Thursday, January 31, 2008

Where am I?????

After a show in Athens I flew to Thessaloniki to perform another show. I took some of the time to rest and catch up with some work (I do run my business, so when I mean work I do not mean directing models and such...LOL). Later in the evening I went to Da Da Bar to do a show again with Niko from Athens who is a total blast to work with! So many people came out to see me in Thessaloniki, so much so, that I was quite surprised! The Greek audience is so much fun and people are a bit shy to come say "hi" but a few brave did come talk to me for a bit and I was more than happy to chat them up a bit.








The next day I woke up late (finally some rest), went to the Starbucks for a cofee and some work, and then leisurely made my way to the airport where I boarded my flight on British Airways to London. I upgraded to myself to Business Class and was completely happy on this 3 1/2 hour flight. The lamb stew was incredible for airplane food and packets of whole macadamian nuts were passed out, not icky peanuts! When I finally got to my hotel I totally crashed after taking a long hot shower.














The next day was full of meetings that turned out to be quite successful. But I am really over how expensive England and especially LOndon have become. The cheapest room was $300 per night (well, I could have gone for something out of National Lampoon's European Vacation) but my privacy and the need for cleanliness trump a $150 roach motel the size of a twin bed! That evening I went out to "Salon," the hottest and chicest place to go in London's Soho on a Tuesday evening. It was nice to see Minty and Aubrey, the most glam hosts out there, and catch up on lost time since I left London 2 years ago to return to Miami Beach. Minty bought me drinks all night long (whew, at $20 a drink, that was a relief) and we talked and talked. I also ran into my friend Chris Jepson, photographer extrordanaire of London's nightlife, and someone I have hired to take photograph's of my models and myself. See Chris' work at www.chrisjepson.com

OUR ECONOMY! Talking about Europe and England I have to slip in that our $$$ is now worth nearly nothing over here! It has dropped over 30% over the past 4 months making Europe incredibly expensive and London prohibitively expensive (a night out can cost you $150!!!). We are in a recession (not on the brink of it) and our economy is tanking quickly people! Make sure you do NOT vote for a Republican again. Gays should have no interest in Republicans anyway. If they had their way, we would be exterminated, so what the hell with Log Cabin Republicans!?!?!?!? Needless to say, we need to make our $$ a little stronger so we can go back to Europe and actually enjoy it instead of counting pennies.

A late night in London meant a crappy next day in Amsterdam, although my meetings went well. I took the train into the city and visited Xavier from Drake's (the most popular and central porn shop in Amsterdam). After a quick nap on Xavier's couch in the office I took a quick flight to Berlin and so here I am!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Escaping Al-Qaeda Operation in Turkey

Well, I made it out of Turkey all safe. I say this because on January 24th my gang and I had just left our hotel when we heard gunfire and what sounded like bombing. Jacko, Jean Franko and Jesus thought nothing of it but I knew something fishy was up especially when a few minutes later people scrambled through the streets and police cars sped wildly toward the scene just a few blocks away. (see story here: Guardian and here: Turkishdailynews) We continued on the the Gaziantep museum which has the 2nd largest collection of mosaics in the world. It wasn't until we were leaving the museum that we stopped by the gift shop that was playing the operation live and then it really hit home to both the guys and myself. The guys and I toured Gaziantep's castle then the guys went to the gym while I went looking for some last minute gifts. That evening we finished up shooting and I really wanted to get to bed by 10pm, but no luck! I had a ton of paper work to do and packing up so it was not until 1:30am until my head hit the bed when I had to be up in 2 hours to head to the airport for a 4:45am flight!






Jean Franko had to catch and immediate flight to Barcelona from Istanbul but Jesus and I went to a hotel to take a nap and then take a quick tour of Istanbul before heading back to the airport. Jesus was very excited to see the Blue Mosque and the Aga Sofia. Actually, Jesus just loved every moment of my crazy porn adventure from walking across no-man's-land in freezing cold weather to get to Syria to a drive we took through the beautiful countryside. Anyway, Jesus and I went our own directions at Istanbul airport; he boarded a flight to Madrid and I boarded a quick flight to Athens. So, now here I am in Athens after a crazy night doing a promotion for Greek super-promoter Paul Sofianos since it was his birthday. I have not danced, stripped and shook my thang for a long time so it was a bit interesting to get back up on a stage.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Middle Eastern Adventure!!!

Hi everyone! Well, as I said in my last entry I may not be able to update my blog over the next few weeks, but I decided today to throw a bunch of little interesting happenings at all of you that happen to read about my adventures around the world. I first want to share a photo that my bambino (Neal) took of me when I was working late at night in Miami Beach and he was begging me to come to bed. He said "This pic epitomizes you in your work mode. LOL. I thought it was funny. :)" That evening he warned me about working so hard, but here I am again near killing myself to make you all some porn that I hope you will enjoy.

So I left Las Vegas, stopped in Miami for a few hours to do some work, and then got back on a plane to Madrid and then continued on to Alicante where I picked up a model that I flew in from Belgium then drove to Murcia to pick up my model Jesus and then on to Almeria. I have a secret place to film outdoors near Almeria, but in the middle of the shoot a herd of goats rampaged through my set and I forced my models to pull up their pants and luckily they did since the herder soon followed! After a pleasant 20 minute conversation the herder moved on and we finished the shoot. A few more days in Almeria and I took off with Jesus to southern Turkey (the magic of frequent flyer miles! ha!). The reason I do not give away some locations is that first, I still try my best to keep the Roman Ragazzi stalker off my back and potentially calling local authorities on me like he called the Israeli Consulate and the NY Post on Roman Ragazzi. Second, I have a producer here in Europe that is trying to hunt down and use my models and there are some models I want to keep to myself, such as Jacko. So I dare any producer to do what I did ......keep on reading!

So the first night I arrived I tried to get into Syria. Since Jesus did not have a visa we had to try and convince the border police to give him one. After a quick drive through no man's land by a taxi we arrived in Syria, but after 30 minutes of trying to convince them to give Jesus a visa, they refused, and we had to walk all the way back to Turkey in 35 degree weather in just undershirts....oh, I forgot to tell you Iberia and Turkish Airlines lost all of our luggage with our jackets! After passing Turkish immigration again we drove back to the border town and spent the night.

The next day I got a wild hair up my butt to not leave Jesus behind at the hotel and try to convince the Syrians to give him a visa again and Jesus was up for it so off we went! After a brisk 20 minutes walk through mine laden no man's land we arrived at our friend's the Syrians and their lovely border post. After about 15 minutes of begging, they let us back behind their glass to get warm next to their heater and share coffee with them (we were freezing without jackets)! Another 30 minutes of the border police playing with my computer and cell phone we got pulled into the big chief's office. I begged and pleaded, but he insisted that we wait for a fax from Damascus that would take 3-4 hours, but I said we only planned to go to Haleb for that amount of time. In the end he gave the "ok" wink to the worker and we were on our way to getting a sneaky snake visa for Jesus...yee haw! And off we went in a taxi speeding down the bumpy, dusty pothole filled road to Haleb! After what is probably going to be about $50 in phone calls to confirm a meeting point my friend Annas arrived with Jacko not too far behind. We drank coffee and then went to the Citadel for lunch and finally said goodbye to Annas and headed back to Turkey (Try all that KB, ha!). I thought we would have problems with my Syrian at the border, but in the end no problems at all except for the taxi driver left us on the Syrian side and we had to walk all the way to Turkey....bastard! We barely had time left to drive to the airport and pick up Jean Franco, but we made it, ate dinner, harassed the Turkish Airlines agent for our bags and finally drove back to an amazing hotel I found. So here I am after wandering the streets with Jean Franco, Jesus and Jacko to replace lighting that is still missing.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

New Year and Hustlaball

Sorry it has been so long since my last update, but I have had a major distraction with me every since right after x-mas. A while ago I met someone that has become very special to me and we have been spending a lot of time together! So right after x-mas with my interesting family my baby (il bambino) and I took off for Los Angeles for New Year's Eve where we spent the night at Here lounge as guests of super-promoters Paul Nicholls and Jonathan Chang. The night was quite interesting in addition to being very fun and full of porn stars!


The next day we took off back to Miami Beach to relax a bit in the sun, but when we arrived a cold spell just hit and we were shivering for a few days until the heat finally returned and we were able to go to the beach again. After a bit of fun and work we headed to Las Vegas for GAYVN and Hustlaball. My baby was a bit overwhelmed with all the people and production so after talking with a few business affiliates (such as Chris Baker from AEBN) Chi Chi pulled us back stage to enjoy the rest of the evening in a more quiet setting to talk with my baby and I in addition to some of the performers.


Now my baby and I are going to take our last few days to ourselves before he goes back to school and I go off to Europe to do some shooting! I will do my best to update my blog, but I will be in some remote areas of Spain and Turkey and doing a promotion in Greece!