"The Ropes": An unreliable-narrator Rashomon about nightclub bouncers. Take careful notes. There are some dicks, too

 

I was looking for some tv shows starring Joel Rush, and found The Ropes, a quickly-canned tv series based on Vin Diesel's early job as a bouncer.  Well, maybe there would be some beefcake. 

Problems: It was impossible to research among 1,300 other series called The Ropes, On the Ropes, and Learn the Ropes.   

It was available on Amazon Prime, but not if you used the Prime Search window -- you had to go through Google.  Even after buying an episode.  

More problems: Nonlinear narration, with people describing an event that happened earlier, then seeing the event from different points of view, and seeing the consequences of the event, but in jumbled order. 

Some of the guys are black/speaking in a stereotyped jive accent, and some are white/speaking in a stereotyped Guido accent, but within those categories, they look, talk, and behave exactly alike. This makes it very difficult to figure out who belongs to what plotline.  But for the sake of a review I'll try to piece it together.

The illustrations are whatever beefcake or nude photos I could find of the actors, in no particular order: Gonzalo Menendez, F. Valentino Morales, Brian Ahern, Brian Hooks, Joel Rush, Danny Abeckaser, Shawn Woods, Robert Ervin, Ramses Jiminez.  Plus a couple of random photos of guys with big dicks.

Setting: A very sleazy nightclub in New York, where they have both ladies dancing on poles and illegal gambling.  A squad of seven or more bouncer/security guards, whom the Boss calls "ladies" although they're actually men, is on patrol every night.

 Big Vic's Story:  Big Vic, who has the biggest dick in New York City, is infinitely attractive to every woman in the world.  He asks the lady bartender to have sex with him; she agrees. On the same night, or on another night, he's working the door, and lets in a girl who claims to be a model, but rejects the guy she's with.  He asks if she wants to have sex; she does.

While he is having sex with one or the other the bathroom, someone knocks on the door, saying that he's needed at the bar.  He ignores them.

Later, or on a different night, he goes out into the alley, and sees a sleazoid trying to push an unwilling lady into a taxi.  He intervenes and sends the guy away. Then her friend arrive and accuses Big Vic of taking advantage of her!  They drive away.

Uh-oh, a whole gang of bad dudes rushes into the alley to try to kill him! He's got the biggest cock in New York, not the biggest muscles.  He tries to fight them off, but they prepare to beat him to death when...

A smaller guy wearing a suit rushes in and annihilates them!  Big Vic is not happy to get his life saved by a nerd -- it's a major blow to his masculinity.  Then the nerd asks "Are you Vic Pendejo?" Har-har, pendejo means "asshole" in Spanish!  Big Vic angrily orders him to leave.

Ralphie's Story: One night Ralphie is screwing a lady in the Trash Room (no beefcake, but we see her butt).  And she accidentally butt-phones her Man, so he and his homies show up to kill him.  Big Les, working the front door, pulverizes them, but now they want revenge on him!  They return the next night, mistake Big Vic for Big Les, and attack. I guess people in-universe have trouble distinguishing the guys, too.

Later, the Boss complains that Ralphie is too feminine, and takes him off bouncer duty.  

The Kid's Story:  One night a Kid shows up at the front door just as they open.  Big Les, who happens to be working, won't let him in: no action so early anyway.  "Come back in two hours."

Two hours later, the Kid is waiting in a line that goes around the block.  They've reached capacity, so no one else gets in that night.  

He doesn't want to get in, he just wants to apply for a job, so he cuts line and asks Big Lou what to do. Yes, this is a different character, actually named "White Lou."    Big Lou sends him to the back door, where Big Vic is working, and tells him to ask for "Vic Pendejo," knowing that he'll get annihilated.   Instead, he sees "Pendejo" in trouble, being beaten to death by some thugs, and intervenes. 

Big Vic is so impressed that he offers him a job as his "intern."  All of the side deals at the club -- the drugs, hookers, whatever -- will go through the Kid.  For a salary, he'll get some of the bribes and "some ass."  Presumably girls, or is Big Vic offering his own?  

Rashomon after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.8 Continued: Macaulay Culkin grows up, the Cycle Ninjas break out, and Jussie Smollett shows his stuff

Previous: Episode 2.8: Baby Billy sees a ghost, Judy becomes a mom, and Kelvin gets *** up. With nude dwarf athletes

Baby Billy's Baby Boy: Harmon the special-needs son who Baby Billy abandoned at Christmas 1993. has grown into a special-needs adult (Macaulay Culkin), But nevertheless he has achieved the heterosexual nuclear family trajectory of job, house, wife, and kids.Actually, his wife has the job (a lawyer, "an educated breadwinner") but close enough. 

They are all watching Family Feud: "almost everyone has had their bottom ___ at least once." Sexual innuendo, har har.  The answer: spanked.

Suddenly the doorbell rings: it's a card with a photo of Harmon on Santa's lap the day his Daddy abandoned him.  Then his Daddy!  

Baby Billy wants to fix things between them, so he can move forward with his new son.  So it's not about Harmon, it's about you?  Harmon says just don't make the same mistake again, and "Can I hit you with a closed fist as hard as I can in the face?"  That's rather precise, but Baby Billy agrees, and gets walloped.

Out in the car, the ghost of Aimee-Leigh laughs at his bloody nose with kleenix affixed. 

Jesse Smollett and K-Fed: Back stage before Eli's  "welcome back" service, the siblings are in makeup and practicing their enunciation. They agree to make Daddy proud by showing how much they love each other. Judy says that she loves "Jesse Smollett" and "K-Fed," whereupon Kelvin makes a strange feminine gesture. 

Some vaguely-relevant dicks after the break

I go to the first gay rights march in the state of Iowa, with Thomas the Episcopal priest and Mickey the Muscle

 

June 1982, after my junior year at Augustana College.  Thomas, the former Episcopalian priest who I met with my ex-boyfriend Fred last year, calls to invite me to Des Moines for the first Gay Rights March in the state of Iowa.

I have never heard of such a thing.

"We march to protest police harassment, discrimination in jobs and housing, sodomy laws, that sort of thing.  They have them in big cities all over the country.  Always close to June 28th, the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots."

I have never heard of the Stonewall Riots, either.  But count me in.

June 27th, 8:00 pm: Thomas, his lover (in those days it was always "lover," not "partner"),  six other gay men, and two lesbians sit on folding chairs and on the floor in his rec room, making banners: "Stop Gay Police Harassment,"  "We Are Your Children," "Gay is Good," "Gay People are People Too."  

"Maybe not the catchiest slogans, Thomas tells me, "But idea is to get the word "gay" out there, to let the straights know that we are here, even in Iowa.".

I sit next to Mickey, the only other guy my age, a grad student in Russian at the University of Iowa: short, tan heavily muscled, very attractive, with dirty blond hair and a round boyish face.  We chat a bit, but don't exchange any personal information -- in those days you were circumspect, even among other gay people.

Thomas walks around the room, looking at each of the guys.  Finally he stops in front of me and Mickey. "I want you guys to take first place, with the banner that says Gay is Good.'  We want some muscle out front, to show the straights that we're not all weak little sissies."

Mickey grins.  "Up for being partners?"

Marching at the front, coming out to the whole state?  "Um...well, what if one of my professors sees me on the news?  I could get expelled."

Thomas laughs.  "Don't worry, there won't be any tv cameras, or newspaper reporters.  The media ignores us.  We might get a write-up in The Daily Planet."  Drake University's student-run alternative paper.

I am still nervous, but more gay guys than I've ever seen in one place are looking at me, so:  "Ok, I'm in."

We move to the living room for sodas and snacks, and go over the plan:  Tomorrow at 1:30, we meet at Western Gateway Park in downtown Des Moines.  Dress casually, but nothing flamboyant, no leather or drag.  At 2:00 pm we walk the 13 blocks east on Grand Avenue to City Hall.  Forty gay men and lesbians have signed up, so we will march with a banner followed by six people walking three abreast, then another banner, and so on.

We discuss what to do if someone tries to engage, if someone attacks, if we have to scatter  -- and if we are arrested.  We have a parade permit, so the police should be cooperative, but you never know.

Then Mickey and the other townies go home, and the out of town visitors bed down for the night.  It's  crowded: the two bedrooms are full, and four of us get sleeping bags on the living room floor (nothing erotic happens).

June 28th, 11:00 am:  Mickey and the other townies arrive for a brunch of pancakes, scrambled eggs,and sausages.  I'm slightly disappointed; I was expecting quiche and mimoses, the sort of gay cuisine I read about in The Advocate.

Mickey is wearing one of thse mesh half t-shirts popular at the time, with his pecs and shoulders visible behind the sheer mesh stuff, and your abs completely exposed.  They only work if you have a perfect body.  A centimeter less than perfection, and they look stupid.  He doesn't look stupid.

After some discussion, Thomas decides that, although the t-shirt is hot, it's too flamboyant, and asks him to change into an Iowa Hawkeyes t-shirt.  "It's a football team," he explains.  "Turning Mickey into a wholesome all-American jock, the kind of boy you want your son to date."  Everyone laughs.

More Mickey after the break