Dubbing, 19 December 2003

Many moons ago we went to B.K. Sun's recording studio to overdub vocal sounds for some of the episodes in "Out at Last 3" and "Out at Last 4." I brought my camera along and made a little video to show you. I remember now why I didn't show this one to you earlier, it isn't the greatest Journal entry I've ever done. The lighting is dark and there's not much happening, but you'll see some boys you don't get to see much of, like Boris Sokoloff (who's now exclusively a model scout and driver) and Doug Fallon, who was until recently working as the receptionist in our office. You'll also recognize Andre Pagnol, Joey Amis, Sascha Chaykin and Daniel Valent.As I say on the tape, we like to have natural sounds during our video episodes. Some of the time it's possible, and sometimes it's not. When it's necessary, we have to overdub. Anyway, enjoy the clip.

Kisses, Johan

Tommy Hansen, Club Bel Ami chat, 1 November 2003

On Saturday, 1 November 2003, Tommy Hansen made his first-ever appearance in the Club Bel Ami chat room, talking with Club Bel Ami members from all over the globe including the USA, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and India. The questions in the following transcript were all asked by the Club Bel Ami members who either attended the chat or submitted questions afterwards. After the chat, Tommy read through the transcript clarifying some of his responses, then the transcript was edited for readibility, fixing grammar and spelling.

Q: When is your birthday and how old will you be?
Tommy: I'll be 22 in March.

Q: Let's start at the beginning, when was your first sexual experience, both with a guy and girl?
Tommy: The first time I had sex at all was in a forest in Germany when I was 15. A friend taught me only one sentence in German: "Would you like to go with me to the forest." So I said it to some girl I met and she went with me. As for boys, the first time was when I came to Bel Ami. I was with Daniel Avedon and Julian Armanis. They were my first trainers. Daniel trained me as a top and Julian trained me as a bottom.

Q: Tell us something about your family, parents, brothers sisters ... do they know of your working for Bel Ami?
Tommy: My parents are divorced. I have a four-year-old sister from my father's second marriage. My father suspects I do something in the erotica business but he doesn't have a clue it's gay erotica. My mother once asked me where I get all my money from. I didn't want to answer, so she said she hopes I'm not selling drugs. If that were the case, she said, she'd like it better if I were shooting porn. I'm happy my mother doesn't go to porn shops!

Q: You have a great body, does it come from the gym or a sport?
Tommy: I was a gymnast for 9 years. I studied karate and was in a semi-professional team; I wanted to go to the olympics. I also ski a lot. You'll see my snowboarding in "Alpine Adventure" next month. Of course I also go to the gym.

Q: How often do you work out?
Tommy: Three times a week. And I still go to karate practice 5 times a week. I'm a brown belt.

Q: How is your studying at the two different universities progressing? And what subjects are you studying?
Tommy: I'm succeeding so far with two different schools but studying Russian is killing me. I'm also learning English now. I'm studying in a pedagogic university to be a teacher of physical education. I'm also in one extra schoolâ??special education for security servicesâ??that's college-level study. With this I could work as a detective or police inspector. Or to educate policemen or security service personnel.

Q: Are you naturally smooth or do you shave, for example, your chest and your legs?
Tommy: I am naturally smooth. I don't have hair on my chest to shave. My legs have a little hair, but they look smooth on film.

Q: You told that your father said when you were born you had the biggest dick in the nursery. Were you aware how large it was compared to other boys as you went through school?
Tommy: I was never aware that I had a big dick, because I often watched porn films and all the men there had big dicks. I was under the impression that I'm just average sized. Only in my late teens I discovered that I might be a little bigger than average.

Q: How big is your dick?
Tommy: About 9-1/2"

Q: In your videos you are always smiling and appear to have a very relaxed, easy going personalityâ??is this the way you are in real life?
To

Budapest, Elton John

On Sunday, 22 June, Elton John and his band gave a free outdoor concert in Budapest. When we met him in Vienna he invited us to come see it and also bring more boys. He was especially hoping Sebastian, Lukas and I would come since he'd already knew us. Unfortunately, that was the exact weekend Sebastian, Claude, Tim and I had to go to Berlin and Köln to promote the Just For Fun movie. I haven't quite figured out how to be in two places at once yet, and since publicity had already gone out for the Germany mini-tour I had to go there.

Because I wasn't present in Budapest to tell you about it, here's what happened on that day in the words of the guys who were there.

Kisses,

Josh Elliot

When George Duroy called and asked if I'd like to go to an Elton John concert in Budapest and I'd get to meet Sir Elton himself I thought it was another example of George's wild sense of humor. But I went along with the joke and when I arrived to meet the others in Bratislava that morning I still wasn't sure what to think. I didn't really accept the reality until Elton actually walked into the hospitality room and started talking to us. After the introductions, Lukas and Elton talked a little bit about cars, but then the other boys were too timid to talk to him. Finally I just moved my chair closer to Elton and started telling him about myself, about my school and then about the shoot in Africa earlier this year. I'm not completely fluent in English so I was a little afraid that we wouldn't be able to understand each other, but it was really easy to talk to him. If I didn't know that he is the famous Elton John, he could have been just one of my friends. He made it very comfortable to have a conversation and was really interested in what I was telling him. Even though I have a picture of us together, I don't think my family is absolutely convinced that it's a real photo and not some digital creation!

Roman Chaykin

It was a really beautiful day, absolutely perfect weather. We went down in three cars, I drove one, Martin Eden drove the second and Marc Vidal the third. The trip took about two hours. I was so honored that I was able to shake the hand of an idol of millions of people and spend some time with him backstage. When we were ushered into the hospitality room, we were given Crew badges to wear. Totally cool. When I got back home, I completely impressed my friends and family by bragging I met Elton John in person and have a picture with him!

Marc Vidal

It was a rare experience for me. This incredible day will stay deep in my memories. I really am a great admirer of Elton's music, I have a lot of his CDs at home, including his newest one which is, in my opinion, his best. When we met him I realized that I could have brought his CDs for him to autograph, but I didn't think of it earlier.

When we arrived in Budapest Lukas became our navigator. With the aid of a map and only a vague idea of where we had to go, he found the public square where the concert was to be held. We parked at one end and walked for what seemed like several kilometers until we found the stage. It was early but hundreds of people were already there. We thought if we arrived early we'd find a good place to stand. We didn't know that Elton had everything arranged for us already. I'm really appreciative that we were asked to be at this concert. The whole day was just terrific.

Sascha Chaykin

We knew that Elton invited us to meet him before the show, but none of us knew where to go. So we followed the stage all around to the back and made a huge circle until we found the VIP entrance. I was very impressed by being backstage at Elton's concert as his guest. He is a big idol of mine. To shake his hand and make a picture with him made me very happy but also a little nervous. Neither my brother nor I speak any English, so we never knew exactly what anyone was saying, although we always had a pretty good idea of what was going on. And whenever one of our friends had the opportunity, they translated the important stuff.

When we went out t

Photos - Budapest

Special Reports, 14 June 2003

To celebrate the European release of "Just for Fun" Sebastian Bonnet, Claude Cocteau and Tim Hamilton are traveling to Germany next weekend to make public appearances at two Bruno Gmünder stores, one in Köln on Saturday 21 June and the other in Berlin on Sunday 22 June. I'm coming along too to take pictures and some video to show you on the web site afterwards.

Please come to see us! We hope to meet all our German fans.
Last Saturday, Matt Phillipe and Josh Elliot filmed the first half of what's going to be a super episode. Matt, who's been primarily known as a bottom, topped the lovely, sweet Josh, who seemed to love every minute of it. They're planning on finishing it this coming week. I took the picture on the right when they were looking at a playback of what they had just filmed.

Take careful note of these sheetsâ??you'll see them again in "Personal Trainers 7." That's right, there's going to be #7 coming out this Fall. It's all shot and edited, and now I'm working with the webmaster on the subtitles.

Yes, that's Yves Carradine toting Cif in his very-own shoulder bag. When Yves comes to the Prague office Cif doesn't want to stay home alone so he tags along. Yves helps out at the office with the remodeling and painting. He also pitches in as a general all-around handymanâ??he just installed the new airconditioners which they really needed because the offices were as hot as blazes. Yves is really excited because he's going to buy a new car, a Skoda Supra, that's all he talks about.

A tutor comes to the Prague office twice a week to teach him English. He loves to practice speaking it, and on his work breaks he studies. He's improved tremendously since he was in South Africa.

Yves has a friend, David, whom he trains at the fitness center. David is very eager to become a Bel Ami model. He's cute as a button but he's only 17 so has to wait (he turns 18 in two months).

Photos - Just For Fun

Life Ball 2003

Although Lukas, Sebastian and I all experienced first-hand the fact that we are well-known world-wideâ??in certain circlesâ??for our Bel Ami work, it was a big surprise to learn that someone really famous not only knows who we are, but wants to meet us.

Well that's exactly what happened when I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from the head of Sir Elton John's London office, inviting us to be Elton's (yes, we're on a first-name basis now!) guests at an AIDS event in Vienna. For the last 10 years Vienna has been host to the "Life Ball," a spectacularly colorful mega-party fund-raiser benefitting AIDS charities. The Elton John AIDS Foundation is one of the recipients of the moneys raised at this gala and Elton appeared personally the last three years.

The official cars for the event were Mini-Coopers.Through a mutual friend I had actually heard that Elton really liked Bel Ami's videos (and me, especially) but never thought I'd actually get to meet him. We quickly accepted the invitation and immediately confronted our first problem: what to wear! People would be coming to Live Ball in all manner of dress (and undress!) so we went through Bel Ami's costume closet to find some colorful shirts .

We arrived early at Vienna's City Hall, a stupendous edifice on Vienna's RingstraAYe, and we could already see guests arriving in everything from G-strings and feathers to elaborate, imaginative glittery get-ups. We were ushered to a private VIP room presided over by two cute waiters, Baulie and (coincidentally another) Lukas. You can see Baulie in the picture below, on the right.

After drinking a glass of champagne and munching on hors d'oevres, suddenly there was a flurry of activity and our host, the amazingly talented Elton John came in, accompanied by his partner for the last ten years, David Furnishâ??and as a special surprise for us, one of the Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant. (Neil is a director of The Elton John AIDS Foundation.) Elton professed nervousness around us ("It's like meeting the Beatles!" he said) but was utterly charming and so friendly you'd think we'd known him for years.His warm and gregarious companion, David, is a movie producer with several fascinating projects in the works. We know and love the Pet Shop Boys' music, so meeting Neil was an extra added treat. Neil had never seen a Bel Ami video, so Elton promised to send him the complete collection. We thought we'd only get to shake Elton's hand and maybe have a short conversation, but in truth we spent almost the entire evening with him, David and Neil.

We all went outside to watch the entertainment program. Neil gave a sobering speech about the ongoing world-wide AIDS epidemic, the reason we were all gathered in Vienna this night. As part of the festivities, Elton sang "For The Boy In The Red Shoes," dedicated to a friend who died of AIDS, and accepted a check for more than â?¬ 454.439,89 ($533,000) for his Foundation to support projects in Africa. Then there was a Missoni fashion show featuring (the expected) dozens of gorgeous male and female models and (the unexpected) acrobats.

After more than an hour of non-stop fashion, we went inside to the Festival Hall where a private dining area was set up in an orchestra niche overlooking the length of the 71 metre long room. We were offered a choice of pork, fish, or duck and from the comments around the table, each entree was delicious.

After a while, Elton and David went back to their hotel and we explored the rest of the party. The City Hall's myriad rooms were each decorated in a different manner and many rooms had bands, each playing a different style of music ranging from jazz to house to dance music. There were lots of cute guys ... and cute girls. In the photo just below, left, is Markus, a professional model from Austria. He has a killer body and face. There was glitter going from his jeans to his abdomenâ??as if he needed anything extra to call attention to his 6-pack! In the photo below (bottom right) were two guys who were pretty well plastered by the time we ran into them. But the

Photos - Life Ball

Alipne Adventure May 3

This morning, Friday, 2 May, I found it very difficult to get up from the bed, my muscles ached from playing squash yesterday. George left very early while everyone was still sleeping. He wanted to get a head-start on things at home. Now that the cat left, the mice are free!

I'll show you how Max and I woke the boys up every day. I filmed this mostly last week, so you'll see some boys who already left.

Marty took the day off, he went snowboarding. I spent the rest of the morning arranging all the necessary things so that we can leave tomorrow. I went to the main reception desk to pay the bill for the group and I bought two bunches of flowers for our housemaids. Then I went to a pharmacy to buy some vitamin C and hextrin for throat-gargling.

Daniel, the Slovak hockey player, was very sad that we're about to leave. As going-away gifts he gave me hockey gloves, a hockey stick and a jersey from his team. Pretty nice presents. I am sure he is not gay, he's got a wife and a childâ??although that really doesn't mean anything, does it?â??he is just a very nice person. Or? Who knows ...

I took Alex Orioli to the center of the city with the intention of making an interview with him. Marty left one video camera for me. I took it. Of course, the camera didn't work. It was a remnant from South Africa where it dropped in the sea. I forgot to tell you about that when we were there. Nevermind, I made the interview orally, in front of a metal sculpture in the town. Alex speaks no English, so I translated all his answers.

JP: Alex, we are about to leave the Alps now. Will you miss it?

Alex: Yeah, of course. This was an opportunity for me to spend time with all my good, old Bel Ami friends such as Marty, Sebastian, Johan and Danny. Because I live in eastern Slovakia I don't see them often. I met some of the boys who are also part of the "New Generation" here as well. They are nice and open-minded. It's fun to work with them.

JP: Did you shoot some episode here? With whom? Did it go well?

Alex:: I made an episode with Sebastian and Ritchie in the swimming pool. It was Ritchie's first episode for Bel Ami but he took his role very seriously and it was exciting to work with them together. Especially, at the end, you can see how hot the atmosphere was. They came on my belly and all that hot juice squirting on me excited me so much that I had one of the best orgasms in my life. With all that cum my belly looked like someone drained a tub on me.

Yeah, sure I will miss all of this ...

Danny Saradon took care of tonight's dinner himself. He cooked turkey breasts with tomato and cheese on top. It was so delicious that the boys couldn't wait until the potatoes were boiled. They ate it with bread. Danny is quite a good cook.

In the evening, Franc shot his training session with Sebastian and Liam. The boys were very impressed with Franc's erection. He was rock hard for the whole session, which lasted for more than one hour.

Last night I was packing and I heard noise coming from the bathroom in George's master bedroom. I walked in and saw Danny, the Bel Ami star, tonight's popular chef, Tim Hamilton's good friend, in the bathtub with ... well, you'll see in a few minutes. Was I upset? No. Really not. If I'm meant to be with him, it'll be and if I'm not, it won't. There are lots of new boys coming to Bel Ami every day. Anyway, back to the bathtub ... since I hadn't yet done an interview with Danny, here was a golden opportunity. I ordered them to stay put, I raced to get the camera, the one that worked, and filmed an interview. There was no time to set up proper lighting, so everything is a little orange, but I think you'll enjoy it.

I think that's tonight's training was the last video we'll shoot here in the Alps. Tomorrow morning we'll leave bright and really early so we can drive as much as possible during daylight.

I hope you enjoyed our trip to the Alps as much as we did.

See you next trip.

Kisses, Johan

Photos - May 3

Alpine Adventure May 2

Today, 1 May, is a holiday back home in Slovakia. It is left over from the Communist days, when it was "Labor Day." In those times the first day of May was a huge celebration. We had to go to the streets in the mornings and marchâ??everyone:, children, teachers and mostly workers. Supervisors took attendance of all the workers and students, and if someone didn't appear outside there would be consequences at work or school later. A podium was erected in the center of town and the town officials were there greeting the crowds who marched past waving Czech or Slovak or Soviet flags. Some of the officials gave speeches, the topics usually were "Soviet Union Forever!" or "Be Prepared to Save and Protect your Country" or "Your Hard Work Will Strengthen Peace." We even had to sing songs about "work strengths peace." In Russia, people carried big pictures of Stalin, Lenin and Gorbachev. That was all between 8 AM and 12:00 noon. The afternoon was reserved for fun, whatever activities families or friends preferred. We're here working on this holiday. True, we're in the Alps, but we're still thinking of the holiday back home.

Today we finished up the three-way episode which started in the pool. Here's the preview:

Are you curious about Richie Tyler? Here's a short interview I made with him. He speaks some English, but he wasn't so comfortable in English so we did the interview in Czech.

I went out with a few boys to check the prices for a helicopter. George thought it would be fun to have some aerial shots of this region for the video. But the prices were ridiculous. One person for 30 minutes was 180. Too expensive for us.

In the afternoon I took my time off and went out with the Slovak hockey player, (also named) Daniel, to play squash, which I hadn't done in three years. He beat me 6-0. He is a great player. Afterwards I went with him to pick up the dinner for the chalets, and with the dinner in the trunk of my car, we went to his apartment where we sat drinking plum whiskey (slivovica). He said after every shot, "Toto je Kaburkova," which mean "this is the last shot" in Slovak while the dinner got colder and colder. He wouldn't let me go! I can understandâ??he has been in this area one and a half years, and we were the first Slovak or Czech people he met in a long time.

In the evening George made a statement to all of us that basically the video is finished. There will be no more sex-scenes shot here, just maybe some more documentary footage with some longer interviews.

George may have thought he was finished, but I certainly wasn't. When the boys went into the pool to play, I followed them with my video camera.

Tomorrow will be our last full day here, we're going to leave on Saturday. I'm looking forward to going home. I never got the opportunity to be with Danny Saradon privately. But someone else did! You'll see tomorrow what happened.

Kisses, Johan

Photos - Helicopter

Alpine Adventure May 1

Today we woke up to find it snowing outside. Instantly everybody is in a good mood. Who would believe that on April 30, it would be snowing? Although the snow eventually didn't stick around the chalets, we quickly made plans and almost everyone left to go skiing. I made an interview with Liam on the ski slopes.
At the house, George began an episode with Robbie Martin and Ethan Clarke.

George and Robbie have a long, complicated relationship. George is many things to Robbie including friend, surrogate father, brother, psychiatrist, mentor, etc. etc. so the two of them got into a stupid argument after the shooting (pun intended) and George decided not to finish the episode. As you all know by now, George changes his mind hundreds of times a day, so who knows what will happen ...

Every week we get many letters and e-mails from boys all over the world asking to work with Bel Ami. The vast majority are totally inappropriate for one reason or another, we contact the ones who are suitable. Most of those pan out eventually because of space/time problems; George doesn't react quickly, he needs time to think about things, and a lot of those boys are motivated by a momentary whim. But one boy whose pictures impressed George was, let's call him for the moment, Franc. Franc is French, and since we are so close to France here in the Alps, George invited him to come here to meet us. Franc arrived today. He's extremely nice, about 6'1 and on the thin side. The picture on the left is one of the pictures he sent us with his first e-mail. Cute, huh? Anyway, he's very nice. He speaks English fluently as well as a few other languages.

In the afternoon when I arrived back from skiing George gave me instructions to go location scouting and sent me out with Marty, Franc, and a few of the boys so they shouldn't stay in the house bored. I was supposed to find more houses for rent, other hotels in the mountains, any anything else of interest for a future trip. In the surrounding area there are in addition to the places I wrote about last week, exciting horse or dog-drawn carriages, paragliding, helicopter or small airplane tours, outdoor ice-skating and outdoor swimming pools. Along the way, Marty shot some atmospheric scenery video.

Late afternoon, on the way back to the house, Marty and I, macho men that we are, wanted to prove the off-road ability of our 4x4 SUVs. We drove through a field and almost immediately Marty's car got stuck. Now please see the video before you read the rest of the text ...

I say in the video that it's the end of the story. Not by a long shot. It took us two hours to get the car out of this disaster. A larger problem arose when the owner of the field and his wife ran to us wielding a huge muck-rake in his arms and screaming in French like he was insane. They were going to call the police and have us arrested for trespassing. It looked really bad. We had just plain dumb luck that Franc was with us, because he helped translate and eventually solve the situation. We explained that we were only trying to shoot some pictures from the car and didn't know the field was private property. Once the owner realized we weren't vandals he calmed down. When we got the car un-stuck we headed directly back to the chalets.
We're planning to shoot a training session with Franc on Friday. He's a little nervous and shy, but perhaps that's because of his first day's adventure with the Bel Ami Crisis Center. Also, he really doesn't know anyone, and very few boys speak enough English for conversation. I'm sure we'll get through it, we always seem to.
Raf Angelo has been taking his antibiotics and is feeling (and looking) much better.
At night Marty and Sebastian became addicted to Playstation games. They didn't talk to anybody; they didn't hear or see anything other than the television screen ...
I took the video tapes and Max and I went to my room to edit and write this text.

Tomorrow George will finish the three-way in the pool.

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 30

Today everyone started to go a little stir-crazy. There was no full moon, so the only thing we could blame it on was cabin fever. People just got into a joking mood with each other and we did and said stupid things. Marty left with some boys for skiing and making some interviews. A little while after he left Marty called me from the slopes: "You fucking asshole, bring me my ski boot. I've got two left ones!!" You can imagine how upset he was. Actually, it wasn't me who made this practical joke on him. It was one of the boys on the slope with him. A few of us have the same ski boots and they switched his right boot without him knowing. The perpetrators had his correct boot all along, so they gave it back to him. I knew nothing about it until his phone call.

This video clip is a holdover from yesterday. Marty just gave me the tape this morning before he left. This is how the Sebastian / Tommy scene starts. There was a sumptuous breakfast and at some point Sebastian steals away to meet Tommy in the kitchen. You'll notice Liam practicing on anything he can get his hands on.

This place we are in is quite popular with the rich and famous (they're the only ones who can afford it!) and I tried to do some research into which celebrities stayed here in our very house. The housemaid told us for a week and a half how discrete she is, but today she started to open up. She said that five years ago Tom Cruise stayed here with friends for a couple of days. That wasn't enough for me. I had to have details. Visions of gay orgies danced through my head. I needed to know exactly who accompanied him. She said he was with Nicole. Damn, I thought, how disappointing! The housemaid said that they were both very pleasant; he was very short and she towered over him. He had a very, very nice personality, no star manners. I desperately wanted to ask if they shared the same bedroom but I didn't think it would be proper and the housemaid looked like she wasn't going to spill any dirt, even if there was any.

When they came back from the slopes, Raf Angelo sat down for an interview. In the very beginning you can hear Max shaking himself.

Raf had been skiing very fast and dangerously all this time. After the interview he went to lie down and woke up a little while later with a fever and a big pain in his belly. We took him directly to the hospital where I spent hours waiting with him. They made a basic examination; they checked his temperatureâ??in his ass!â??which made him very stressedâ??he said that previous to this his ass was strictly an "out-hole." He peed into a glass and they made an analysis. The diagnosis: some kind of celiomayocistis (I don't think I'm spelling this correctly). Total cost of the visit was â?¬ 100. Who would have guessed that a hospital visit would be the most reasonably priced thing in this area! The doctor gave him antibiotics and medicine for the pain. You probably noticed that he didn't look too lovely in the interview close-ups. We all thought that his face was just raw from skiing. Here's how pretty he looked in the hospital. Yes, I was there with the camera. Was this the fifth or the sixth crisis? Who can keep count, there's always something!
For dinner, we had spaghetti Bolognaise. Delicious.

The luckiest member of the trip was definitely Max. His usual schedule was to leave the house in the morning with his two dog friends, Lokie and Napoleon (a new addition to the neighborhood), and run around with them. From time to time he would check back here to see who's in the house, then he would disappear again. Over the last few days he stole three more balls and some rubber toys from somewhere in the neighborhood. Two of the balls broke immediately, they were too soft for his mouth. Here's some of the video we shot of him since we arrived here. In keeping with our mood today, the last part we did this morning.

In the evening Marty and Sebastian went bowling. They really needed to relax a bit.

After all the excitement today, I also need a good night's sleep.

Kisses, Johan

Photos - April 30

Alpine Adventure April 29

Yesterday, Sunday, 27 April, was a day of complete rest. None of us did anything of note. We all stayed around the chalets and played with the Playstation and watched movies on DVD. I threw the orange ball for Max to fetch a few thousand times. If someone were to look in on us they wouldn't think we were a group of gay porno starts, they would think we were a bunch of boring old farts.

Today, Monday, 28 April, there was much more action. First of all, we had to say goodbye to Greg Miller and the Webmaster. Greg finished all the work George wanted him to do, and as for the Webmaster, he had stuff to do back in Slovakia. We were tired of him hanging around, always trying to take pictures of the boys naked, always looking for something to write about on the web site! [I'm kidding, of course! We like having him around.]

So Greg and the Webmaster took the train back to Slovakia. I drove them to the Geneva train station. But first we had to go shopping for a new Playstation for the Webmaster; there was a good sale on them here and the he would save on the tax by taking it out of the European Union. Saving the tax was more important than catching the train, but the guys made it in the nick of time. They took the train to Zurich where they'll change for a sleeper train to Vienna.

Back at the chalets, today we finished the scene with Liam and Raf. Here's a little preview:

George decided to shoot an episode with three boys starting off playing around in the pool. Those three boys are Sebastian Bonnet, Alex Orioli and Richie Tyler. Here's the beginning of that splashy scene:

Later in the house Roman Chaykin's Playstation burned out from the boys playing with it non-stop. We'll have to buy him a new one tomorrow. At least now I know where to buy it cheaper and save on the tax!

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 28

The sun came out again on Saturday, 26 April 2003. Today is a day of comings and goings. Sean Ellis and Matthew Gray finished all the work they were going to do here so they went home. Roger Wolf couldn't film because his face was too swollen so George sent him home. Sebastian drove them all to Munich where they were met by Felix Slovacekâ??remember him? Jan Novak's model/assistant? Felix drove from Prague with four boys who will join us here, Robbie Martin, Ethan Clarke, Richie Tyler (you don't know him yet, but you will!) and Alex Orioli. The two drivers swapped passengers. Felix drove back to Prague with Roger, Sean and Matthew, and Sebastian drove the new additions to us in the Alps.

Meanwhile, back at the chalet, Marty did a photosession with Marc and Greg. Here's a video preview:

I don't think I mentioned that in one of the chalets there is an indoor pool and sauna. A few of the boys went swimming naked, and they told me the maid was watching them for a few minutes. I thought I saw her looking a little flushed afterwards! I tried to take some pictures but the humidity fogged up the camera lens.
Max's friend must have left, he didn't show up in two days. But Max didn't let that get him down. Somewhere in the neighborhood he found an orange basketball with just enough air let out of it for Max to carry in his mouth. he wanted one of the boys to kick the ball far so he could retrieve it. He could do this for hours on end without losing his enthusiasm.

At night we started an episode with Liam Phoenix and Raf Angelo. Their energy was well-matched. Here's a preview of all we shot today:

Tomorrow, Sunday, we all have the day off. We're going to just do nothing. Not think, not anything. So in the next Journal entry, on Tuesday, I'll talk about what happened on Sunday and Monday.

Kisses, Johan

Photos - April 28

Alpine Adventure April 25

This morning, at 10:00 AM sharp, the manager and the manager's agent arrived to talk to us. We "dressed the set" like the professionals we are, we had out the camera equipment, the lights and the generator, and also two open bags bulging with skiing and winter clothes, carefully arranged to look casual. Both ladies were very pleasant. They asked exactly what we were filming. We told them we were hired by a Czech sporting-goods firm to create photos for print ads and film for closed-circuit television in the retail outlets. [OK, we lied, but what would you do under the same circumstances, tell them we are filming gay porno?] They produced a one-page agreement form for us to sign, dated today, 25 April 2003, in which we would agree that they would have rights of approval over any published photo or video filmed on their property. George told them it was no problem with us, we would send it off to our lawyers and when they approve it, we will sign it. He explained that we never sign anything without our lawyers looking it over first, that's why we retain them [this part was the total truth]. The women were a little miffed that we didn't sign it on the spot, but they couldn't argue with the logic. They left on pleasant terms, and we breathed huge sighs of relief. If they questioned us during the next week, we'd say that we didn't hear back from our lawyers and that we're waiting also. And George said we'd have to work as fast as possible and get finished as early as we can, and leave town before there are any more questions about the document.

Today there was not really good weather, it was cloudy. Some of the boys went skiing but they came back saying it was too warm, the snow was not any good. We'll have to go to a higher location the next time we ski.

This afternoon we finished the episode with Marc and Greg. Greg's orgasm was so intense, we were sure it could be heard as far away as Spain. With no further comments from me, here are four clips we filmed today. I think you'll enjoy them more if you watch them in order.

Today seems to have been "Orgasm Day" at the chalet. In addition to Greg's explosion, we finally filmed orgasms for Danny Saradon and Matthew Gray because they were so tired after they filmed the second half of their episode. We also shot the linking-footage for their scene and the one with Sean Ellis and Liam Phoenix.

Tonight's dinner sounded great on paper: sausages boiled in a sauerkraut and onion mixture, mushy mashed corn and some kind of small gnocci-like dumplings with a cheese flavor. In reality it was horrible. Dreadful. Almost inedible. I should have known better when they told me they could feed all 16 of us for about â?¬ 70. It was such a shame to be in this part of Switzerland, so close to France, and eat such garbage. Guess who also hated it but still ate a big plate this stuff? Our Webmaster.

Tomorrow, Sunday, there will be no Journal posted. The boys in Prague have the day off. We'll tell you about Saturday's activities on Monday the 28th. Hope you're having a nice weekend.

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 24

This is our 6th day of the trip, 24 April 2003. It's also Barbra Streisand's birthday, for anyone who keeps track of these things. I don't, but the Webmaster does. It's like a national holiday for him. Nobody skied today but a few boys went to the fitness center to keep their physiques in tip-top condition. I stayed home to edit video clips.

George and Marty finished the episode with Tommy and Sebastian. Then I asked Sebastian to make an interview with Tommy. Here are the video clips:

Today we intended to eat the rest of the goulash soup for lunch, but no one put it in the refrigerator last night so it spoiled and we threw it out. Pizza again.

We had yet our fourth crises today, and this one's a doozy. When we rented these chalets, Marty and I made it clear to the managers that we were a photography company and we were going to film some fashion photos and videos in and around the chalets. It was no problem with them at that time. Suddenly, today, the manager's agent called saying the manager requests a meeting with us in which she'd like to see exactly what we're filming. The meeting is set for tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM. George is nervous.

At night the caterer brought in a French specialty, Tarttiflet (I'm not sure of the spelling). It was a baked-dish made of potatoes, some really smelly cheese, bacon, ham and onions. Everyone thought it was delicious except the Webmaster, who ate a large plate of it anyway.

At night we started filming an episode with Marc Vidal and Greg Miller. As soon as they called it quits for the night, I grabbed the tape from Marty and edited this short preview for you to see. They'll finish tomorrow.

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 23

Today, Wednesday, 23 April, 2003, I went skiing with just a few of the boys. Greg tried snowboarding for the first time in his life and in one day he got really good at it. And today we had our second crisis. Some woman accidentally smacked Roger (on the right) in the face with her skis and his mouth on the left side is all swollen and bruised.

On this trip all the episodes so far are being done in two parts. That's not always the case, but here it is working out that way. While we were on the slopes, Tommy and Sebastian filmed the first part of an episode in the kitchen. There was wonderful natural light coming from the window and the two skylights. Tommy wore these really cute pyjamas George bought for him some time ago in New York.

It wasn't too long before we had our third crisis: half of the electricity went out in one of the chalets, of course, the one we were shooting in. Luckily, we brought along our own generator so we had our own power source and it was only a minor inconvenience.

In the afternoon I did a lot of running around. I went to film some locations I found so George could see them. I was also looking for amusements for the boys. I went to an open ice-skating rink in the center of the city and checked the prices. Then I went to a really huge sporting hall where you can do almost any kind of sport both indoors and outdoors: Tennis, soccer, basketball, badminton, ping-pong, trampoline, shooting with bow and arrow, rock-climbing, ice hockey, curling, and also a fitness center. Also 3 very big swimming pools. Then I went to a bowling center where you can also find billiards, darts, table-soccer and Sega video arcade games. It was a nice complex for having fun, but everything was extremely expensive. I guess the snobs and very rich people who come here can afford it.

I also checked out a disco near the bowling alley which attracts a young crowd (18-20). I bought an English-French dictionary, which is funny because my native language is Slovak. Then I went to the Altiport where there are five-person helicopters and small airplanes for three passengers. They make 10-40 minute sightseeing flights. Of course, it's very costly like everything else here. Maybe we will do it. George wants to get some shots from a plane.

Then I went to the information centre to check all the train connections from our village to Prague and Vienna. I need to know all this information because some of the boys will go home early and others will come join us for the second week.

On the way back to the chalet I picked up the dinner. We had a goulash soup. Everyone ate too much and we have lots of it left over for lunch tomorrow.

From what I heard, Max had the best day of all. I didn't tell you that when I would leave in the morning he looked like he lost his best friend. He didn't understand why I was leaving without him. George was home, but Max just wanted me. He would walk around a little and play half-heartedly with whomever was around, but mostly he moped. Every day he was a little better, I guess realizing that I was coming back every night. So today, his playmate, Lokie, came to the dining room door looking for Max and since the door was partly open, Lokie invited himself in. George let Max outside and the two dogs ran around together for a while. Today since quite a few of the boys were home, Max had lots of people to play with. I'm not at all worried because Max knows his way around this area and although he runs around a lot now with Lokie he stays pretty much close to home. Still whoever is home keeps an eye on him. Max already was comfortable with Marty and Sebastian, but now I'm happy to see he's getting friendly with the other boys as well.

At night, Sean and Liam finished their episode. In the film, George plans to intertwine it with the Danny/Matthew scene.

And during a break in the filming I sat down with Matthew Gray for a little man-to-man talk

It's been a long day, I can't wait to get to my bed and get some sleep. Max is already sleeping. Do you know that he snores? Loud, sometimes. I don

Photos - April 23

Alpine Adventure April 22

Today, 22 April 2003, we again went skiing in the morning. This time we did ski-jumps, fake fall-downs and finished filming the snowball fight. Today also we did a lot of scenery shots, the mountains and the snow. We had lunch on top of the mountain, and you'll see in this video clip how warm it was.

On the Swiss slopes I met a 35 year old man from Slovakia who has been living in France for two years. He is a professional ice hockey player on a French team. He knows this area very well. He gave me a lot of information about local attractions and events. In the afternoon I went around with him. He introduced me to his friend, Roger, who owns a butcher shop and also a catering service. I arranged for them to cater dinners for us at the chalets for a very reasonable price. We also went looking at sporting goods stores; I wanted to buy new ski pants. In the end I didn't buy anythingâ??not because of the price, they didn't have what I was specifically looking for.

At night some of the boys went to a bar and the rest stayed at their chalet competing on the Playstation and watching the Martin Scorcese movie, "Goodfellas." But in the other chalet, things really began to heat up. Danny and Matthewe finished their episode (Danny got fucked, of course). Here's a little tasteâ??and I do mean taste. You rimming fans better get your smelling salts ready.

We had our first crisis earlier tonight. Sean Ellis, who looked so gorgeous in those photos from Cape Town lost about 10 kilos. He's still beautiful, there's just ... less of him. Anyway, George was going to pair him with Raf Angelo. Raf is, for the moment at least, strictly a top and we all know that Sean likes to get fucked. Well Sean and Raf were in the boys' chalet waiting for their turn to film when Sean told the Webmaster that he didn't want to bottom, his ass was hurting. The Webmaster asked if George knew about this, and Sean said no. So our ever-helpful Webmaster gently suggested that Sean not delay one more second and go tell George immediately. Well you can imagine George's reaction. To his credit, he didn't blow up (at least not at that particular moment), he just figured out how to reconfigure the scene. Raf is an untested bottom and so that ruled out flipping the pair. In the end (so to speak) George called upon Liam Phoenix, whose ass is always ready and waiting. It's not the pairing George really wanted, but the two boys had already filmed an internet-only episode which you'll see in a few weeks. George thought that since the boys already knew and liked each other it was the best option. Here's the first part of the episode they shot earlier tonight.

It was really late when they completed just half of the episode so they'll finish tomorrow night. And it's very late here so I have to stop now and go to bed. There's another day of skiing tomorrow!

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 21

Today, Monday 21 April, everyone went skiing. Marty and Sean felt better so they joined us. The mountain faced north, so it wasn't really warm in the sun, therefore the sun didn't melt all the snow on the slopes. The best skiers are probably Roger Wolf and Matthew Gray, both relative newcomers to Bel Ami. Roger's the one who jumps off the ski lift one minute before the end. We also shot a snowball fight. This is really a work-trip, but it sure feels like a vacation to our boys.

When we returned to the chalet in the late afternoon we found out that Jason Paradis won't be joining us here as he was supposed to. He couldn't get time off from his work.

We rested in the afternoon and at night we made our first attempt to feed everybody for a reasonable price: we brought in 10 pizzas for dinner with all different kinds of toppings. Most of them had a fried egg plopped down in the middle! Our Webmaster, being used to authentic New York pizza, was surprised to see the egg, but I liked it that way.

After dinner George started filming the first episode, with Danny Saradon and Matthew Gray, in my room! I wanted Danny to have sex in my room, but with me! Oh well, it's all in the family, right? Tonight they did only the sucking part. Here's a short excerpt from today's footage:

While this was being filmed in one chalet, the rest of the boys stayed in their chalet watching DVDs and playing with Roman Chaykin's Playstation 2 game console. It was a really good idea to bring it ... it was cheap entertainment and kept the boys amused for hours! Everyone went to bed early because tomorrow right after breakfast we go skiing again.

Kisses, Johan

Alpine Adventure April 19

We started our Alpine Adventure two days ago, on Saturday, 19 April. George Duroy wanted to film a winter-themed project and was debating on whether to do it before or after Cape Town. Marty Stevens and I often go skiing during the winter and we convinced George to wait until after Cape Town for several reasons: if we go after the "season" ends the prices will be a lot less for ski lifts and restaurants and accommodations, and although there will still be snow on the mountain tops it won't be so bitter cold off the slopes. We intended on going a few weeks ago, but for one reason or another George had to put it off. We were never sure on which day we'd actually leave, so we couldn't announce it on the web site. All the stars were in the correct positions in the heavens just half-a-week ago, so we made plans to leave on Saturday. Because nothing could be absolutely perfect, Marty Stevens and Sean Ellis had bad sore throats, and we hope they get better soon.

Here are the boys who are traveling with us:

Raf Angelo, Sebastian Bonnet, Roman Chaykin, Sean Ellis, Matthew Gray, Tommy Hansen, Greg Miller, Liam Phoenix, Danny Saradon, Marc Vidal, Roger Wolf and Max

At 8:30 AM we gathered in the center of town (Bratislava). The boys from the Czech Republic arrived last night so everyone was ready on time. We arranged to travel in three vehicles: Marty Stevens would drive his own SUV, Roman Chaykin would drive another company-owned SUV, and Sebastian and I would take turns driving a rented mini-van. Each vehicle was equipped with a walkie-talkie so we could stay in aural contact if we got separated. They came in handy a few times.

It was nice weather, not too cold, and a beautiful blue sky. First we stopped for gas and to load up on snack food for the cars. Every gas station has a mini-store attached to it, and we made good use of every one we stopped at along the way! At last the journey commenced in earnest, we crossed the border into Austria and headed west. Our first real stop was several hours later in a town called Mondsee where they have a great roadside restaurant. The interior has a glass wall facing the Alps and in front of them, an alpine lake. A really beautiful vista. It was so beautiful, in fact, that no one took a picture! Everyone thought that someone else would surely take one. So you'll just have to imagine it.
A short time later we passed Salzburg. A few of us sang a few lines of "Climb Every Mountain," and I looked around for a lonely goatherd but didn't see one. If he was cute, this caravan of Bel Ami beauties would have made him a lot less lonely! Now if you know the geography of western Austria, you'd quickly realize that the Trapp family couldn't have climbed any Alps to safetyâ??on the other side of the Alps at Salzburg is the southeastern tip of Germany! And anyway, I read that they took a train and didn't really climb anything. But don't let reality stop your enjoyment of "The Sound of Music" the next time you see it. It didn't become such a huge success because it told the absolute truth ...

But the "Bel Ami family singers" crossed into Germany and drove through Munich where we got slightly lost trying to find the next highway. There was no direct connection between the roads and we had to actually drive to the other side of Munich. On that road we drove to the southwest, eventually winding up in Switzerland.
Our final destination will be a small town in the western part of Switzerland, near the French border. We didn't think we'd be able to drive straight through, but we wanted to get as close as possible in this one day. We drove past Zurich. -Suddenly, on our right, we saw a spectacular display of fireworks. We hoped it was prepared and timed to celebrate Bel Ami's entrance into Switzerland, but that was doubtful. We never found out what the fireworks were for. Around 10:00 PM we passed a nice, new-looking hotel and decided to sleep there for one night. It was a "Golden Arch" hotel, one of two hotels owned by McDonalds, the other one is at the Zurich airport. Actually it was ver

Photos - April 19

Bel Ami in South Africa: March 14

Hello again.

It's taken much longer than I thought to bring you this next installment of the Cape Town Journal. I'm sorry about that. As soon as I arrived home I had to attend to all the business things left on hold while I was away. Then I had to finish up the paperwork from the trip especially to enter all the receipts into our ledgers so we could figure out how much the trip cost! It was expensive, but George was happy and thought the trip well worth the effort. True, he didn't come home having made a new video as he originally planned, but he did manage to create enough material for at least two new books and shot two episodes he's pleased with and will definitely use in the future.

All the boys had mixed feelings about going home. On one hand they wanted to go back and on the other, they didn't want the fantasy trip to end. But they all have fantastic memories and great stories to tell their friends and their families.

My memories are really vivid, especially since I wrote everything in these journals. The day before we left Cape Town Marty Stevens shot a photo session with Josh Elliot. I tagged along so I could film a short interview. Josh is just as sweet and nice and polite as he appears. But you all remember his scene with Sebastian in "Personal Trainers 4" -- you know what a sex-maniac he turns into! Keep that in mind as you watch these two video clips.

Marty couldn't do a complete photo session with Josh because the pool area was not private. Nobody would blink an eyelash at nude photos, but if Josh sported an erection it would have raised more than just a few eyebrows! And it was also cold, as you'll notice in some of the pictures. Ah, Josh, if I were only 10 years younger ... (big sigh) ...

I've still got more to show you and now that things have settled down here, I'll be able to make another Journal entry in a few days.

Love, Johan

Photos - Josh Elliot

Bel Ami in South Africa: March 1

Today was our last full day in Cape Town. George made some last minute shopping, buying souvenirs and little gifts for some of the Bel Ami family who didn't come with us, like his housekeeper and Dano Sulik. He bought so much stuff, he had to purchase an extra suitcase to bring it all home! The Webmaster stayed in the house all day preparing a lot of material for the site. I joined the boys for most of the day.

George's original plan for the opening of a proposed Brandon Manilow/Matt Phillipe episode involved the use of a cute Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. That, as I told you yesterday, didn't work out. As an alternative, he rented three beach-buggiesâ??four-wheel, open sided, small jeep-like vehiclesâ??and were going to film the boys driving them. We came to the beach and started to get familiar with the buggies, driving them around. George planned his shots. The moment we started to shoot, a beach-ranger appeared out of nowhere and stopped us, citing the inviolate South African law that it's not allowed to drive any vehicle on a beach. We could have been arrested, prosecuted and made to pay a stiff fine, in addition to the vehicle getting confiscated. Turns out the mis-named "beach buggy" is for road use only! Did they tell us this when we were renting them? Of course not. So we had to move the buggies off the beach. This is actually a longer story, but I'll tell you about it next week when I also show you pictures. By a stroke of luck Marty Stevens saw a dog on the beach; this dog must have been a budding actor waiting for his big break because he was exceptionally cooperative. So in the end, we shot the opening with a dog just as George wanted.

The other boys went shopping (again) and stayed close to the apartment.

Later in the day, it was time for Josh Elliot's photoshoot. I made an interview with Josh just before the shoot and I'll show it to you after I'm home.

Now, I'm so happy to present this new photoset of Mark Aubrey. Mark is a really interesting guy. He's really good-looking, with a great body, a big dick, low-hanging balls, and a law student to boot! I wonder if, in court, anyone will guess what he has underneath his conservative suit? But you won't have to guess anything. Here's his interview, a video from his photoshoot, and a sampling of pictures.

His full photogallery at belamionline.com is here

As I told you already, tomorrow, Saturday (I guess it's "today" when you're reading this) we're traveling back home. Our flight is at 4:00 PM and we arrive in Vienna at 10:00 AM on Sunday. I'm not going to prepare any Journal entry for tomorrow, but next week, from home, I will continue telling you about the parts of the trip I left out.

Love, Johan

Photos - Mark Aubrey

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 28

Yesterday was a big day for us. Lots of activity. We were all out the door by 10:00 AM, headed for an ostrich farm about 20 minutes away from town.

Benno Thoma arranged for us to have a private guided tour and also for the guides to take us by truck to the field out back where the ostriches roam freely. (You'll see everything I'm describing in the photo set and the video.) While we were waiting, the boys engaged in some friendly arm-wrestling. Yves really took it seriously! But he lost. Ethan and Yves tried to lift Sean up into the tree, but I think it was all an excuse just to grab Sean's crotch in public. After about a 30 minute wait, the guides escorted us into the area where we could feed the ostriches. Not known for being particularly brilliant, the ostriches in this place have gotten comfortable around people, especially with the tourists who feed them! They ate right out of our hands. The tour guide gave one bird an entire plastic bag of corn and the bird ate it, plastic and all! She assured us that it wouldn't harm the bird. They also feed the birds little stones which help the bird's digestion. We also played rough with the bird's necks. Before you go calling the animal protection agency, please know that I was just imitating the animal handlers who were doing exactly the same thing. No ostriches were harmed during the making of this video.

We all piled into a big truck and drove out to the field. There were bunches of ostriches and we hoped to take pictures with the birds all around and among us. But these birds were not as used to people, and they shied away when we approached.

Returning to the front of the farm, we arranged with the staff to allow me to make a short interview for the web site with Sascha Chaykin seated on top of an ostrich. The Webmaster told me about another American expression, "Never work with animals or children." It was all right with the staff to do the interview, but nobody bothered to ask the bird. The poor beast kicked and squirmed and let it be known that the interview was not going to happen on the sweat of his back. "I don't understand it," said the trainer. "These birds always let people sit on them for pictures! I don't know what's gotten into them today." Well whatever got into them, they didn't want anyone on them, so we did the interview with the bird in between us. The last we saw of the bird, he was calling his agent in Johannesburg.

George Duroy also had his troubles with animals today. He wanted to include a really cute and playful Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy in the opening of a Matt Phillipe/Brandon Manilow episode (the episode itself has not been shot), but the puppy didn't pay any attention to directions, so they couldn't film it. George came up with another idea for the opening which he'll attempt to shoot tomorrow.

After the interview we settled into the restaurant at the farm where they served meals fromâ??you guessed itâ??ostrich. Ostrich burgers, ostrich fillet, ostrich ka-bobs, ostrich medallions, everything but ostrich soup and ostrich ice-cream! We all tried one or another of the entrees and enjoyed our meals. Ostrich tastes something like beef but a lot lighter in texture.

After lunch, some of us bought souvenirs (ostrich leather, ostrich feather-dusters, ostrich eggs, you get the point, I'm sure) and others just tried on the brightly colored boas. We had a lot of laughs. I also promised to show you a picture of Lowkie, and you'll see him trying to stick his tongue into Yves Carradine's ear.

From the farm we drove to the marina at Hout Bay (about a 20 minute drive south from our apartments). Louwkie rented a motor yacht for an afternoon cruise into the Atlantic. It was high tide and the waves were rough. But we loved every minute of it. I'll show you the pictures and some video from our cruise in a few days. So this is a good time to tell you some news: There will be one more regular Journal entry tomorrow, then we'll have to take Sunday off. Tomorrow, Saturday, we're traveling back home, so there won't be any way to prepare something for

Photos - Ostriches

Photos - Sascha Chaykin

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 27

Today was a really uneventful day. When we woke up this morning we could see a heavy blanket of fog/clouds coming toward shore from the ocean. Soon, we were enveloped in this mist and the sun didn't burn it off until very late in the afternoon. So the boys all went shopping. Two different shopping centers. The Webmaster and I stayed in the apartment working, editing videos and organizing photosets.

Yves Carradine didn't go shopping, he made a beautiful photoset today. Boy, does he love being in front of a camera! Late in the afternoon I told him how great his pictures turned out, and a cheetah would be green with envy at the speed with which he raced to the upper apartment to see them.

At 4:00 PM, the Webmaster and I went to Greenmarket Square, the outdoor market for all kinds of African tourist stuff. You've already seen a video of this place last week. We arrived at 4:30 and the market closes at 5:00, so the pressure was on. Each merchant in all the stalls shouted out to us: "Last purchase! We give you good price!" One man selling "artwork" (and I use the term loosely), said, please buy something so I can get a good dinner tonight. The merchants were from many different countries in Africa. I tried to ask them some questions about themselves and their countries and without exception each one told me that the economy was bad where they're from and they could make better money in Cape Town. One woman from Kenya told me I should go there, it's so safe, I could walk around 24 hours a day without fear, the people are very friendly, they like tourists, etc. I wouldn't mind going! I'd like to go to a lot of places. I'm very lucky that at my age I've already been to four continents and traveled the world as far (from my home) west as Los Angeles and as far East as Hong Kong. And now to the southern tip of Africa!

In the evening, we went back to the great Italian restaurant we were at yesterday and then I went home and prepared three more video clips and three more photosets.

Today, I'm really pleased to feature my new friend, Sean. He's a really good-looking boy in person, but WOW, I couldn't believe how beautifully he photographs. He's such a great guy. I know it sounds repetitious to say that about all these boys, but what a pleasure it is to travel with all of them. I think you'll get a good sense of Sean's personality in his interview with Sebastian.

See his photogallery at belamionline.com

None of the boys went out at night, because we have to get up early tomorrow. We've got a busy day planned. I'll tell you all about it in tomorrow's Journal entry.

Love, Johan

Photos - Sean Ellis

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 26

No history lesson today. Just some "fun facts" about South Africa.

Dr. Christiaan Barnard carried out the first human heart transplant in 1967 right here in Cape Town, in the Groote Schuur hospital, just over the hill from where we're staying.

The largest diamond ever found, the "Cullinan" Diamond was discovered in 1905 at the Premier Diamond Mine in Kimberly. It was later cut into 3 diamonds and is part of Queen Elizabeth II's crown jewels.

Mark Shuttleworth, a Cape Town native, sold his internet business in 1999 for more than 4 billion South African Rands (currently there's approximately 8 Rands to 1 USD, so that comes out to around $500,000,000). He paid $20,000,000 to join a space shuttle mission. He was actually the second "space tourist," and his lift off was in April, 2002.

The cape is generally known as the Cape of Good Hope. Sir Francis Drake called it "the fairest Cape in all the circumference of the world." But for the sailing ships that had to get around the southern tip of Africa it was the "Cape of Storms." When the North Westerly winds blow in winter, the Cape becomes quite frightening. More than 2,500 ships have been lost around the South African coast.

A few days ago we saw whales swimming really close to shore. Here's a picture we quickly snapped.
You can't see much, just a tail coming out of the water, but it's better than nothing. It was probably a Southern Right Whale, the most common in this area. It's called that because in the late 1700's they were considered the "right whale to kill" -- they moved slowly, provided lots of oil and floated when dead so they could be left on the surface while others were killed. The females have an average length of 14 meters and weigh an estimated 30 to 60 tons. Between 1785 and 1805 an estimated 12,000 Right Whales were killed around the South African coast. In 1940 the whales were protected in South African waters, for by this time the whale population was decimated and there were less than 100 whales along the coast. Since then the population has been steadily increasing and by the mid 90's there were an estimated 2,000 individuals, which was thought to be about 10% of the population in 1700. It was really early to see whales here, normally they're spotted starting in June and reaching their peak in September.

As far as the Bel Ami boys are concerned, things are clearly winding down. George has definitely decided not to shoot any more episodes during this trip. Those of you who follow our company know that George changes his mind by the minute. Originally he was going to shoot one complete video during this trip. Then he decided to shoot episodes for another video he has been planning. Now he decided to concentrate on photographs because of the unavailability of outdoor locations. He's making all the arrangements to come back here in November for another 14 days. Until he changes his mind about that, too.

He says that the episodes already shot here will definitely be released in something, but what and when are still swirling around in his fertile brain. As soon as he makes some kind of final decision, we'll let you all know.

Every day I'm going to show you a sampling from the photo shoots we've been taking. Today, here is an interview with Ethan Clarke, the one who did the episode with Yves Carradine, followed by his photos.

Ethan Clarke and Yves Carradine

In the afternoon yesterday we all went to the beach, supposedly to shoot some pictures. But we arrived so late, the boys just played frisbee in the water and Benno Thoma took some snaps. There were a lot of dogs on the beach and they were all playful and friendly. One dog caught our frisbee and it was a real struggle to get it back! If you want to know more about Benno, please check out his wonderful web site, www.bennothoma.com.

At night, we went out for Italian food. Benno took some pictures using the natural light at the restaurant. They're really

Photos - Ethan Clarke

Photos - Beach

Photos - Restaurant

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 25

Today's lesson: the population of South Africa.

South Africa's population is a mix of four main races: Africans (black), White, Colored and Asian. The estimated total is 50,000,000, somewhere around 37,000,000 are black (subdivided into a number of different ethnic groups), 7,000,000 are white, 4,500,000 Colored and around 1,000,000 Asian. The Coloreds are mixed-race people primarily descended from the earliest (Dutch) settlers and the native (Black) peoples and are only found in the Cape. The Asians descend from Indian workers brought to South Africa in the mid-19th century to work on the sugar plantations in Natal. Indians mainly are in the KwaZulu-Natal province, but there are also many in the Cape Town area.

The history of race relations in South Africa is both fascinating and horrific. The system of Apartheid (meaning "segregation" in the Afrikaan language) is thankfully no longer a government policy and the country is undergoing a long process of healing. Here is not the place to go into the whole story behind Apartheid, but please read up on it if you don't know about it. I'm lucky, I'm hearing it from the natives.

In many parts of South Africa there are still seething racial tensions, but in the Cape Town area, the mix of races live for the most part harmoniously. Leave it to the Bel Ami boys to prove that any country's salvation lies in its youth.

George Duroy is changing his plans because he has not been able to secure any outdoor locations for shooting. At this moment I don't know what we'll finish this week, but it's clear we won't do a complete movie. He's thinking about coming back here in November, when he can get open-air spaces. For the rest of the week, he may just concentrate on photos, layouts for Freshmen magazine and material for more books.

Today I want to feature one of the very newest lads, Liam Phoenix. A vivacious and charming strawberry blonde, he's always in a happy mood and very easy to be with. And so sexy. Here's an interview I did with him, a glimpse of him romping on the beach with Sascha Chaykin and also a photo set taken by the wonderful Benno Thoma.

More about Liam Phoenix

Oh yes, forgot to tell you. The situation with the landlord has been resolved. The agent finally reappeared and said, "It's all been a big misunderstanding. I will straighten it out with the landlord." And so far we've heard no more.

The boys had a quiet night last night. It seems that absolutely nothing happens here in Cape Town on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Of course, I don't know what went on behind closed doors at the apartment complex. I tried to hint around this morning, but no one was talking.

Love, Johan

Photos - Liam Phoenix

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 24

Yesterday we had a really nice day off. Well, let me put that another way, most of the boys had a day off, the Webmaster (technically he's not a boy, but he gets upset if I refer to him as anything else) and I and a few of the models still had to work, but it was a lot more relaxed than the last week has been.

I'll start today by telling you a little of what I learned so far about South Africa. In a city now known as Langebaan, not too far from Cape Town up the western coast, 117,000 year old footprints were discovered which proved to be the world's oldest traces of anatomically modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens. Now skipping over the next thousand centuries, ships from the Dutch East India Company had to go around the cape to get from Europe to India, where they procured spices and silk to take back to Europe. In 1652, the Dutch created a settlement in what is now Cape Town, setting up a trading post and restocking their ships with fresh water and fresh vegetables. Now moving ahead to 1820 or so, the British came and took over. (Why weren't my history classes in school this simplified?) The result of these colonizations is that everyone here speaks fluent English. It's compulsory in the schools. But there's another language almost all the white people speak, and that's Afrikaans. Afrikaans is a mixture of Dutch (the main influence), German and English. For some contemporary white South Africans, Afrikaans is their first language, spoken in their homes, English their second.

In South Africa alone, there are nine black languages. The most common in this area is Xhosa (pronounced "Ko-za&quot. This is the language of Nelson Mandela. You would recognize Xhosa because it's the language with all the clicking sounds. In the Natal region (where the city of Durban is), the main black language is Zulu, which is related to Xhosa, but without the clicks. In Johannesburg, the main black language is South Sotho. (There's also a North Sotho language, but I don't know where that's spoken.) Sound confusing? It is.

I bring up this discussion of language today because over the weekend we received an e-mail asking how come my writing in these journals is in such good English, casting doubt that I'm really doing it. Yes, it's really me, but I have a secret: the Webmaster. I can speak fluent English, but if I write it I make so many grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, I didn't want the printed text for these Journals to be flawed. So I sit down and outline what I want to write about, then I go over it with the Webmaster, who then takes my thoughts, and my exact words in a lot of cases, and fixes it up. Sometimes he even wants to add a thought or observation of his own. I let him, otherwise he'd get really cranky.

Surprisingly, none of the boys have been cranky or difficult. George picked a group of boys who he felt would work well together and not cause trouble, and, as usual, he was right. On Saturday, Josh Elliot and Marc Vidal got together to consummate their episode. This time the Webmaster didn't attend the filming. We invited him to, but he didn't want to get heart palpitations watching Josh get fucked a few feet away from him. I warn you to have your heart medicine ready as you watch this short preview.

We hired a local man to be one of our drivers. His name is Louwke (pronounced: low-key). His native language is Afrikkans, but he also speaks perfect English. He's a lot of fun. He's straight, but he's getting a real kick out of being with all of us. We're lucky to have Louwke. Before this is all over, you'll probably see a picture or two of him.

While Josh and Marc were doing their thing, Louwke took the rest of us to Ratanga Junction, an African-styled theme park. It was beautifully designed, just like the Disney theme parks, with a great attention to details. Most of the attractions were for children, but we went on three great thrill rides. The first was the SlingShot, which was similar to bungee-jumping, but in this one two or three people are strapped together and after you free-fall, you swing back and fo

Photos - Ratanga

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 22

Today we battled a crisis with our landlord. As I told you a few days ago, we are renting two huge, duplex oceanfront apartments. There are 14 people total staying in that building (the Webmaster and I are in a different place, five minutes away, and we have other people in a third location). Now back to the main building. We split up the group into two: 8 boys in the lower apartment, and 6 people (including George and Marty Stevens) in the upper. We paid an agent/broker in advance for seven double-rooms to house a total of 14 people and provided a complete list of names. George was originally going to share his room, but in the end he decided he really needed some privacy after working hard all day, so the person who was going to share his room moved in with the two guys in another room in the same flat, and we went out and bought an extra bed for that room.

The landlord heard there were two extra beds being delivered to the flat. In actuality there was a mattress and the box-support for the mattress (this constituted the "two extra beds!&quot. The landlord called the agent, demanding more money. The agent called us. We explained the situation to the agent. The agent argued with us. We basically told the agent to fuck off, but in more polite terms. Not wanting to be on bad terms with the indignant landlord, the agent then sent a check to the landlord for what two extra people would cost for a two-week stay. The check bounced. So the landlord came to us to demand payment for the "two extra people." No amount of reasoning could convince the landlord that there weren't any extra people! We've been trying to call the agent, who is conveniently unreachable; her cellphone has been turned off for one week now.

Enough about business, I know you want to hear about what the boys were up to.

Today we split into several groups. Yves Carradine and Ethan Clarke went to the location to finish their scene. I made an interview with Yves, and in the same video clip you'll see part of the episode.

In the morning, before filming the episode, George and Marty went to take another look at a beach George saw last week. He particularly liked the small rocks jutting out from the sand and wanted to take some pictures on the sand with the rocks. Imagine their surprise when they arrived this morning to find that the ocean had washed away about a meter deep of sand, exposing the rocks as big boulders! It was now an ugly location, so that plan had to be scrapped.

A second team of boys, Sebastian Bonnet, Josh Elliot and Matt Phillipe went to two other beaches today to pose for pictures. The gallery of images below is a mixture of pictures from both locations. Here's how to tell which is which: the pictures featuring brightly colored cabanas is St. James' beach, a small family beach famous for these cabanas. It's on the east side of the Cape, on the Indian Ocean. The second beach they went to is called Noord Hoek (meaning "north corner" in Dutch, the language Afrikaans is based on). It's on the Atlantic Ocean, facing west, and they wanted to shoot in the late-afternoon light. So the pictures on the beach without the houses (and a little dark) were shot there. The photographer for these pictures is Benno Thoma, an internationally known photographer from Holland. He worked with us once before, on the first trip to Greece with Lukas. His work is really beautiful. I know you'll like these pictures.

More about Matt Phillipe and Sebastian Bonnet

If you're wondering about the other boys, the ones you haven't heard about today, they stayed close to the flat, sleeping, resting, sunning themselves and using the private pool on the terrace (no, not the one which leaked, that was the one in the upper (George's) apartment).

More tomorrow.

Love, Johan

Photos - Sebastian Bonnet & Matt Phillipe

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 21

It's a funny coincidence that in today's local newspaper, the Cape Times, there's a front page article called "Cape Town listed fourth-best destination for American travelers." I quote from the article:

"It's official! Cape Town is the fourth hottest international destination in the world for travelers from the United States.

The Mother City has rocketed into the top 10 positions of destination for Americans abroad, says a report by CBS MarketWatch published in the US yesterday.

The top 10 cities were listed in order as Vancouver, Montreal, Dublin, Cape Town, Sydney, Cancun, San Juan, Punta Cana (Dominican Republic), Puerto Vallarta (Mexico) and finally Rome, Paris and London listed together in 10th position." The article goes on to quote a product manager with Expedia.com, an American travel agency:"We're seeing more people going to South Africa than in the past, because there you can have a safari experience as well as a city experience in one trip. It offers beaches, game parks and affordability.'"

The coincidence is that today all but two of our boys went on a sightseeing excursion. They didn't see a safari, but they did go to the huge outdoor flea market/crafts fair, have lunch in the restaurant Manhattan in the heart of Cape Town's gay village and then take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. No words can do what pictures can, so here are some snaps and some video from today's activities.

Yves Carradine and Ethan Clarke also went sightseeing, but they were exploring some personal vistas. Here's some video from their afternoon.

Yesterday I promised you some pictures from Marty's photo shoot with Yves, Ethan and Brandon Manilow. I always keep my word. Here they are.

In the evening, George, Brandon and Mark Aubrey went back to the gay village to take in some of the nightlife. They first stopped off at the gay bath house The Hothouse. From what they told me, the boys were the hit of the place. Like Pied Pipers, they had lines of men following them wherever they went. After the baths, they went around the corner to the Bronx Action Bar, which the gay guide lists as "the favourite hangout for all the cute 'n trendy boys." Since Brandon and Mark are certainly both cute and trendy, that was the place for them. They didn't stay too late, because everyone had to be up early tomorrow (today, as you're reading this) to make a photo shoot on the beach. The rest of the boys stayed home, having partied hard the night before at Buddah Bar

Me? I edited the sex video clip you saw above. That was my exciting night!

Love, Johan

Photos - Cape Town

Photos - Yves Carradine, Ethan Clarke and Brandon Manilow

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 20

The first thing I did on this, the third morning in Cape Town, was rent a new video monitor. Because we were coming such a long distance, we planned to rent some of the heavier equipment here. But George was really unhappy with the quality of the monitor so we got another one today. Do I have to tell you that he didn't like that one either? Maybe we'll have to wind up buying one. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you the last two days: I'm also the official "Production Manager" for this project. What that means is, in addition to all the other stuff I have to do I'm the one who has to look for better video monitors. I also had to give my credit card to the hotel we're using the next two days for locations. It's really beautiful. You'll see pictures from it probably on Friday.

George's plan was to shoot a scene with Josh Elliot and hunky Marc Vidal, so all the rest of the boys had the day free. It was my job to take them out sightseeing. We went to the Two Ocean Aquarium and to the V & A (Victoria and Albert) Waterfront. Here are some pictures from the afternoon.

On the waterfront, we ran into an a cappella singing group, the Abonwabisi Brothers. We joined forces and produced our first music video!

Because I was otherwise occupied, the Webmaster had to go and take documentary pictures while they were shooting the episode. He never before watched any shootingâ??we really don't allow anyone other than the cameramen to be present while the boys are filming because an extra person can make them nervous or shy. But both Josh and Marc already were friendly with our esteemed Webmaster so we took the chance. And guess what? The Webmaster didn't do anything embarrassing, he was totally professional! And the boys were so into each other they wouldn't have noticed if the World Cup soccer match was being played in the room around them. The Webmaster took all the still pictures on this page. (The Webmaster taught me this expression: "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!&quot Of course, Marty took a lot more pictures, but you'll see those around the time the movie comes out (at the least, a year from now, in 2004). Marty was so proud of this episode, he sat with me and specially edited some of his footage for this Journal.

The shoot took place in a Victorian gay guest house. We used a room on on the second floor. When we rented the room the management told us the rest of the rooms on that floor would be empty. Sure enough, in the middle of filming, a man appeared on the stairs, paper in hand, just as the Webmaster was going down. "I have a reservation," said the stranger. The W.M. said, "Huh?" The man repeated, "I have a reservation." The W.M., thinking that George made some reservation for something, looked for help. No one was around. So the man said for the third time, "I have a reservation. Aren't you the manager?" The W.M., relieved, answered "No." The man said, &quoto you know where the manager is?" The W.M. helpfully replied, "I have no idea." At this moment George appeared at the top of the steps and said that the manager was in the kitchen. Grateful that he was off the hook, the W.M. went downstairs with the man to escort him to the kitchen and ran smack into what was presumably his wife and 10-month-old child. This was supposed to be a gay guest house! The family was from Norway, on the last night of their vacation in Cape Town. The manager, knowing we were filming, but not having a clue what, gave them the large room right opposite from where we were. The manager said, "It's OK. They'll go out for a walk!" They didn't. But they also didn't see anything they shouldn't, so we got through that crisis unscathed.

Enough talk, bring on the Webmaster's pictures

Here are two more video clips, a very short preview of the scene with Josh and Marc, and also an interview with Marc.
At the end of the afternoon, Marty Stevens took some pictures of three boys: Yves Carradine, Brandon Manilow, and Ethan Clarke. He wanted you to see a few of them, and so we'll show you them tomorrow.

In the evening, the boys w

Photos - Ocean Aquarium

Photos - Josh and Marc

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 19

There's nothing like a problem first thing in the morning to get your juices flowing. Yesterday we planned to start filming an episode using for a location one room in our house. Now I haven't told you much about the house yet. It's a multi-story building built on a hill, the ground floor garage is right at street level. There are three different apartments. We rented the first floor duplex (four bedrooms) and the duplex penthouse (three bedrooms). Each apartment living room and many bedrooms face the Atlantic Ocean to the west, offering spectacular sunsets. Each apartment has a private swimming pool. The penthouse swimming pool is on the roof. Well this particular pool started leaking this morning, the water flowing into and out of the lighting fixtures in the ceiling and down the walls. So we immediately turned off the electricity. The problem turned out to be a misbehaving pump and was fixed in a few short hours. But a few short hours when you're waiting to film seems like many long hours.

In the meantime, we found out that the real estate agent who rented us this property wildly overcharged us. The price didn't seem unusual, because we know that in the last several years South Africa has been experiencing a boom in both business and tourism. The prices for houses and rental properties have gone up sharply every year. Many Hollywood film production companies, movie studios (such as Paramount Pictures) and commercial photo shoots come down here, lured by the low prices, the generally great weather and the availability of varying types of locations within a short traveling distance. In South Africa alone, you can go from desert to jungle to everything in between, as well as utilize miles and miles of unbroken coastline. But a fair price is one thing, overcharging is another. Now that I'm in charge of business matters, it's up to me to do something about it ...

So after the building owner, the property manager, the electrician and the housekeeper all left, we got down to the business at hand. We planned to shoot the beginning section of a four-way, involving Matt Phillipe, Josh Elliot, Brandon Manilow and Sebastian Bonnet. Rather than bore you any more with my words, I'll let the pictures do the talking, occasionally interrupted by my jokey captions.

The rest of the boys spent the day pretty quietly, going to a large shopping mall which could have been anywhere in the U.S. All the shops were American or European companies, and some of the boys bought a few small items.

At night, it was also pretty quiet, but Mark Aubrey and Brandon Manilow grabbed the webmaster's laptop and started playing video games. They played up until the old-meanie-webmaster took the computer back to continue working. The nerve! ;-)

So it'll be early to bed and ready for another adventure tomorrow.

Kisses, Johan

Photos - Boys in Action

Bel Ami in South Africa: Februar 18

Hello! I'm glad you're going to take this little trip with me. But before we start, I have to tell you that the next two weeks are going to be as much of a surprise for me as they will be for you. Oh, I know who is here and I have an inkling of George Duroy's plans for this video, but what we end up with when we head for home is what really counts. So I can't really plan the journals. Some days we might have lots of pictures and a little video, some days we may have more video and less pictures, who knows? But don't worry, I can assure you it'll be a fun experience for all of us.

Hm, I guess you don't know my latest news. I am now the C.E.O of the production company which manages Bel Ami. I sign all the papers, attend the meetings, do the negotiations, write the letters, etc. I feel really proud that I started as a model and worked my way to this position. So when George and Marty Stevens went down to Cape Town on the 10th of February to look at locations and artistically plan the production, I stayed at home to organize all the last minute details involving the boys who were going as one big group on the 16th.

All the out-of-town boys arrived in Bratislava on Saturday the 15th. The first thing we did was have an office meeting where I explained what was going to happen in the next two weeks.

Then I sent some of the boys upstairs to our new studio to get haircuts. Our wonderful barber, Lena, trimmed their hair just perfectly.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time.

The man checking us in was also checking us out and it wasn't too long before he gave us some recommendations for the best gay clubs and discos in Cape Town.

We had just a bit of luggage, and miraculously nothing got lost!
We had to travel from Vienna to Amsterdam on a smallish plane (a 737) and then in Amsterdam change to a jumbo-jet (757) for a flight to Cape Town (with a small stop in Johannesburg to refuel).

The airplane was overbooked and there wasn't enough room to seat us all together. Yves Carradine had a recently awakened Brandon Manilow on his right and newcomer Liam Phoenix on his left.
Josh Elliot, Liam Phoenix, Sascha Chaykin, Matt Phillipe and Ethan Clarke were taking their very first airplane rides ever.

After the plane landed, we took the bus to the terminal. Immigration was no problem, although there were a lot of people curiously looking at us.
Marty Stevens met us at the airport with two drivers; we piled into the vans and drove to a guesthouse right on the ocean, in the really expensive part of town.
Mark Aubrey was pooped, not everybody got a good night's sleep on the plane. But when George came down to greet us, we all perked up and listened to his informative talk about Cape Town, what to expect, what to do and what not to do.

he guest house has several apartments, most of the boys stay on the 2nd floor, sharing beds in the 4-bedroom flat, and George, Marty, Mark, Sascha and Sebastian have the upstairs apartment which instantly became the social center of the house. Here are some boys on the balcony.

The dramatic natural beauty of Cape Town is overwhelming. Here is Lion's Head Mountain and two views of the mountain face called the "Twelve Apostles," for it's twelve naturally weather-sculpted facades (right and below).

Yves Carradine sometimes gets a nosebleed when he sneezes. Probably that's why he often wears something red.
At 7:30, George hosted a catered dinner for all of us. A local company, headed by the resourceful South African native, Vell, made some delicious food.

After dinner, we all retired to our rooms to get a good night's sleep after the long journey and first exciting day in Cape Town.

Hope you'll join us again tomorrow

Photos - First Day