Elton John makes everything better

Elton John has been stalking me a little bit this summer. He seems to be everywhere. I hear… Elton John has been stalking me a little bit this summer. He seems to be everywhere. I hear ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ rocking a Bavarian-themed McDonald’s in a Bavarian-themed Cascade Mountains hamlet. ‘Tiny Dancer’ twinkles in a coffee shop in Iowa City. ‘Rocket Man’ plays on the car radio outside of D.C. and then again in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Ill. And Sir Elton himself makes a cameo in the episode of ‘Will and Grace’ that I watch in a motel in Alliance, Neb. But perhaps John’s most pervasive appearance is the repeated play of ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ in my CD player.

I can’t quite say what it is about ‘Don’t Let ‘hellip;’ that I have become obsessed with, although it’s on Sir Elton’s Greatest Hits album for a reason. The catchy melody that builds to an emotionally satisfying crooning crescendo? The clear presentation of Sir Elton’s smooth yet powerful voice? The universality of the lyrics?

Even listening to it now, I’m distracted by the quickened beat of my heart, like little birds are beating inside my chest, and I’m filled with the desire to jump out of my chair and on to this little cafe table and sing out in a flourish of unrestrained, sequined majesty that accompanies only the best of the ‘best of.’

It was ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ that I was thinking of the night when I witnessed a very informative interaction between the author and environmentalist Rick Bass and a woman I’ve affectionately nicknamed Old Lady.’

I was at a Seattle book reading by Bass, who is a prolific writer of both fiction and essays, and who has written a new collection of nonfiction about his long-time home in the Yaak Valley of Montana. The Yaak Valley is a sparsely populated area in northwest Montana that has been the focus of many environmental preservation efforts because of its diverse ecosystem and beautiful landscape. And there are grizzly bears there.

Old Lady was also in the audience, an image of youth and vitality in a bright yellow sweatshirt and matching trucker hat. Yes, trucker hat. Both items advertised a Yaak Valley tavern, and after I mentally forgave Old Lady for breaking the cardinal rule of book signings and concerts — never wear the artist’s merchandise to the event — I tuned right in to what she was asking Bass.

She was asking about marijuana in the Valley.

It seems that Old Lady’s husband was an engineer in Libby, Mont., another well-known area, famous not for its lovely wildlife but for the superfund site that is dedicated to cleaning up the asbestos left in the soil from a vermiculite mining operation there. After Old Lady read one of Bass’ books about Yaak Valley, she asked her husband to pilot her over the Valley, and after the flight the couple was informed that they were lucky not to have been shot down by marijuana growers.

I chuckled at this. It’s not every day that you hear a really old lady in a trucker hat talking about weed, but after my warmhearted giggle, I took a look at Bass and noticed that there was no humor in his face. And I wondered, who isn’t amused by Old Lady? What kind of person doesn’t at least smile at that?

Bass just looked tired. Not tired in the sleepy way or the out-too -long-in-the-sun way or even the Seattle-caffeine-crash way. He looked tired in the ‘I have spent the last 20years trying to preserve one corner of the earth — a corner that I see as a microcosm of the entire world — and it hasn’t been enough and how can I know that and be here?’ way. Along with that tired comes the frustrating thought that if what we’ve put into something feels like everything, and that just hasn’t been enough, then nothing will ever be enough.

Of course, I am being speculative.

But what seemed like the problem to me was that Bass had let the sun go down on him.

I was concerned for Bass, and not just because he writes good short fiction. It was more that I was worried that if someone who could be held up as a symbol of this country’s desire for action could look so browbeaten, what does that mean for the movement itself? Is Bass emblematic of a general feeling that working toward good just isn’t cutting it?

Very rarely in my capacity as excellent-advice-giver have I recommended turning to a funny looking guy in a sparkly jumpsuit and pink sunglasses for inspiration, but in the case of Bass, I wish I had. I wish that I had gone up to him during the book signing and instead of saying something blandly complimentary and trying to impress him with my ‘I’m on a roadtrip!’ spiel, I had simply said to Bass, as I say to you now: Go listen to Elton John. Track No. 12 on the Greatest Hits album. Seriously.

Cassidy doesn’t understand why Rod Stewart covered ‘Your Song.’ E-mail her at cassidygruber@gmail.com.