of manila's 'high' society and other matters

it has been more than a week since my last post and it has been a terribly busy, toxic week. what happened?

had a lot of stuff to cover - from edith burgos' talk in queens to two multi-cultural and diversity fora to a hong kong tourism board luncheon to a rondalla show at the philippine consulate to a meeting at the city fund of new york. in between i got myself snowed in and rained on.

and i didn't get sick. until two days ago.

a friend says that i was just paying up. boo-hoo. the usual, cough, colds. thank god, no fever. nor flu. hence, i caught up on previous shows i missed and stuff.

first up, californication. this is david duchovny's new series. i caught the first few episodes last year and missed out on the rest. i finished the entire season already. nice premise. hank moody is a published author who has a daughter with this woman who is now engaged to a guy who has a 16-year-old daughter who went to bed with hank because hank did not know she was only 16 and that she's the daughter of his ex's present.

next was nip/tuck's season 5. i can't find the last 2 episodes but i have seen the first 12. mcnamara and troy have moved to los angeles and this season felt as if everything is caricatured: from hearts and scalpels (very "The Valley" from "The OC", yeah, a show within a show) to christian posing for playgirl and becoming a man-whore to sean becoming an actor to julia becoming a lesbian. and yes, carrying on with the californication theme, sean has an affair with a 16-year-old, who turns out to be the daughter of his ex's present. i need to check the closing credits and make sure that they did not hire the same writer. goodness.

and yes, website hopping. somewhere along the way, i got a link to this site, which got me quite hooked. yes, this was just yesterday and i stayed up late to read form the very beginning. this morning, i checked to see if there are updates, and yes, there are! my newest guilty pleasure.

in a nutshell, this is the scenario. an aussie guy and his filipino boyfriend and his gang of friends. the couple was supposed to open businesses in manila and boracay (a portuguese restaurant in greenbelt 5! would have been so fab! and a travel company in bora) until the oz got to his senses and began asking the bf about all the money he has sent (via western union? haha!). we're talking 70 to 80 thousand dollars. and more.

one thing led to another, push came to shove. oz guy didn't see his money and i doubt he'll see it again. hell hath no fury...

the thing is, the filipino bf and his friends are not your typical, ordinary pinoys. they're supposed to be in the high society. or 'high' society, with all the implied addiction they all have. we read about them in the society pages. they create manila's society pages. philippine star's mostly.

cast of characters: brian gorell as the oz guy, dj montano as the filipino boyfriend, celine lopez as the filipino boyfriend's best friend, marcel crespo (spawn of mark jimenez) as the filipino boyfriend's best friend's boyfriend and a cast of fantastic supporting character led by some more lifestyle writers, society pages regulars, stylists, whatevers.

the whole thing is unravelling. the oz guy had access to every single one of them during their great moments and now, because he was fleeced, he's out to get his money back. it's like a soap opera. it's scandalous.

this is nowhere near the edison chan scandal but it's scandal nonetheless. hahaha.

the link is here. make sure to read from the very beginning (the first post) to get the whole story. hurry before the powers that be succeed in shutting this site!