Lynn Crosbie, Globe and Mail. 2005.02.05:
Lately, it is the unlikeliest of heroes, the long-capsized NYPD Blue star Davis Caruso, who has emerged as a vocal stylist nonpareil…. The show starts, and Caruso appears on some blood-lashed crime scene and discovers a lead. He, without fail, raises his ubiquitous sunglasses and comments, in a way that implies he is inventing language as he goes along. Then the Who’s Roger Daltrey slices through in a scream that punctuates the fervour in motion.
I watch this show every week with a friend and we both scream along, like bong-carrying disciples at a monster rock concert. And then it occurs to us: We have become excitable maniacs over the delivery of such prosaic comments as “Ricky. He doesn’t know what’s going on. But we do” or “Accidents happen, that’s quite true. And so – so’s murder.”
With all due respect to the writers, the words mean nothing. It is Horatio Caine (Caruso’s character) we are flipping the heavy-metal index and pinkie at; it is his staggered, drawling and almost insanely portentous delivery that ignites the dormant lighter in all of us; that lets us know we are in the presence of the kind of star heat that burns all the more brightly for its rarity….
I too enjoy the spectacle of this leathery ginger acting with his eyeglasses and blazer, after the manner in which J. Roberts acts with her bosom.
Now: D. Caruso–A. Rodriguez slash fiction? I would attend a staged reading. I would perform at a staged reading – acting with my Gore-Tex hat, veganist Docs, and Carhartt pantalon.