I am sitting on the floor of room 707 in the Chelsea Hotel with my laptop, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Nocturama and a stick of Moldavite incense and came up with this little thing. Still needs some polishing but it gets the message across. Oh, after I wrote the line about the world’s oldest man (of the time, 1988,) the lamp behind me flickered. Coincidence?

The old guitar guy on 23rd is gone
And the Chelsea Hotel will be sold in 2 days
We’re the last part of a dying breed
Where art is not forced to bow down to the restrictions
Of money hungry men in starched suits who
Start wars during the week and golf in the Hamptons
On the weekends
We’re the lost part of a dying breed
Guys and girls struggling to make ends meet
So they can roam these creaking halls
From dawn to dusk and then again
With little to no sleep
But endless rides on golden elevators
Where images of the past painted on the walls
Stick in our gut as a reminder of the blood shed here
Sid allegedly did Nancy in on the first floor
Dylan Thomas was rushed out of the glass doors
After way too many whiskeys
And the world’s oldest man of the day spent his last
35 years within these walls where he painted and
Waited for the halls of Heaven to welcome him home
(He visited me tonight and told me that Heaven is
Really the Chelsea and that despite what happens
We’ll always be a part of this place)
We’re the last of a dying breed
The last remaining artists wielding the sword
Of Fate and the shield of Inspiration to fend
Off the corruption fast approaching
It was a wild ride yet it’s far from over