Mentor of the Obscure

Dear Pedro (Charlie Tuttle),

        If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know who I would be. When I met you, I was a confused kid, trapped in webs of false ideas and social isolation, praying for a beacon of something resonant to my buried self. I had just moved back to Northern California after a whirlwind of ill-suited home situations in Tucson, Arizona. I remember that when I moved in, I noticed you never left your house except once a week and in the middle of the night going to God knows where. You were always keeping away from people and had only the occasional visitor of very mysterious sort. I was scared of introducing myself, but felt curious about you and about this other world outside our little house littered with my father's various Indian god statues and presumptions.

        At the time, I was also stealing my father's painkillers and taking them to cover the tracks of my compulsive parental protecting habits. I was hellbent on consuming my parent's demons in one form or another to keep them from dislocating somewhere. I needed a friend, a teacher, a father figure, a nurturer of open-ended truthfulness. Someone who saw me and accepted me for the unique spirit I was and potentiated my pursuit of the beautiful and truthful. Like a poetic wilderness of creative yearning, I had longed for someone to permit me to destroy the boxes of expectations and preconceptions I carried for the world around me. I desired deeply to be met in my own chosen universe and supported in my process of individuation and creative discovery.

        I found that in you. When I told you what I was doing with the pills, you didn’t judge me at all. Instead, you pulled out a book showing me exactly what my father's pills were doing to my brain. You explained how the way that they make you feel good is by flooding your brain with the happy chemical while simultaneously training your brain to rely on the drug so it no longer knows how to make you feel good on its own. "It's your choice, I just think it makes sense to know exactly what you're choosing so you are 100% sure that it’s something you want. Whatever you do after that is up to you, you’re the only one who knows what feels right for you,” you said. Shortly after that, you scurried into your back room and pulled out another book filled with plants and their science and cultural background, pointing at a few that were said to assist the brain in producing the happy chemical versus depleting it and proclaiming mysteriously that depending on your degree of innate curiosity, that they can also be a lot more enjoyable.

        That was one of our first conversations ever, but before I even ventured to your doorstep, I felt too nervous and shy to do it for weeks ahead of time. Urged by an old friend to introduce myself despite my anxieties, I was determined to solve the case of the mysterious night owl next door. So, I faced my fears and one day stepped into the unknown world which you represented. I snuck out of my house and greeted you, the odd whiskery creature with the friendly inquisitive smile at your dimly lit, two bedroom house that felt like a welcome home and sat on your dusty old couch. I was timid and awkward and unsure of myself yet you saw this and understood what was beneath and how to free me from the invisibility I cloaked myself in.

        Your rooms were dark but warm. You gave me a tour of your garden of earthly delights and when we sat down again, you asked me what kind of music I liked to listen to. “I'm not sure, whatever music I haven’t heard before" I said as you opened the door to the room behind me. It was utterly filled from wall too wall with what felt like an infinity of treasures. Records, books, and films of infinite angles and genres and themes that I didn’t even know existed. You stood in the door as I tried not to show my ignorance and enthusiasm. “Pick something and I'll put it on," you said. I brimmed with excitement, feeling your humble joy in seeing my youthful desire and the awareness of the grand opportunity that this simple gesture was. I crouched on the floor and picked out a record that looked different, sitting in a large family of albums from the same artist. “Who is Frank Zappa? Is this a good one?” I asked as I handed you a record entitled “The Grand Wazoo.” You looked at me and grinned a devilish grin, your eyes twinkled as if you carried some sort of magical secret. You were smiling with approval at my unknowingly perfect choice. “Here, let's play it and then you tell me what you think about it," you said.

        We went back into the living room that felt like an antique playground. You put on the record and offered me a joint that as you put it was "not a regular one." In your backyard, there were your plant babies, nurtured with clean water, bat guano soil, and maple syrup for extra magic. By the way, for anyone reading this and wondering if all this was legal, it was. This is Northern California we're talking about here and both Pedro and I had legal medical cards. But back to the story now. 

        You handpicked the fruits of the tiny teardrops hidden inside the flowers and it was as if I had entered a ceremony without fully knowing it. You began this special ritual through clouds of green sweetness and the fiery explosion of non-linear soundscapes. The music was unpredictably strange and rich with limitless and out-of-the-box experimentation. I was possessed and intoxicated with the horns and drums and off-kilter orchestrations and the electric marimbas and masterful off-notes. It was impossible to define, courageously provocative, and above all, unusually beautiful. Then, all of a sudden, the guitar danced upon the wilderness of rhythms and crept inside my ears into a hungry place inside of me to awaken the sleeping dragon I discovered that day.

        You looked at me and asked, “So what do you think? Do you like music like this? A lot of people I've shown it to find it overwhelming or chaotic. For me it’s Mozart." “Are you kidding?” I replied bubbling with inspiration and amusement. “What the hell is wrong with people, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard, who is this guy!? Which one is Frank anyway!?” You laughed. “Well it could take a lifetime to answer that question, he’s pretty much everything and a lot more than just this," you said. “Dang. What else is in that room? I want to listen to everything!” “You can come whenever you want and I'll tell you all about it, I go to bed close to sunrise and only leave the house on Thursdays to go to San Francisco to take a cartoonist friend of mine to the KPFA radio station to raid their trash bin for unclaimed CDs,” you added. You then gifted me a big bag of your homegrown as I sat glued to the couch just aching to stretch my musical legs and mangle the strings of my Fender Stratocaster until I could feel what Zappa felt as he crashed through the soundscapes. I had found my mystery school as if it had been made just for me. “Ok, I’m gonna go see if I can play like Zappa and I'll come back later,” I said. You grinned again, “Ah, so you like to make music as much as to listen, I have a lot of things you're gonna love. Feel free to bring over your guitar sometime too, you can play as loud as you want at any hour of the night and try to play along to my records.”

        It was like I had been given the greatest gift. I had gotten expelled from my high school for ditching every day to secretly play my guitar, then was guilted for getting high and forced to get a GED. I moved back to my home state to a strange little cottage and was guided next door to the school of my dreams. Little did I know how much more I would truly receive from that timid and brave little voyage to investigate the strange hermit in the house next door. I would wake up and go to your house and leave when the sun would rise again. You permeated my world with every pioneering adventurer you had discovered, healed me with knowledge through the stories of your travels from Asia to Mexico and the Rastafarian hills of Jamaica. You had an answer for everything and you always had a source to back it up. From Captain Beefheart to Robert Anton Wilson, to the unusual piercing noise serpents of Snakfinger’s slide guitar to the pioneers of instrumentation ad the mysticism of Jazz. 

        For years, I lived on your couch, learning about the magic of plants, the mysteries of the Zapotec Indians and the culture of underground movies from Fellini to “The Forbidden Zone,” to the neurotic genius of Woody Allen and the New York underground of No Wave responders who boycotted musicality through ceremonial desecration into liberated sound. You told me old stories of your adventures and rebellious conquests in Thailand to the chaos of creativity in the 80’s punk scene of San Francisco, as I teleported through time and was right there with you. You brought me weekly to the closed streets of Berkeley, where we got blitzed with eccentric cartoonists and satirists and spat nonsense into microphones for the unhinged insomniacs entertained by our ramblings at 4 in the morning until our weariness turned to hypnotic secret laughter. We would dig through the trash and salvage discarded musical diamonds, nameless until the sound spun the speakers into webs of new treasures.

        You saw me, and you loved me in a new experiential way. As for my parents, they said they loved me as much as they could, yet through their actions, I felt neglected as if they required me to be what they were lacking in themselves. It was as if those three words "I love you" came with a fine print subtext requiring me to enable their selfish need for me to fill the void they were afraid to confront. As for you, there was nothing you loved more than discovering something out of context which invited you into new and unforeseen landscapes. You were unafraid of the void. In stark contrast to them, you loved me through the natural extension of self and it left no doubt in my mind about it or need for verification.

        You never actually needed to say those words. It was something you shared and you fed with your natural giving and self-reliant nature. Like in The Book of the Tao when it is said that “The true Tao cannot be spoken.” I could feel it in how you honored my appreciation of your discoveries and stories. As though my curiosity was the counterpart that allowed your treasures to reveal their true value. You were like a wise old man and a teenage orphan at the same time. The valiant and humble deprogrammer of society's unfitting expectations and the maestro of culture. You were an encyclopedia of all things unique and smitten with anything under the sun that in any arena even attempted to be different. You were a historian of the obscure. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know where I'd be. It was because of your influence that I’ve traveled to Oaxaca to shift my awareness in the mystic mountains where the faerie folk still thrive. Because of your stories, I traveled to the heart of northern Thailand where the food almost sings and where I bloodied my fingers on the steel of guitar strings. I’ve traversed through the cosmos and talked to the trees by the inspiration of your stories where for years I lived vicariously.

        I'll never forget when I turned 18 and you took me to the city and insisted that I pick out every CD that caught my eye, no matter how many and no matter the cost. You said I only turn 18 once and we needed to make it count. My best friend at the time and my musical sidekick came to live in my room at my mom's house, and when he pissed off my mom, you let him live for 3 years in your record room so nothing would come between our musical aspirations. You came to all of our shows wearing our tacky stencil band shirts after we practiced on your couch at volume levels unsavory to most. You inspired our exploration in every direction. You embraced all my friends and imprinted their minds with the freedom to be whatever they were as well if they so desired the invitation. You deprogrammed the lies we were expected to empower giving strength to my differences when others perceived fault.

        Nobody in my life has ever given me as much as you, so constantly, so authentically, and with the gratitude of having the opportunity to do so as if I was the one who was giving to you. I was your acolyte. You gave me the courage to spread my wings and choose the life I wanted no matter what people thought. To see value especially in the overlooked magic in the pursuit of authentic expressions. You taught me how to think outside the box and redefine reality as you gave me mountains of proof so I could send strong in my truth.

        You taught me that nothing is certain and nobody truly knows anything. That if you can admit your own blindness in the face of it all, then you're one step ahead of most and from there, you might finally start learning something worth knowing, "or at least it seems that way based on the apparent evidence,” you would often say. Somehow, you have become a part of me. I couldn’t see it at the time but in the aftermath of that chapter wherever I go and all around me, I see how deeply you have impacted my life.

        When you passed away, my heart broke. You had taken your life as if it was the only thing that you couldn’t see was worth holding onto. You were my treasure, my best friend, my teacher, and my safe place where I was allowed to exist as all that I was. With no judgment or control, no manipulation, selfish needing, or false knowledge. I was overwhelmed with the grief of your passing. But after you died, the strangest thing happened. Instead of you disappearing, I began to see you in a new way. You were everywhere. The sadness of your death has never fully gone away but along with my grief, what has stayed and revealed itself to me is how much you gave to me in ways I couldn’t perceive at the time. You gave me back who I was that I had forgotten throughout the commotion of growing up. I discovered that the essence of what you were there to teach me was truly given to me after you had taken your life. When you passed away I could see that your work with me was complete. I was holding you inside, your knowledge, your secrets, and your method of connection that didn’t require you to speak because of how undeniable you made it through your willingness to give completely who you were to another and by accepting the beauty of differentness.

        Wherever I go, I feel you with me as if you are the living inherited piece of my spirit that gives me the courage to trust my direction especially if it leads me away from the known. To defy the odds and follow the pull and desire for the unknown is what you have taught me. Words cannot express how grateful I am to you if only I had the chance to show you your value. You kept it hidden from yourself and buried it in a mine of priceless information. You showed it through your admiration of the Avant prophets. So focused on uncovering these creations you were blind to your own. You were the conductor of influence, you were a genius and an innovator of your own. You would take what was there and mix it with contrasting ingredients. You would expose all the choices and ways to perceive. You would say your opinions, though never matter-of-factly, while leaving room for discovery and confronting whatever claimed to know the truth. You valued the real, the raw, and the perfect braveness of whatever or whoever dared to evolve from the cracks and seeming flaws by exposing their weirdness as if there were nothing more beautiful or powerful than whatever was too big to fit inside the box of comfortable. Your treasures are not lost, I could never forget them, they're burned in my memory and I promise to share.

        I realize now that you did not leave me, you gave yourself to me for years and then abandoned your body knowing fully that to have what I want and empower my chosen world I had to let go of the belief that I needed anything other than the light of inspiration living and breathing inside me. Your death to you was all your own and though I wish that you had chosen a different route I understand now this was why you made that decision.  I didn’t need you any more than what I had already received. I did not need you to shelter my fear, you saw what I needed was to approve of myself and want nothing more than just that. I needed to see my value, to need nothing else but the enticement of using my creativity to design my reality instead of using it to sustain other people's illusions from the fear they will leave or reject me if I give it to myself. You left without leaving. You were not the kind to interfere. This was the peculiar innovation of your influence. You never stripped me of my choice, instead, you empowered it. All you did was make sure I had all the information to be able to fully follow my intuition and be fully aware of the choices I had.

        I want you to know that what truly inspired me and allowed me to see all that magic happened especially because everything you shared with me came with a little piece of you. I love Frank Zappa because your enjoyment lets me see it. It's not simply because of the music, but because when I listen to him I'm listening to you as if with a tour guide into an unknown universe. As if from some other dimension, as soon as that sound comes out of the speakers, you fly into the room and flood me with the fire of infinite possibility. Instantly, I’m on your couch again with you on your throne and wearing that devilishly childlike grin as you unfold the entire world of Frank Zappa while attaching a piece of yourself at the doorway. I hear your voice in times when I doubt myself and feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong to desire something that most people don’t even consider real. When everyone seems to be telling me what they think I should do, in the back of my mind I hear your voice chime in with something like: “Hey, just because 100,000 people say you are wrong, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are. The most influential people risk approval for innovation and discovery. They know that the pursuit of knowledge, even if it doesn’t turn out as expected, is way more rewarding than living in the fear of not knowing and never testing if you do. If nobody ever took that risk, and nothing was ever questioned, we would probably still be sacrificing virgins or something, ha!” Ain’t that true. As you said to me at the end of each session as the sun would rise and I'd be walking out the door: “Happy trails, see you on the flip-side.”

Pedro (Charlie Tuttle) took his own life in the winter of 2013 at age 63 in Sebastopol, CA after suffering from a mild stroke. His entire library of books, movies and music was almost completely lost due to unfortunate circumstances, but his records were rescued by a local DJ and kept for years until by mere coincidence, I was connected with the DJ who’s number I received through a friend and I was able to receive a large portion of Pedro's collection. The records had been kept in a room of their own, honored and appreciated as if by the spirit of Pedro himself and were exactly as he had them in his home. He is still with me and always will be in a secret and obscure home in my heart.