Story time, about two months before I left for L.A. I visited my brother, @sam.falzone.3 in St.Augustine(my other home/part-time residence). We were sitting in our friend, Sherry’s Hot Shots Cafe (no longer due to lack of rent control) eating lunch/dessert, of course I had the mermaid cupcake. I was on my phone waiting for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tickets for night 2 of the Hollywood Bowl to go on sale. They were going to play mid-September almost exactly two years ago now. I looked at ticket prices, it was over $120 for a back row bench seat where Tom would be a mere spec. My friend, Greg recently saw Pink Floyd, saying, “I want to see them before they die.” This was the same thought in my head. “I want to see my Florida music hero play before he dies.” But the cost of the ticket and my uncertainty, I decided to save money, I needed it more for moving. It was meant to be not to buy the ticket as I left L.A. before the show happened, but I also felt an immense heartbreak when Tom died just after the night 2 Hollywood Bowl show. It seemed that year and the following, many musicians I looked up to had died including the year previously, my much older cousin Ralph. When writing Princess Coyote, the deaths of people in my own life and my inspirations influenced choices I made while writing. One very obvious ode is Charlotte’s father’s name, which is Tom. This one is for Tom Petty, a born and raised Floridian with big dreams just like me, a person who since I was a kid, saw as an example as someone who made it out of Florida obscurity. When I came back from L.A., I had the album Into The Great Wide Open replaying in my car on the way to work everyday, it was as if it was meant for me and everything I was going through. I will never see Tom play live, but I can most certainly work hard to fill the shoes myself, take reign of the Hollywood Bowl one day, it would make Ralph proud too, who never stopped believing in my dreams. Some things in life are not too good to be true. @nomadic01 Every part of the screenplays I write has a story behind it, you and everyone else will continue to find that out. . #tbt #staugustine #tompetty #princesscoyote #screenwriter https://www.instagram.com/p/B2VBIYElpHn/?igshid=um8fexm87bap
