Thick-colorless, gloomy-rainy skies bathed in a downer-gray, ash-flavored ambiance this late-afternoon Tuesday here in California’s Central Valley.
A few words right up front guaranteed to immediately bring you right down.

However, young Neil begs to differ:

One of my favorite go-to-sad-fun songs for now going on 50 years. Snarky-righteous Young jokes in his intro on the “4 Way Street” live album that despite the title, the upcoming shit will be a description of a shitty, dippy-do-downer.

Three weeks to the day today. Life since then has seemed to have twisted reality. Some terrible shit coming. And being around unprecedented, first-of-a-kind anxiety-inducing shit has jacked up the emotions, making every day a respite from what I feel is quickly approaching at a lopsided, gut-wrenching speed. This whole year has kind of been that way, especially with my peculiar history with the years ending in ‘four.’ We still have til Jan. 20 until the rubber meets the hard-asphalt road.

Yet there’s a freak streak to the nowadays. A good sense of how I feel was articulated by 95-year-old Pat Levin of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in an interview this morning at CNN — a longtime Democrat-Kamala Harris voter, Levin explained the scary, nasty vibe in the air since the election:

“It’s left me very afraid … Afraid of the future. Afraid of everything … I want to fight … I don’t want to fight. I think I have to. Because I think there’s no such thing as staying neutral. I think once you stay neutral, it’s the oppressor who wins and the oppressed who suffer.”

And for the T-Rump: ‘“I see a man who is not — or a regime now — who is not paying much attention to our history and our norms … Say what you’d like, but I’m scared. … I’m afraid. Not so afraid for me — I’m not going to be around probably to experience it. But I’m afraid for those I love, for those I don’t love, those I know, those I don’t know. It’s all those people coming after me who might have to live under this.”‘

Sorry, sad, but exactly on the mark.

Further poetic explanation from Neil Young via these great, iconic voices — Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt on David Letterman 25 years ago:

Lyrics:

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming
Sayin’ something about a queen
There were peasants singin’ and drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree
There was a fanfare blowin’ to the sun
That was floating on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies

I was lyin’ in a burned-out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin’ for replacement
When the sun burst through the sky
There was a band playin’ in my head
And I felt like getting high
I was thinkin’ about what a friend had said
I was hopin’ it was a lie
Thinkin’ about what a friend had said
I was hopin’ it was a lie

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships lying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin’ mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flyin’ mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home

Original, off-titled album, “After The Gold Rush” in Young’s intriguingly-strange voice:

And to end this sad shit — Miss Emily Dickinson: “The Future–never spoke”

The Future—never spoke—
Nor will He—like the Dumb—
Reveal by sign—a syllable
Of His Profound To Come—

But when the News be ripe—
Presents it—in the Act—
Forestalling Preparation—
Escape—or Substitute—

Indifference to Him—
The Dower—as the Doom—
His Office—but to execute
Fate’s—Telegram—to Him–

One or more flew over a cuckoo’s nest, or not, yet once again here we are…

(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s “Selt Portrait Facing Death,” oil, and found here.)