Afflicted with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Gorrell says he had saved up enough money over the years so that he could take care of himself. Then, in less than a year, all that money – totaling 70,000 US dollars, or nearly three million pesos, he says – is gone. Stolen, according to him, by a dashing and sweet-talking Filipino he had fallen in love with and had a relationship that lasted a year.

Brian Gorrell. (Photo courtesy of Brian Gorrell)

The 38-year-old Gorrell, who was born in Canada but is an Australian citizen (he has lived in Australia for 25 years), swears he did everything rational and legal to try to get his money back. But, according to him, he was instead mocked and threatened. Furious and desperate, he created a blog on blogspot.com and spilled his guts out.

The blog was a sensation. Ever since he put it up earlier this month, the blog, according to sitemeter.com, averages a daily visit of 52,391, which is a phenomenal statistic for a blog that is less than a month old.

It’s easy to see why. The blog is addictive. Perhaps because it played into the gossipy nature of Filipinos, thousands are drawn to it every day. Or that, as can be gleaned from the equally scorching and at times hilarious comments, many Filipinos really do hate the so-called high-society – which Gorrell described as “toxic,” its denizens suffering from a “drug-induced boredom” — and that, for once, they had the opportunity to engage in a bit of schadenfreude. “The vicious schadenfreude on display in that blog is the spasm of the helpless,” writes the Inquirer’s Gibbs Cadiz.

But Gorrell’s story – the nasty revelations, the profanity, the nihilism, the abuse, the betrayal, all of this aside – probably comes down to this: it is a story of a vulnerable man swept away by the exotic decadence of a part of Philippine society that only a few Filipinos probably knew existed. People may argue about the veracity of its content but there is no denying that Gorrell’s blog pried open the door to this glitzy underworld that the likes of Maurice Arcache or Tim Yap wouldn’t dare — to use a word society columnists will have no problem using — prattle about.

Gorrell agreed to an online chat with PinoyPress on Tuesday. We are printing excerpts of the conversation, which have been edited for clarity, grammar and style.