From Hellview, a byproduct of Quaker-Methodist pig farmers 'n Southern Baptist Cherokee hillbillies, a rockhound, archaeologist, newsboy, bootblack, troublemaker, dropout, firefighter, crew leader and reform school washout, pinball wizard, dealer, shake splitter, trapper, lumber-head, optician, biker, carny jock, furniture maker, lapidarist, gas jockey, and the first graduate of Portland Community College Jewelry Craft Technology 1980, gold and platinum smith, diamond and colored gem setter. Graduate of Fakir Musafar's Body Piercing class 1994, rouge body piercer, photographer, genealogist, smut-tolologist and shadow-banned laptop hobo.

 

My sister, Deb wrote: “Kurtis, the middle child, was the rebellious one, starting at a young age he broke all the rules at home and school. It seemed as though he had a spirit within him that would not be tamed, he could not conform and live up to the expectations placed upon him in our perfect all-American family... a black cloud casting a shadow over our home."

 

Influences: Alan Watts, Benvenuto Cellini, Buddha, Joseph Campbell, Krishnamurti, Nichiren Daishonin, Terence Mckenna and Fakir Musfar

 

Author of:

 

Twisted Pictures Memoirs of a Body Piercer

 

The Clan of Dr. Robert (Church) Kirk

 

Favorite quotes:

 

"My friend, if you shit in your own backyard you will be the first to step in it," Peter "Pedro" Chumadevsky

 

“You can’t outrun your shadow.”

"Less is best."

"There's worse things than being lonely."

“Going to the doctors is like falling into a pit of rattlesnakes and asking them not to bite you.”

“This old world is in a heap of hurt,” Phyllis (Wilson) Kirk 1932- my mom.

 

"Someday you'll have to learn how to spell."

"You have to want to."

“Don’t drag the family name through the mud,” Richard Owen Kirk, 1927-2007, my dad.

 

“You’ve made a rocky bed, now you’ll have to lie in it,”

John Joseph Marso 1872-1955, my great-grandfather.

 

"We live in perilous times,” Hugh Abraham “Abe” Wilson 1909-1997, my grandfather.

 

“Neat, clean and a gentleman.”

“God, she’s a good lookin’ chicken!”

“Buy Gold,” Norman Dale Rinehart, 1918-2005, mentor.

 

“Hump or be humped.”

“If people aren’t talking about you, you might as well be dead.”

“Once you get the smell of it you’ve got it licked.”

“I don’t know if she was a virgin, but close to it.”

“I could eat a yard of her shit.”

“Shit, piss and corruption the milk of human kindness.”

“Stop the steady drain.” In regards to money.

“My son, someday you’ll beg for death,” Bernard “Bernie” Inzel, 1922-2002, mentor.

 

“You’re a little bit too goddamn psycho with that damn camera,” Preston Raymond Koeger, 1917-2017, mentor.

 

Sagittarius, “Sometimes you miss the applause you deserve, but be consoled by the fact that you have done the right thing,” Holiday Mathis 6/28/2007

 

“Persist,” Octavia Butler

 

"Create like God, command like a king, work like a slave," Constantin Brancusi

 

“Consistency is king and the key to success,” Colin O’Brady

 

"Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset," Joss Whedon

 

"They have been investigating me since the time I was born," Frank F. Colacurcio, Sr.

 

“Look at the Astor’s and the Vanderbilt’s, all those big society people. They were the worst thieves – and now look at them. It’s just a matter of time,” Meyer Lansky

 

“You have to be like a lion and a fox. The fox is smart enough to recognize traps, and the lion is strong enough to scare away the wolves. Be like a lion and a fox, and no one will ever beat you,” Carlo Gambino

 

"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is," Isaac Asimov

 

“Wearing sunglasses at night is an honor you earn,” Leon Russell

 

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” Stephen Hawking

 

“When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation," Jorge Luis Borges

 

"The one blank in the record of deaths another must fill. The survivor leaves it for the posterity of his sisters and brothers to continue the family narratives, as they may be influenced by the sense of duty," Eli Kirk Price, 1881

 

“God saves from the gutter most, and I pray that he saves you. No wonder the world is in bad shape with people like you. God Help! Please!"

[Note left on my door by a sassy black mother in 1998]