. As it should be.