I have been unable to leave a review for this show (which aired in Northern Californias this evening, 5/12/07).

The episode dealt with the murder of a Vietnam vet (in 1973), a POW, who accepted early release from his captors, not because he was sick, or old, but because he gave them the "propaganda" (broadcast throughout the POW camp) they wanted--because he couldn't take the torture, the almost non-existant food and clothing, the constant harassment, anymore. The murder was committed by the 15-year old son of another POW, who could take it, and gave the enemy nothing. He died there. The killer--now a middle-aged man, of course---was immediately horrified at what he had done. We do NOT find out what sort of sentence a 15-year-old-now-middle-aged-man got for this crime (he did NOT confess, until Stillman...worked on him, in his usual effective way)... It would be interesting to  know this.

It was a beautiful, painful, episode, with no backround music, except carefully chosen songs, and a particularly good actor as the protagonist, Carl, who was eventually murdered. We get to know many attitudes toward that particular war (now no longer popular---not with me either!): that of the other POWs, Stillman, a very young combatant himself, a man who had a nervous breakdown before being shipped overseas, and moved in on Carl's wife, and on the identity of "father" with Carl's 7-year-old son, his wife, who never got to know the vet as she had known her husband before, and Valens, who is a litle shocked by Stillman's taking the case as if it were the Holy Grail.

War is not good for people or other living things.

I will be 72 tomorrow (May1, 2007). I'm a docent and architecture guide at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. I..yi yi yi yi. When someone gave me "Forever Blue" (12/3/06) I figured where there's fire, there's probably fire, so I started watching Cold Case. It's usually been rewarding. An a half.

Cold Case Complants: I wish they didn't use the same background music for almost every show (I don't mean the songs--they're wonderful). I don't think we need to see ghosts at the end of EVERY episode...hey, you're coming back next year, ain't ya?

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"Save the Last Dance For Me"--a Long Ramble

'Homicide: Life on the Streets' 99: Fallen Heroes (1)
May 1, 1998, episode code 62; next-to-last episode of the fifth season

Brokeback Mountain, December 2005;

'Queer as Folk,' Showtime, 2000-2005, episode 122, first half-final episode of first season

It just seems like I'm about to tell you the story of my life.

Before my sister quit watching TV, about 9 years ago, she told me to watch 'Homicide: Life on the Streets.' I wasn't much into cop shows, but I remembered Moriarty fondly from 'Bang the Drum Slowly.' I watched it, once in a while. One evening, I turned the TV on-and there was nobody on the screen. It was, I figured, about the last 7 minutes of 'Homicide,' which I hadn't really been keeping up with. I saw a hospital corridor, and an admissions desk (unmanned), and there was no sound. 'This,' I thought, 'has all the characteristics of something interesting.' (I found out later that three cops were in surgery, and one had been killed, as the Baltimore police and the Mahoney gang exchanged fire). Two minutes went by, in silence. Then, suddenly, the Drifters started singing 'Save the Last Dance For Me.'

(words and music by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman)

You can dance ev'ry dance with the guy who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight
You can smile ev'ry smile for the man who held your hand 'neath the pale moonlight
But don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you gonna be
So darlin', save the last dance for me

What a catchy tune, I thought.

Oh, I know that the music's fine like sparkling wine go and have your fun
Laugh and sing but while we're apart don't give your heart to anyone
And don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you gonna be
So darlin', save the last dance for me

Waitaminute...in a hospital? At 2:00 A.M? How...irrelevant! I thought.

Baby don't you know I love you so
Can't you feel it when we touch
I will never never let you go
I love you oh so much

You can dance, go and carry on till the night is gone and it's time to go
If he asks if you're all alone, can he walk you home, you must tell him no
'Cause don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you gonna be
So darlin save the last dance for me

Why, people must be sick, wounded, dying there! I thought. How...irreverent!

Music interlude

'Cause don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you gonna be
So darlin, save the last dance for me

Save the last dance for me mmmm

Save the last dance for me

And...he sure is chauvinistic! Takes his girl to a dance, tells her to get lost, but to remember that she BELNGS TO HIM, that he's going to take her home, and, presumably, put her to bed. The noive!

How.... fantastic! I was in love.

I called the TV station (CBS, what else?), and asked whose recording it was. They told me. 'Black...or white?' I wondered. I couldn't tell. Turns out they were the first successful integrated pop group. The Drifters...1960. I went to Amoeba in San Francisco and bought the eight-track the next day, and listened to it till my husband told me he couldn't stand it anymore.

I never watched 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' again. I assume the Mahoney gang was conquered...

And, because I couldn't see in my mind the two people dancing, because I didn't like the relationship (in spite of my infatuation with it), and resented the man's attitude, the song receded from my consciousness, and the eight-track began gathering dust.

II

And then in December 2005, I saw Brokeback Mountain, and like millions of others, straight and gay male and female, I fell in love with the relationship between the two men. (Not everybody liked it; there were those, gay and straight, male and female, who thought it was a bore. And, of course, there were those who hated it). We read and wrote, remembered songs and poems that reminded us of, saw the movie together, and analyzed it to pieces. In short, everything reminded us of Brokeback Mountain, and-perhaps more interestingly: Brokeback Mountain reminded us of---everything.

Including: Save the Last Dance For Me. Emotionally, the song fit the relationship (even though Ennis couldn't dance at all, and walked like Abraham Lincoln). He was very possessive, although he never admitted to himself that, although Jack was the most important thing in his life-almost the ONLY thing in his life-that he loved him. Until Jack died. (Both married). That, in a very small (and incomplete) nutshell, is the tragedy. Jack, somewhat more feminine than Ennis, was the aggressor in the relationship. As for their sex life, oh, please see thousands of fanfics, some pure as the driven snow, some nearly straight pornography. (Yup.) .One more important thing, after that first summer on the mountain where they met on a shepherding job, they saw each other, over the course of 20 years, about 2 weeks every year, when Jack would drive 14 hours from Texas to Wyoming, to spend a week with Ennis-listening to the radio during the drive, of course.

A photocap (no photos, of course):

"Sitting Still"

Ennis: (has a really old song going around in his head, but it's chauvinistic words and neat tune have never--even now--gone out of favor, and you can still hear it in jukeboxes. He has NO intention of singing it; he has NO intention of saying the words. It is just in his head.
Oh I know that the music's fine like sparkling wine
go and have your fun. Laugh and sing,
But while we're apart, don't give your heart to anyone
And don't forget who's takin' you home, and in whose arms you gonna be
So darlin,' save the last dance for me.

Jack: Penny for your thoughts, Friend.
Ennis: Nothin.' I just got these dumb words from an old song in my head...bout dancin' (laughs) I can't dance to save my life...
Jack: (smiles old smile to go with old song) Ain't it funny how you can take a really dumb song and put it together with the right person, and it gets GREAT?
Ennis (still afraid Jack will ask him to SING the song, which he's not about to do)
Yeah. It is.
Jack: So, Ennis?
Ennis: What?
Jack: Save the last dance for me?
Ennis: **** Jack F***in' Twist...

III

But, of course, I still didn't have people in my mind dancing. Until. About the middle of 2006, everyone who had been sensitized to this gay thing from Brokeback started talking about Queer as Folk.' 'What the hell is Queer as Folk? I asked. 'It ran on Showtime from 2000=2005. It's about a conclave of gay men, women, boys and girls, and their friends and enemies, most of whom live on a street called Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh. But mainly, it's about Brian and Justin.' In researching the Youtubes (I wasn't about to buy all five seasons without seeing any of it), I came across one called 'Save the Last Dance.' Well why didn't you say so in the first place! (If you click on the little pulsing TV in the lower right had corner of the small picture, it will fill your whole screen.)Cut and paste...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-SmrGehhuY&NR

6/9/07

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It's nice to see that Cold Case has always been (occasionally)in the thick of it, that nobody is a good guy all the time, that imporant things have always mattered. The devastation caused by McCarthyism made bad guys out of many...it was, as the Weavers say, a terrible time.

Even if the acting were bad, I'd still watch your shows. Hopng for another "Forever Blue," another "Cargo," another "Red Glare."

Please. Don' give up!