William R. Katovsky: Klaus Kinski's FINAL INTERVIEW A PERSONAL TRIBUTE Seite 5/6 Our first task was finding a table in the near-empty" restaurant. Kinski led me from table to table, with Paolo right behind us. No, this table wasn't right because it was too close to other diners. No, this table was in the sun. No, this table was too near the aisle. So, we circled the room for several minutes before he settled upon a small marble table by the window in the front bar area that had not yet been set up. After we sat down and he ordered a Pellegrino, I handed him a gift. It was a small kev chain called the Final Word which electronically blurted out swear words whenever it was pressed. There were several foul-mouth choices, ranging from "fucking asshole" to "eat shit." I told Klaus that he never had to talk to anyone again if he didn't like them. All he'd have to do is press and point the keychain. Delighted by his obscenity-uttering amulet, he began waving it through the air like a goofy conductor, pointing this way and that. I didn't know where to begin. How does one engage in small talk, innocuous chit-chat with Klaus? He engages you; you listen. He asked me where I used to live. When I said Oakland, he began talking about one of his favorite authors, Jack London. He narrated the plot of one story, "To Build a Fire," which he said he always wanted to film. The tale is about a Yukon adventurer who is caught out in the Klondike cold. His only hope for survival in the sub-freezing temperature is to build a fire, but his hands are numb with frostbite. He does manage to ignite a fire with matches and a scrap of beech bark, but only by cupping the flame with his hands until his palms begin to burn. While Klaus told this story, he, too, cupped his hands. I half expected to see the yellow tip of a flame flickering up through his fingers. When Paolo came by to take our order, he and Klaus began speaking in Italian. In fact, Klaus went through the entire menu, item by item, pointing to each dish: capelIini, melazane alla parinigiana, carpaccio, bruschetta, pesce del giorno, scaloppine. He wanted to know in detail how each dish was prepared. He understood Italian cuisine. He realIy cared about what he was going to eat. "I don't eat in restaurants anymore," he said. "I'm used to having a bowl of soup in my cabin. I don't go anywhere. If I visit San Francisco, it's usually twice a year to buy Italian coffee in North Beach." I figured that once we'd broached the subject of Paganini, I would have little opportunity to converse (read: listen) about anything else. I wanted to hear about his film career. But before I had the chance to launch a salvo, Klaus started talking frenetically about how stupid most people are, how closed off to life they become, how they've become ghetto-ized in their thinking and behavior. He was making a point, a random outpouring of associations that would lead somewhere definite. The writer Marcelle Clements once likened Kinski's conversational style to "a very fine jazz improvisation, in which a musician explores a theme from which he often detours, the detour then becoming an adjunct to the theme itself, which is always returned to. It is a highly personalized way of addressing any subject, especially in combination with his sometimes curious syntax and his bursts of invective." © 1992 by William R. Katovsky and Frisko Magazine

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