I piss on Gods stupid world!

December 2, 2008 11:26 PM

"Our boss is a madman! I was in the sorting office and he said our system was outdated! I spat in his face! He fired me! I have to look for a job now!" Would Klaus Kinski have been so angry if he hadn't been so famous? A vintage column by Graham Linham (Father Ted, The IT Crowd) from the late lamented Neon magazine. (via).
posted by Artw (46 comments total)

Ah that's gold. But because you used the words "Father Ted" I kept imagining the voice of Father Ted as I read it.
posted by awfurby at 11:42 PM on December 2, 2008

Once after receiving a lashing from Kinski over the phone, Herzog drove to Kinski's house with a jerrycan full of petrol intent on burning the house down with Kinski inside. Herzog changed his mind halfway on route, mainly because he was afraid of Kinski's big Alsatian.
posted by Artw at 11:45 PM on December 2, 2008

Aguille is one of my favorite movies of all time.

I usually introduce it, though, as the best film about German-speaking Spanish conquistadors ever put to film. I like it because every 'civilized' character is insane, and in the end, the natives win.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:28 AM on December 3, 2008

Once after receiving a lashing from Kinski over the phone, Herzog drove to Kinski's house with a jerrycan full of petrol

Excuse me. I need to resort to an emoticon and a few superfluous exclamation points.

:D !!!
posted by loquacious at 1:08 AM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I was working at a bookstore in a very wealthy, conservative suburb when Kinski's autobiography hit the shelves. My friend Lynn strolled up to me and slapped the book down on the counter. "Now this is a blurb," she said, gesturing to the back of the dustcover:

On Herzog: "He should be thrown to the crocodiles alive! An anaconda should throttle him slowly! The sting of a deadly spider should paralyze him! His brain should burst from the bite of the most poisonous of all snakes! Panthers shouldn't slit his throat open with their claws, that would be too good for him! No. Big red ants should piss in his eyes, eat his balls, penetrate his asshole, and eat his guts! He should get the plague! Syphilis! Malaria! Yellow fever! Leprosy! In vain. The more I wish the most horrible of deaths on him and treat him like the scum of the earth that he is, the less I can get rid of him!"

Jesus! That was the jacket copy! By the end of the morning most of the staff had memorized the back cover blurb and were doing impromptu readings from the book (out of earshot of our stodgy customers, of course). That damn thing brought us so much joy during the 2 or so weeks until the publisher recalled all the copies. I have plenty of regrets from this sorry life of mine, and one of the more sizable ones is that I didn't buy a copy of the original hardcover of All I Need Is Love (reissued as Kinski Uncut).
posted by maryh at 1:24 AM on December 3, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

A vintage column by Graham Linham

Let us now praise famous men.
posted by Wolof at 1:41 AM on December 3, 2008

I can't make my mind up on whether kinski really was this angry or if this all was a fantastic and very long-lived pr-stunt.
posted by krautland at 2:08 AM on December 3, 2008

This guy sounds awesome.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 2:08 AM on December 3, 2008

I never read Neon but I recall Linehan also used to write a column for Select magazine (also long defunct), which I recall as being not all that funny. I was (very pleasantly) suprised on first watching Father Ted to find the fellow I'd supposed to be a meh columnist was in fact a comedy genius.
posted by misteraitch at 2:17 AM on December 3, 2008

Hey Nastassja. We were supposed to meet here in this Metafilter post. Sorry I missed you.

Call me again re: your fucked up father. You say he was a great actor but a nasty human being. We'll begin therapy next week... with the idea that your father really wasn't that great an actor.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:29 AM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Neon was fantastic and Graham Linehan's column was great. I remember the script notes for Star Wars very fondly (lose the songs; also replace the wiffle bat with something more dramatic - perhaps some kind of laser sword?).
posted by Mocata at 2:34 AM on December 3, 2008

Kinski's autobiography is an absolute must-read. It stands along with The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as the most batshit insane autobiographies of all time.
posted by ghastlyfop at 4:20 AM on December 3, 2008

Was he some sort of real-life inspiration for Ignatius J. Reilly? Take away the famous, and you've got you one hell of a hot dog pusher.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:29 AM on December 3, 2008

Now that is how exclamation marks should be used! Examplary! Grotesque, obscene and peppy!

Let us now praise famous men.

The Sound of Young America interview is super, too!
posted by carbide at 4:38 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's such a fine line between Klaus Kinski and Michael Savage. I'm sure if Kinski had had his own radio show for 3 hours a day he'd have been executed by the state. But damn, Michael Savage never could have created such a beautiful daughter.

Stupid story: a friend of mine used to work in a video store and, to pass the time, he and his coworkers would try to combine titles and make funny combinations. Their favorite: "Jerry Maguirre: Wrath of God." Always makes me laugh.
posted by billysumday at 4:39 AM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

For an entire documentary about the madness of Klaus Kinski, run, don't walk, and check out My Best Fiend. The relationship between Kinski and Werner Herzog (who's quite the nutjob in his own right) is...unique.
posted by zardoz at 4:41 AM on December 3, 2008

Linehan was on Charlie Brooker's screenwipe last night as part of a special on writers. He had a lot of insightful stuff to say; a couple of the other interviewees were pricks though.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 5:25 AM on December 3, 2008

Kinski equation:

Motherfucker!
(something bad happens)
I am an asshole!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:30 AM on December 3, 2008

I love Klaus Kinski. That's where he's a Viking.

(I can see him wearing only furs and a scepter with a human skull atop a pyramid of bodies drinking blood from a flagon.)
posted by DU at 5:36 AM on December 3, 2008

I usually introduce it, though, as the best film about German-speaking Spanish conquistadors ever filmed in English, and then dubbed in German by different actors put to film.
posted by phooky at 6:04 AM on December 3, 2008

Sublime.

Everything in life is better when read in either a Herzog or Kinski voice/style.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:28 AM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Neon was the greatest magazine ever... I still morn it's passing (esp compared with the limp advertorial junk that clogs up Smiths today)

Oh and Kinski seems a totally reasonably man...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:44 AM on December 3, 2008

WOMEN:
"As soon as I fuck a girl or she's sucked me off, I want to leave her immediately. If one sucks me over for so long that I let her sleep with me and she wants to cuddle up to me, I kick her away."

That is the single most romantic thing I've ever read. ~
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:48 AM on December 3, 2008

Someone once described Aguirre as Apocalypse Now with Kinski playing both Sheen's and Brando's parts.

Billysumday: Their favorite: "Jerry Maguirre: Wrath of God." Always makes me laugh.

This same one came to me years ago when I saw a movie marquee partially obstructed and I could see only AGUIRE in the title Jerry Maguire. To my mind, this title is right up there with Jane Eyre Force One.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:54 AM on December 3, 2008

Seconding My Best Fiend. Here's a link to the opening scene, with Kinski "playing" Jesus. Seems like a pretty intense guy, no?
posted by thebergfather at 6:58 AM on December 3, 2008

Christ, etc.
posted by adamdschneider at 7:16 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

All I Need Is Love may be the most riveting celebrity memoir ever written. [At least the first half of it.] The portrayal of his impoverished childhood in Poland rivals Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird for intensifying wretchedness to an almost metaphysical level:

A sow sets a soup plate down on the table before me. It is filled to the brim and the soup sloshes over. Her hands up to her wrists are dunked in the gray muck, where white pieces of fat float around like corpses. I nearly puke.

Marcelle Clement's The Dog Is Us also has an amusing profile of Kinski that was originally published in Esquire, I believe. If memory serves, they're driving around when Kinski fumes "I see signs saying 'Right Turn Only' and I want to scream 'Fuck you!'".
posted by Joe Beese at 7:18 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I was just watching Fitzcarraldo last night. All those guys are fucking insane.
posted by fungible at 7:39 AM on December 3, 2008

Metafilter: All those guys are fucking insane
posted by Joe Beese at 7:41 AM on December 3, 2008

I second the love for "My Best Fiend", and fondly remember a scene in which I believe one of the locals hired as an extra takes Herzog aside and offers to kill Kinski for him.

A great documentary and one that will remove all doubt as to whether Kinski was a complete nutcase or not. The relationship between Kinski and Herzog is fascinating. Herzog is a monument to patience... or maybe he's just gone terribly, terribly numb.
posted by OolooKitty at 8:24 AM on December 3, 2008

An alarmingly large portion of Kinski's autobiography consists of him fucking everything that stands still long enough to allow it, followed by him hating those that were foolish enough to have allowed said fucking to take place. And then come the venereal diseases.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:33 AM on December 3, 2008

I think the reason that Herzog was able to work with Kinski is that he's a bit mad himself, but it's a slow, methodical, determined madness that looks like sanity in comparison to Kinski's mercurial mania.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:36 AM on December 3, 2008

The chicken won't stop!
posted by Artw at 8:59 AM on December 3, 2008

character is insane, and in the end, the natives win.

i disagree. I don't think the natives win. I think nature wins. Besides, we all know who really won in the real end.

Also, it's Aguirre, not Aguille, right?
posted by spicynuts at 9:06 AM on December 3, 2008

Dear Santa, I would like a movie with both Klaus Kinski and Gary Busey. Or just outtakes from such a movie. Thank you.
posted by zippy at 9:12 AM on December 3, 2008

I'd like a Gary Busey/Jeff Conaway on-the-road buddy movie.
posted by Artw at 9:19 AM on December 3, 2008

Wait wait wait. This is the father of that girl from Cat People?

Oh, man. Now it all comes together.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:30 AM on December 3, 2008

Neon was an amazing magazine. I had a subscription, too. After four issues, it stopped coming and was replaced with Empire, ffs. I called up, and they said it had been killed to fund the launch of Heat. Jesus.
posted by bonaldi at 10:58 AM on December 3, 2008

You would have got the last few issues where they were trying to be Empire anyway - ouch.
posted by Artw at 11:29 AM on December 3, 2008

Herzog is what all film makers should want to be.
posted by tkchrist at 11:36 AM on December 3, 2008

Once at a party, I half-drunkenly pitched a producer acquaintance my idea for a sitcom based on the hijinks of Kinski and Herzog. Hollywood, being a stupid town filled with baboons and cretins, failed to recognize my genius!
posted by scody at 11:45 AM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I like how Herzog stole a camera to make a movie.

Stroszek is the single most depressing film I've ever seen though... I'm not surprised Ian Curtis strung himself up after watching it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:28 PM on December 3, 2008

Neon was one of the best film magazines. I've always remembered the commentary in one issue praising Al Pacino's Oscar winning method acting portrayal of Robert De Niro in 'Heat' and them explaining that 'Eyes Wide Shut' was taking so long to complete because Kubrick insisted on wandering around the set every morning with a thermometer to ensure that every scene was shot at the same temperature.....
posted by Mintyblonde at 2:26 PM on December 3, 2008

My internal monologue sounds distressingly like this.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:03 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Kinski should have hung out in Alaska with that other Herzog star, Timothy Treadwell. All the way until the bitter end.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:13 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Pff. Kinski could take a bear. Sexually, most likely.
posted by Artw at 11:43 PM on December 3, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]