Yes. I certainly don't consider myself part of ".71" ("I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have someone like me for a member" - Groucho Marx) but I very strongly agree that the man was a hero, possibly the highest and purest imaginable incarnation of the true Idea of "the hero".
He was an object of derision all through my childhood and adolescence - derision tinged with hatred and fear, as the guy was clearly also mortally dangerous - but that only makes him an even purer and higher embodiment of the Hero, since heroism always treads the almost invisibly thin line between the best and the most beautiful that Man is capable of rising to and the most grotesque and ridiculous faggotry that Man can sink to.
Yellow and slant-eyed though he is, he reminds me of the impeccably Teutonic Siegmund, the true hero of Wagner's "Ring" tetralogy, who, in this beautiful scene from Die Walküre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2t7ybyTI_Y
does a worthier thing than his son and nephew Siegfried ever does and rejects the eternal and infinite bliss of Heaven for the sake of staying faithful to one pathetically finite and mortal being whom he has once sworn not to abandon.
(My apologies for linking to a video that provides only German subtitles for the German. It makes things harder, I'll admit, for the quarter-educated amongst you, but I really couldn't bear to see the Boulez/Chereau Bayreuth production, in which the role of Siegmund was played by Rutger Hauer, "lost like tears in rain")
The "pathetically finite and mortal being" whom Onoda had sworn not to abandon was, of course, Japan, and it was all the more movngly finite and mortal because - without being an expert in Japanese history or sociology - I would bet that the increasingly practical and business-focussed Japs of the 1970s were laughing even harder at the guy, and despising him even more, than the rest of the world was.
And that again is the raising of his heroism to a yet greater power: true fidelity is only ever to a thing or a person that gives no fidelity or love in return but laughs at one and spits on one for one's foolishness.
The extreme Cracky-relevance here does not even need to be pointed, and nor does the relevance "à bien d'autres encor" (Baudelaire)
[08.09.2012 21:54:05] alexander reynolds: SEEMS like a total shallow slut
[08.09.2012 21:54:20] alexander reynolds: but there is a depth and a pathos there
[08.09.2012 21:56:40] jenny cams: If that's the truth, then why hasn't she seen who you really are?
[08.09.2012 21:57:31] alexander reynolds: well, do you want the realistic theory about that or the batshit crazy romantic theory?
[08.09.2012 21:57:47] jenny cams: Realistic
[08.09.2012 21:57:55] alexander reynolds: realistically, she probably just doesnt give a fuck
[08.09.2012 21:58:08] jenny cams: Bats it crazy?
[08.09.2012 21:58:21] jenny cams: Bat shit* auto correct sucks
[08.09.2012 21:59:15] alexander reynolds: I have this crazy idea in my head that she has avery very high, very very holy idea of how things could be between us, and she feels she is not "ready" yet
[08.09.2012 21:59:32] alexander reynolds: she's developing and growing very quickly in London
[08.09.2012 21:59:43] alexander reynolds: maybe she'll be ready soon
[08.09.2012 22:00:00] alexander reynolds: but until then she's going to keep up walls between us
[08.09.2012 22:00:21] alexander reynolds: and never even try to talk her about her feelings or my feelings
[08.09.2012 22:03:46] alexander reynolds: its a very romantic relationship...even despite the cam-whore element
[08.09.2012 22:06:06] jenny cams: I think you're delusional...
[08.09.2012 22:06:22] alexander reynolds: most people do
[08.09.2012 22:06:31] alexander reynolds: particularly other women
[08.09.2012 22:06:52] alexander reynolds: I suppose you know what is psychologically plausible for a woman
[08.09.2012 22:07:17] jenny cams: Probably because we understand one another. Doesn't seem like she interested. But I hope you get out of it what you want.
[08.09.2012 22:07:34] alexander reynolds: women don't have these "secret" feelings they keep in their hearts for years?
[08.09.2012 22:08:18] alexander reynolds: can "seeming" not be misleading when it's a matter of these things?
[08.09.2012 22:10:01] alexander reynolds: I dunno, I think I'd rather be a "fool" and believe in that stuff than be "wise" and not believe in it
[08.09.2012 22:13:15] jenny cams: I've never known a woman to be able to keep secret feeling from someone for years and years. Honestly... you're an easy target. You give her so much attention and you've put this almost godly image of her in your mind and heart. As much as some women say they don't like being the center of attention we all do. And you've just been feeding her ego. Not to mention she can easily manipulate you into giving her money. I know you say its a ritual, but to her it is easy money. Especially since she doesn't provide you with the same services as she provides to other men.
[08.09.2012 22:14:21] alexander reynolds: your first point may be right
[08.09.2012 22:14:48] alexander reynolds: I think its true that women need something real and concrete
[08.09.2012 22:15:17] alexander reynolds: so yes, its worrying that she lets years and years go by without our meeting or touching
[08.09.2012 22:15:46] alexander reynolds: but the money....well, I don't really feel exploited
[08.09.2012 22:16:19] alexander reynolds: I think it IS a ritual...she could make a lot more if she wanted
[08.09.2012 22:16:31] jenny cams: I maybe be a bigger whore than this girl but when I've have internet "relationships" with leople who were close I almost always met them.
[08.09.2012 22:16:32] alexander reynolds: in the end, I give her very little
[08.09.2012 22:16:59] alexander reynolds: well, we'll see
[08.09.2012 22:17:19] alexander reynolds: I find her decision to cross the Atlantic...interesting
[08.09.2012 22:17:43] alexander reynolds: when she was in Cali we would certainly never have been able to meet
[08.09.2012 22:17:55] jenny cams: Everyone wants to cross the Atlantic. Living in Europe is a dream for more people my age
[08.09.2012 22:17:57] alexander reynolds: now...obviously, we might very easly do so
[08.09.2012 22:18:07] jenny cams: So why haven't you?
[08.09.2012 22:18:32] alexander reynolds: God this conversation is depressing me
[08.09.2012 22:18:45] alexander reynolds: you're probably right Jenny
[08.09.2012 22:18:46] jenny cams: I'm sorry. :(
[08.09.2012 22:18:57] alexander reynolds: but leave me my dreams
[08.09.2012 22:19:32] jenny cams: I won't mention it anymore