Crazy Storms Above Torres

There were some cool storms up above Torres Vedras!

Mighty Malarian Mosquitos

If a mosquito knew a place called Malaria Island, where maybe many beautiful girls called Myra (the Latin name for Wonderful!) lived and bounced around, naked on the beaches, I bet they'd run away from swamps and forests and start their own little camp up there. Barbed wire round the vicinity, passport control, you know the drill. It would be unfair cus you'd so want to go and visit this idyllic location but of course, it would be at a cost. Your own LIFE!!! Me, personally, I waged war on mosquitoes this summer. They seemed to enjoy waking me up between the hours of 1 and 4 in the morning, just in that horrible hour where you've just fallen asleep and you don't wanna be woken for anything in the world... oh, actually, unless it's a program on the discovery channel about Malaria Island of course. And so it was on plentiful an occasion that I came up against these terrible beasts in the past few months. It all started in a peaceful place called "my bedroom". It's like a “me” version of Malaria Island. Lots of love and happiness was felt there... until. My first confrontation was with the one they called Marshall (which actually means Horse Groomer in Old English). This one ended with me splattering him to the ceiling with my guitar case. That particular bout was timed at approximately 37 minutes. A few days later and his girlfriend Martina (which is Latin for Warlike!) met a similar fate when she dared to cross my path. The nerve of her appearance was incredible. It was dusk and the day was hot. I was in the bathroom and she buzzed around my face, making me slap myself on a few occasions. How do they do this? Where do they get the power from? I know of no other beast that brings this out of you! It's Crazy. Initially she flittered with the wall. I tried to redecorate the tiles with a new tone of burgundy, but she skipped away, merry as anything, in behind the mirror. Alas, there was little chance for her now. The mirror in our bathroom hangs by a chain on a hook (obviously designed by a fellow mosquito-hater like myself) and there was little room for her there. My experienced hands, now hard from the constant slapping about, squished the little tyke to the back of the mirror. She was still partly alive when I laughed out loud as I flushed her down the toilet!!! From that day, the word in Malaria Island obviously got out. The death of Martina was a warning to them and they took it. Still, for some reason, that didn't stop her sister, Mabel (Latin for Amiable!) from dropping by. Initially, she was like this little flirt. Just messin around and playing, but I knew she was here to avenge her sister so I showed a black and white newspaper what its like to have a splattered miji on it! Right on a photo of Matt Damon! It was great! Double Whammy! After that, I think they must have held a meeting on Malaria Island and deemed my existence to be a danger to all the mosquitoes of the world. A war on Jason was commenced. Little did they know I'd already started mine on them earlier in this very story! My worse time this summer, was when I went out to my cousin, Suami’s house. He lives out in the middle of the woods, far from other human aid. It was there, at the Battle of Malveira, that I stamped my authority of the Mosquito race and sent them a message not to take me lightly. These particular cowards, once again, attacked me in the night. And what's worse, I was sleeping in the library. Books on all the walls meant easy hiding places for the evil blood sucking monsters that they are. Miji Maggie (Greek for Pearl), Midget Mackenzie ("son of wise ruler" in Gaelic), Mozzy Murray (celtic for sea-man! hehe) and the terrible Mad Mitzu Michael himself (meaning "who is like god" in Hebrew) (although, obviously not quite!), swarmed in on me with no fore-warning. The fight was long and hard and many litres of blood were spilt on the battlefield that fateful night. It was on that day that I decided to take the war to them. On the 30th of November, for some strange reason, I've decided to go to Thailand for a month, where some of the most dangerous mosquitoes live and fight it out with other mosquito tribes! Their war paint blatant for all to see and their flight paths are still too unpredictable for humans to read. Some time in late December, think of me, as I travel to the border of Cambodia to hunt out the most evil ones of them all. I'm doing everything to protect myself. I even let an 80 year-old man jab me in the bum and in my arm with some bizarre liquids that I hope will make me strong and impenetrable. I will take pills too and protect myself with extra clothing and a spray that will coat my body, slickly and seductively. Hold back though ladies, for I do this in the name of death and not love! The other day I killed a mosquito without even looking at it, in mid air, Karate Kid style (only without the chopsticks). It was an amazing feeling and I think I've found my calling in life. I know now, more than ever, that I am ready for the challenge and although this trip will be filled with perilous moments, I shall succeed in my mission to execute as many of these little horrors as possible, making the world a safer and more enjoyable place to live. I love you all.

Jason ("God is my Saviour" in Hebrew! bet you didn't know that one, eh! Hehehe! ;-) )

NeW ArTwoRk!!!! REvoLUtiONarYYYY!!!

I have new artwork up on my website! Check it out on www. jasonpelham .com OR I MIGHT HAVE TO HURT YOU!!! I'm particularly happy with my first painting of a portrait. I've painted my dad (probably much to his discontent, but it's too bad! I've done it now! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!!!). So check it if you like. There's six new ones on there. Three bridges, one of my mum and dad, one of a girl sleeping on a beach and the portrait of my Dad. It's quite funny really. On the website, I've stated that you should check out my blog, and here on my blog, I've stated that it might be cool if you check out my site. Hopefully, if you're in a dazed state, stoned or stupidly drunk, you'll keep switching between the two untill you pass out and get found in the morning by either your missus or the cleaner! If that does happen, please email me and tell me cus I'll be most pleased ;-)

Crazy Parents

Life has to be blasé. I don't care how you do it, who you do it with or how many people you have to concur with before you agree that it's something you can voice your opinion on, but, quite frankly, life has to be lived with no past and no future to be able to enjoy it fully. I love my parents because they're blasé about all and sundry. They may pretend to live life knowing and feeling and predicting the future, but they know not what lies ahead, and I think that deep down they know that... they just pretend not to, so that they can prepare for possible eventualities. Problem is, when my mother is involved, the future is never predictable and if it is, it's only because she said it was going to be what it eventually became. And this is one of the things I'm finding very difficult about moving out to Australia for. I've grown to love my parents. More and more like people, with the added bonus that they are actually family. We talk and we share jokes like we've known each other all our lives, and although that's a cliché commonly used by lovers, it's one I gladly imply with my folks. I think that many times, this comes from living life on the edge. You never quite know if it's going to go right or wrong, but if you believe in people around you, and you believe that circumstances will eventually unfold to portray a yellow brick road in front of you, then why walk when you can summon that taxi to take you where you need to go. Life is good. Life is worth living. For the little things that eventually amasse, to make you love the overall picture if nothing else. If life sucks, then just think about the fact that around the next corner is a joke or a funny situation to make light of your bad moments. Geez, I sound like some weird shoe commercial! Help me please! LOL! Oh well. Anyway, wine is good too by the way. It helps. Jesus was right in getting everyone drunk on that fateful night. "yeah, yeah, go for it guys, eat some bread, praise the lord and just get totally drunk and have fun! Awwrighttttt!!!!", "Aww, thanks Jesus!"... said Judas! He loved it! And who wouldn’t! I’m finally getting nervous about moving out to Aussie land. I think it’s about time really, seeing as I’ve had it planned for over 5 months now. But I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know if I’ll ever live to tell the tale. I’m stupidly envisioning some ridiculous scenario of getting stuck in a weird tunnel, Indiana Jones style, searching for an ancient relic to put in a museum but having to go through the uncomfortable situation of noticing twenty odd tarantulas on my back! It’ll never happen I’m sure but… be sure to know, I hate spiders! So they better not try and home in on my dear body the little blighters! By the way, the photo above was taken not more than 10 days after my Dad had a triple heart bi-pass operation and my mum thought it would be a good idea to take him to the beach on the 21st of December. Four days before Christmas, dad not even knowing what his name was, and my mum thought it would be a good idea to go to the beach! Needless to say, sleeping bags and blankets were a must, but that didn't put my mother off. Apparently, Dad was still heavily anesthetised and doesn't remember much. Mum seems to get away with an awful lot! And you gotta love her for it ;-)

Phil Mendrix Releases his all!!!

SUPPORT MY UNCLE!!! And I don’t mean cus he’s fallen down a few too many stairs and needs some propping up (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he had) but, BUY HIS ALBUM!!! He has just released his first “commercial” album of any note since his first two bands The Chinchillas and Roxigénio, and since Portugal rid itself of its post-war dictator, Salazar, back in 1974. Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this but, after the revolution, the Portuguese government went a bit mental and forbade any music that had any lyrics in it that were NOT Portuguese (I can understand they wanted to be as patriotic as possible after all that but geez…). Pathetic, I know. From one extreme to the stupid other. A perfect case of out of the frying pan and right into that hot sizzling fire! So, Phil Mendrix, whose band was one of those unfortunate ones that sung in English, rebelled and decided to try their luck abroad. Initially, they tried Africa but unfortunately it became too unstable with all Portuguese Colonies suddenly declaring independence. (Imagine being a British band trying to break into the music scene in India in the 50s. Or maybe M.C. Hammer thinking it might be a good idea to try and do a comeback tour, starting with a gig in Iraq next week. Hmmm…) so he flew to Brazil and attempted to break the market there, but once again found it tough with most clubs and bars wanting him to play Samba style music. Eventually, after raising a family and seeking new inspiration in music for 10 years in the deep forests of Brazil, he returned to his mother land, Portugal. Initially, the country embraced him with open arms with Radio stations and TV shows lined up to welcome back the man who was widely regarded by all to be the best guitarist Portugal had ever produced. But once again, he defied everyone's perceptions of what music really was and surprised everyone with something totally new. His 10 years in Brazil had taken him to another place and although his skills were still there for all to see, his style had naturally evolved to a level no one could keep up with. Just imagine Jimi Hendrix, Santana, a fusion of African base rock and Southern Mediterranean flair being thrown into a cauldron and cooked under a gentle fire for three decades and all of a sudden, you end up with Phil Mendrix – SoloS. The new album that’s sure to blow your minds ;-) Now, I know it’s a bit expensive, especially for everyone abroad as unfortunately the post and packaging costs more than the album itself… which is quite annoying, so everyone here understands if you don’t wanna go with it. But, can I just say, that if you DON’T have it on your shelves by the time I come back to England, I will never speak to any of you EVER again! Ohh… hang on, darn. That’s what some of you guys havebeen wishing for, for a while now! Damn it! Ok, Ok. If you don’t buy it, I will come to your houses and talk AT you until you pull your hairs’ out!!! Hehehe!!! Have’som’o’dat!!! Anyway, the album is a mere €11 (bout £8) but the postage takes it to €25 (which is £18). Once again, if you can find it in your huuuuuuuge hearts (and I know you have huge ones!!), please, please, pretty please, buy this album. I know you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Thanks a bunch everyone! Follow the link below to grab yourself a copy of the record... and remember that UK in Portuguese is Reino Unido when selecting the country for delivery.

http://www.fnac.pt/pt/Search/Search.aspx?categoryN=&cIndex=&catalog=&str=mendrix

Bright Lights & Crazy Nights, Pt.4

I can’t remember the last time I woke up at half four in the afternoon, although I’m sure if I racked my brains a little, it wouldn’t have been too long ago. Ryan had been here for a week and Monsieur Weather had a collection of different buckets of water of all different shapes and sizes, falling graciously upon the nation that normally is void of rain. In fact I’m sure there are some sort of “rain people” that live in bizarre squalors somewhere, allocating sections of rain to certain parts of the earth and this time, Portugal’s Downpour Protector, Paulo, must have fallen asleep. “Quick! Now, get them! We shall finally show them that they can have bad weather too! Mwa-Ha-Ha! Eat it Portugal!!!” And so, typically, Paulo also decided to wait till this day to allow El Soliooo to smash its way through the clouds and the thickly pasted ozone that lies above Portugal and ravish its lands with sun aplenty! Problem was… we missed it all. At 5 p.m. we ambled down to Avenida da Liberdade to grab us some breakfast. Still feeling like something non-human, we polished that up and walked through the baking streets to grab some items, typical of Portugal, for Triad to take back home to Blighty with him as a memorandum. Portuguese cocks and classic porn were on the menu and we fulfilled the touristical gods’ dreams amply… That day we were scheduled to head off to see my Grandmother to help her empty out the flat next door. What we didn’t realize was that there were 17 ½ tonnes worth of furniture to move. Still, we got in the car, probably still a little drunk, and headed on out there with Wolfmother blaring out on the stereo. It took the albums worth of time to get there and by the time we did, such was our buoyant mood that we’d have been ready to move the apartment, create a huge circular wooden disc on the floor so that we could have put everything back and spun it round to give us a psychotically euphoriaec felling that say, a drunkard coming home would feel or maybe that of a first-time-ever carrousel user. We decided, however, to keep it simple and a few buckets of sweat later we’d completed our mission, so we snatch n grabbed my grandmother and whisked her off for some fried chocos – the town’s local food and especially special speciality. It’s kinda like breaded cuttlefish, deep fried served with chips and a salad. By half ten we were just about finished and decided to head on back to Lisbon for Triad’s last night. We took my gran back and then decided to quickly stop off at Jesus - well, more like a huge statue representing the chap – who overlooks the city Lisbon. Just like the French donated the Statue of Liberty to the Americanites, so the Brazilians found it in their hearts to offer us a humungous statue of Lords son, which I still believe is being used by the Brazilians to hypnotise the Portuguese with invisible gamma ray radiation beams that shoot out from its evil eyes, in an attempt to give us all cancer and move in in the morning! I dunno. Just a theory. If I dissapear off the face of the planet in the next 24 hours, you'll know what's happened to me. Anyway, the statue is located on the top of a quiet hill on the south side of the river and when we got up there, we were shocked to find that not only was the perimeter closed off, but that it was also being guarded by a dog, a security guard and his shotgun. That’s one safe bloody Jesus. I mean, the statue is a million metres up in the air as it is anyway. Why on earth do you need some big and green angry dude with his gun and rabid three headed dog down the bottom to protect it?! I dunno. Anyway, also in the vicinity, we realized there were a few cars parked up in the shadows with their windows all steamed up and a couple of others in the distance doing some drag racing or something. What were all these people up to? There were no cafés open, no convenience stores, nothing! Oh well. Still, this didn’t stop us from having a little fun, melting some car tires and taking some cool photos. By the time we’d finished, most of the people in the cars must have gotten angry cus they’d cleared those misty windows and had driven off. And so it was our turn to drive off as well and go and meet up with our lady friend, the sexy cocktail bar waitress ;-) We’d phoned up Teresa but unfortunately, she was still recovering from the previous night’s proceedings and so wouldn’t be able to make it. After driving back through Lisbon, windows down with Wolfmother blasting outta the car once more, we got home, dropped our stuff off and headed out for another night on the tiles. We got up to the cocktail bar and sighed a sigh of relief when we saw that she was indeed there again. When she saw Ryan, she tilted her head in that sexy kinda way and beamed him another one of those smiles. The rest of the night was another of ogling, smiles, hugs, kisses, cocktails, beers, firewater and ciggies. Lots of sitting in the streets, lots of walking around all the different bars and cafés and plenty of tire melting. We then finished it off by going to a little bar where we suspected the cocktail waitress would go to, as apparently she’d worked there before and knew all the staff. When we got in there, she was standing by the bar and we were finally able to go and have a chat with her without it having to be quick convos inbetween asking for drinks. Her lushiously long, straight hair haloed from behind the red lights of the bar and her sexy smile turned us to goo once more. She turned out to be a lovely girl on top of the fact that she was utterly drop-dead gorgeous and we all got on like a house on fire. We chatted with her at the bar while she simultaneously helped out with empty glasses that would arrive and occasionally pour drinks out for people. At the end of the night, she was gonna stay behind and help her friends clear up and, once again, it was hard leaving the place without her. Nonetheless, six in the morning arrived at the speed of time (amazing that!) and Triad had to be in the airport at eight, so we thought better of it. She made us promise that we'd come back and visit soon, then we gave her a kiss goodbye and headed on home. Geez, man, why is this world jam packed with so many missed opportunities like that? Can we blame it on unfortunate circumstances this time? There are so many occasions we look back on and wonder, what if? The thing is, I don’t think that’s an entirely bad thing, and anyone that says you should never regret anything is frankly wrong in my eyes. For starters, those missed opportunities give you dreams ;-) if you know what I mean! Hehe! Turn it positive dude! And also, if you just go for everything and rush into it with solely one intention, you’ll probably find that you end up making more enemies through your blatant disregard and lack of respect for others around you, and eventually regret more of life that way. I dunno. This could be seen as an excuse for cowardly actions of course - don’t think I haven’t thought about that - but, I’d like to think I’m a pretty good judge of situations and if the moment isn’t quite right, what’s the point in pushing the boat out. I mean, you’d probably just end up falling into the water! OK, ok, if that water was a beautiful lake with rivetingly oasissitic features, palm trees at the side and glistening pebbles on its bed then fine! Hey what the heck, throw a little mermaid in there while you’re at it too! But… what if that’s the Thames, eh? You’d think twice about it, wouldn’t you?

HemErHairCut Tempo

I got an eye operation and a haircut!!!! Rah!!! I am now able to run faster without bumping into ramdom objects. Bring it Owwwwnnn!!

Bright Lights & Crazy Nights, Pt.3

And so Friday approached with much haste. The day itself took around 24 hours to complete itself, but it still seemed to be quite quick none the less. As my parents got home, ready for a night of relaxation, Ryan & I were readying ourselves to go out and shake things… like, people’s hands, maracas and maybe some Polaroid pictures if they came around ;-) We finished a delightful dinner with M&D and hopped into the car to drive down to Lisbon. On the Saturday which Ryan had arrived on, we’d sampled a couple of different bars but one in particular stood out. We’d gone in asking the manager, a guy called Julio, what his speciality was and he instantly read off a list of Margaritas. From Tropical to Kiwi, Mango, Lime, Banana, Pineapple, Vanilla & Strawberry Ice Cream flavour and loads of other fruits, mixtures and dare-to-try concoctions. As we sat and thought to ourselves for a little while, Julio went on to serve someone else when suddenly, from out behind the fridge, like as if from some beer advert in Australia, came the most beautiful, gorgeous girl dressed in low lose top and a short soft jean skirt. At least, I think it was soft. She was taller than me, but smaller than Ryan, with long straight, dark hair and eyes you could get totally lost in and not give a damn about! From out behind a radiant smile, piercing our sobriatic senses was a wondrously sonorous voice, soft, well spoken and exciting. We must have looked like two dappy puppies, all of a sudden, slushing away over a hot fire. Our heads rocking from side to side, with our mouths drooping down past our feet in amazement. The type of thing women say is highly unattractive in men! Still, if that was the case, she certainly didn’t let us in on it and instead asked us what it’d be. Ryan, with his amazing super-go-go-go senses on, immediately asked: “Well, what’s your favourite?” whilst simultaneously raising an eyebrow over in her general direction! She said: “well, there’s a few I like but I’m afraid my favourite is a bit boring. Strawberry!” I looked round at Ryan, he nodded, and then I looked back round at the girl and said “Strawberry it is then”. She smiled and turned to start crushing the ice and Ryan and I held on to each other as the earth let off a light buzzing sensation and time slowed down ever so slightly. The two of us would look round at each other and try our best to invent some stupid pieces of conversation whilst the drinks were being prepared but all that’d come out were close to unfinished sentences, followed by hysterical giggles equivalent to that of two school boys, peeping through the keyholes of the girls changing rooms. “Gosh it’s a bit hot in here!” Hehehe! “This is… some bar!” Hehehe! “Yes… it is”. In between these pathetic pieces of dialogue, the occasional silent mouthing of “Oh my god!!!” would come out. For once, we really didn’t want to get our drinks all that quickly but when we eventually did, we also got that smile once again, and as we walked out, Ryan got a wink and a little cheeky wave from her too! The two of us quickly rushed out quoting Spotswood when he’s about to get blown up by Michael Moore in Team America World Police! When we’d calmed a little, I said: “Fag?” “God please, Yes!” We joined another thousand or so people, sitting in the main street that heads right down through Bairro Alto and had a smoke. When we found out that the two people we were gonna be meeting up with weren’t gonna be able to make it, we decided that it wasn’t gonna get much better than this, and made the decision to stick around the cocktail bar, being served by the girl made of ice-cream. With the occasional wonder to a bar close by for a Licor Beirão and also for what became known as a tyre-melting session (i.e. piss in the streets up against the wheel of a car, during which point we also came to the conclusion that it really would suck being a girl in those circumstances), we ended up spending our time around that area till around 4ish. Suddenly Ryan switched into gear and put on his super-go-go-go senses to the test once more, and with one raising of the eyebrow, caught the eye of another fine young lady leaving the same bar. Again, she had beautifully direct eyes, deep brown in a silken soft face, framed by a lock of hair that would probably make it into any decent shampoo advert! Incredibly, she just turned away from her friends and came right up to us. “Hello, where are you from?” It was probably Ryan’s purple head(ed) hair that prompted the question but it was accepted and returned gleefully with responses that answered her query. Once that was done, all the rest of her friends ambled over and started chatting. For some, the night was approaching the end and they were already making plans to go home but Teresa, the beautiful girl spoken to at the beginning, just said she was up for meeting new people tonight. So the group broke off and Teresa was left with Ryan, myself and two of her male friends and we all decided to go to a club down the road. On the way, all the guys had to stop for tyre melting session and a cascade was created down the road. You could have probably made some power with a mini-H.E.P station there, but nobody thought of it at the time. We got into the club, probably thanks to Teresa’s presence, got ourselves a drink and danced to PhatBoySlim. Then, Creep by Radiohead came on and Teresa said that that was it. To our amazement, the lights came on, and people started sifting out! We’d just paid €5 to get in there too! That sucked! Still, we came out and it was about 5.30. Another one of the guys decided to go, buy some bread and call it a night, which left us with a cool guy called André & Teresa and we were still up for some more boogying. So Teresa suggested Europa. A little nightclub that opened up after-hours at 6 in the morning. When we got there, once again, Teresa seemed to know most around and Ryan got us playing the “waving game” where the first person to stop waving would lose! Fantastic stuff! Everyone was very confused to start with, but once we’d realized what we’d let ourselves in for, we all started giggling away cus non of us wanted to be the first to drop out. Pointlessly brilliant! When we finally got in, it was empty of course… apart from one mysterious couple that had joined us in the cue when the doors were opening. Unknown to Ryan, André and myself, the girl was actually a prostitute and the guy was her pimp. Teresa was half way through warning us when suddenly she came up to our table and the guy went onto the table behind us. I couldn’t quite hear what she was saying, but the topic of conversation seemed to rival the sort of conversation one might find interesting when talking about different types of bread. Teresa was the best though, cutting straight to the chase, asking where she was from and how old she was. To which both answers were terrible lies! Anyway, once we realized this, everything seemed to calm down and we got into some healthy drinking and dancing moments! Time flew and before we knew it, it was 10 a.m. and we decided to go home. As we left, the sun crashed down on us for the first time in the week Ryan had been here and Saturday morning was being born. We walked round to catch a taxi, taking a quick pit stop at the river side to marvel over the view of the 25^th of April bridge that stems over the Tagus. It was hard to leave this stunning girl who’d showed us round some right cool clubs and sites of Lisbon but we did the extremely drunk and gentlemanly thing and left it at exchanging phone numbers. When we got home, I just about remember my head hitting a pillow and feeling my body follow onto the bed…