Children of the Sword

How one man sired a legion of Philly freaks.

by Bill Meagher

Jessica Kourkounis TO THE HILT: Betty Bloomerz (right) can swallow a sword "past her hip bone," says fellow Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow freak Jellyboy the Clown (left).

"My teacher Toni Del Rio first took out a bayonet from World War I and shoved it down her gullet," says John "Red" Stuart, recalling his first stab at sword-swallowing. "Afterward, she pulled it out, took one look at me and said, 'Monkey see, monkey do!'"

Stuart, then 16, took Del Rio's bayonet, wiped off her saliva, lubricated the blade with his tongue, and tried to force it down his throat. He gagged and coughed the first time. He miscued the second. Eventually, he was given a chrome blade with no handle — a sword smaller than the bayonet — and finally, he got his first blade past his second gag reflex.

"After I pulled it out I hesitated to cough and clear my throat," says Stuart, speaking on the phone en route to Little Rock. "Toni took one look at me and said that if I believed I could do it, then I could. But if I hesitated or showed fear, then I'd never get any further. I took that in, gave it another try five minutes later, and shoved it all the way down my throat."

There was no turning back. Over the next 42 years, Stuart would become a master of this peculiar art form. He's made his way into the Guinness Book of Records for swallowing 25 swords at once, although he's done more than twice that staggering figure this year. He's one of the few sword-swallowers ever recognized for swallowing a car axel, which he first did in 1977 — something no one else has so much as attempted since 1954.

Not content to master just one type of death-defiance, Stuart went on to tackle the other seven so-called deadly tortures, too: fire manipulation, glass and fire dancing, blockhead (or drilling nails up your nose), lying on a bed of nails, glass eating, making your body a human pincushion, and subjection to a modern form of electric shock treatment. From belly flopping onto glass, to sticking metal pins through his muscles, to absorbing intense electric current, he has done it all, and then some.

But he's less recognized for another accomplishment. Almost single-handedly, Red Stuart, who at 58 is the world's oldest active sword-swallower — not surprisingly, perhaps; this is a young man's game — has helped bring to Philadelphia one of the country's most up-and-coming sideshow scenes.

Welcome to the freak show

Stuart was born in New Jersey on March 21, 1951. At age 4, his mother put him up for adoption in Philly, where he spent the next decade shuffling between an orphanage and foster homes. In 1966, Stuart found his way out. "In the winter of '66 the Philly education department was starting the GED," Stuart says. He suffered from persistent migraines, made worse by classrooms' fluorescent lighting. So he demanded to take the test, and he passed.

He hitched a ride to New Orleans and took a job with a carnival, working kiddie rides during Mardi Gras. "On the last week of Mardi Gras we were in Thibodaux, La.," he says. "[Del Rio] had a small sideshow ... and told me they were going to let me go and asked me if I would like to learn sword-swallowing, fire manipulation, hot coal dancing, glass dancing, glass eating, sword ladder.

"I said, 'Why not?'"

Sword-swallowing, the art form at which Stuart would go on to excel, dates back some 4,000 years to ancient India. In the intervening millennia, it's been used as everything from a demonstration of divine power to a theatrical production. In 1893, sword-swallowing made its way to the Chicago World's Fair — and from there, to American circuses and sideshows. Gone were the allusions to the divine. Stateside, unlike in Europe, audiences weren't so much interested in how many swords you could swallow, but instead the novelty and outright bizarre nature of the act.

Americans, it seems, relish the freak show.

And so does Stuart. He learned nearly all of the other deadly sideshow arts from Del Rio, save two — the notorious human pincushion, which, as it sounds, involves sticking needles through all parts of the human body; and the gloomer, the only one of the stunts that has since been made illegalin the U.S. ("[The gloomer] involved things like biting the heads off chickens," Stuart explains, "and other things far more gruesome.") But he did learn those elsewhere.

Jessica Kourkounis DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME: Seriously, don't. Squidling Bros. performers know what they're doing. You'll just puncture a lung.

Those early sideshows were sordid affairs. Stuart says his troupe would, on a sideshow's last night, bribe the local law into letting them do the hardcore stuff unmolested. "There would be blood and guts," he says, "and people would leave, pass out or puke all over themselves. And afterward the people still in attendance would have to run if they didn't want blood, guts or puke tossed in their general direction. I've only done it a couple of times."

Despite its illegality, Stuart says, the gloomer still exists, albeit in tamer forms — worms, bugs and goldfish have replaced chickens. In fact, he says, the arch of his career has coincided with a decline in some of the more extreme forms of sideshow freakery. Still, he's done some remarkable things: Beyond all of the swords and the Model A car axel, he's also taken down neon tubes and bridge bolts. In many ways, Stuart became the personification of "don't try this at home."

"No matter what you do with sword-swallowing, there are people out there who think that there's some kind of button on the handle or hilt that make them collapse down," he says. He wanted to prove them wrong. "That's why I sought out to implement more tools, and started adding on multiple swords."

Along the way, Stuart set a number of records. In 2005, he was one of nine sword-swallowers who together downed 51 swords at the annual Sideshow Gathering in Wilkes-Barre. During that stunt, he broke a century-old record by swallowing 25 swords. During the 2007 Philadelphia Tattoo Convention he swallowed 34 swords; and last year, he went even further, swallowing 47 at the Ohio State Fair. During an International Sword Swallowers Day event this year, Stuart swallowed 51 at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Atlantic City. Just last month he outdid himself again, swallowing 52 swords at the Minnesota State Fair on Sept. 2.

Crazy as it sounds, Stuart insists that he's safe.

"When those swords are stacked and stuck together with Teflon tape, they're three-quarter inches wide," he says. "You have to tape them so you don't puncture holes through your esophagus. I'd rather have a few lacerations on my esophagus from the tape than have a sword scissor through my heart. I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid, which is why I keep extra cautious."

South Street blockhead

"I have fond memories of the first time Red taught me the human blockhead," says Eric Broomfield, who performs with the Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow under the name "Jellyboy the Clown."

Human blockheads hammer nails into their nasal cavities, through their nostrils. The stunt looks shocking; audiences often think the nail is being dispatched into the skull itself, though this plays on the anatomical misconception that the nasal cavity goes upward, rather than straight back.

"We were inside the Bean Café on South Street and shoving nails inside our noses in front of all the unsuspecting customers," Broomfield continues. The artist now known as Jellyboy has since moved on to the electric drill. As part of his act, he also sticks a blown-up balloon through both nostrils, attaches a suitcase to the balloon's ends and does a weight-lifting routine.

Broomfield first met Stuart when the two worked at Tower Records on South Street in 2001. Stuart was semi-retired from the freak-show business, and had moved back to Philly to care for some of his remaining family members with whom he'd maintained contact over the years. Over time, Stuart regaled Broomfield with his elaborate tales of sideshow life. The future Jellyboy was hooked.

His band, The Hydrogen Jukebox, performed on South Street during the annual Day of the Dead parade, organized by a group called Artists at Large. When the band broke up, Broomfield took the group's reins and decided to incorporate sideshow into the parade. Pierced freaks pulled carts of people by their piercings, and paraded alongside belly dancers and fire breathers. Broomfield became the barker for the main acts on Headhouse Square.

The sideshow was headlined by Stuart and The Great Nippulini, known for lifting anvils with his pierced nipples. The Great Nippulini recruited a magician named The Amazing Barry Silver. Over time, Silver and Stuart struck up a friendship, which in retrospect was an inescapably natural development, Silver says.

"When you walk and belly flop onto glass with someone for a number of shows," Silver says, "and they break a cinder block over your head, you can't help but establish a friendship."

When South Street eventually tired of the sideshow acts, they found a new home in West Philly's Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum, where the show is today known as Carnivolution — though as the show grew and took on crossover acts from the Coney Island scene, the troupe rebranded itself the Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow.

"[Owner] Joe Tiberino basically wanted us to do whatever we wanted to do," Broomfield says.

A new home meant a need for new stunts. So Broomfield and Silver found themselves going back to the master for sword-swallowing tips. "Red gave me a coat hanger," Broomfield says, "and I spent seven months shoving it down my throat as far as it would go."

"Red showed us how to grind swords right, and taught us the proper breathing techniques," Silver says. "He taught us the proper posturing, and how to swallow different implements. One day I was hanging out with Red in his home, and I finally swallowed a sword all the way down after months of practice. I pulled that shit out and I might have started crying with joy."

Carnivolution has grown throughout the years, but they still toss in plenty of Stuart's favorites, like the staple-gun routine, where bills are stapled to the performer's body — the higher the denomination, the more sensitive the stapling.

"Red would only have dollar bills stapled on," Broomfield says. "But we have upped the ante considerably. We do $5 to the back, $20 to the face, and $100 for the dreaded nut shot, which happens more often than you would think."

Meanwhile, another bunch of misfits were starting up a sideshow.

Jessica Kourkounis GODFATHER OF FREAK: Red Stuart (top) showed members of the Olde City Sideshow (right) the tricks of his peculiar trade.

The Revival

In 2003, recently reunited high school acquaintances Danny Boyle and Martin Stutzman had an idea. They had both developed an interest in the world of sideshow stunts, and conceptualized a vaudevillian sideshow revival. Of course, neither one knew how to make that happen, and neither had any significant experience in sideshow arts.

"It was definitely weird to set up at first," Boyle says. "There was a lot of stuff involved that I've never pictured myself doing. And there was a lot of stuff my brain told me I shouldn't be doing. But we believed that if we strived further then it wouldn't end badly."

And eventually, they found their way to Stuart. "One of the acts that we wanted to perform was sword-swallowing," Stutzman says. "We knew Red was in town and was teaching sword-swallowing. He wanted $3,000 a person to teach us; we bought him lunch instead. Although we could never afford what Red is worth, he has taught both Danny and me sword-swallowing, shared his life and history with us, told us how things would be done on the lot, and is and will always be a major part of our lives and our sideshow."

It ended up being Stuart's example that they followed most in starting up the Olde City Sideshow in 2004.

Stuart gave Stutzman and Boyle the same advice Toni Del Rio gave him several decades ago. As Stuart walked them through the "monkey see, monkey do" routines, they found that they were proficient in two very different stunts. Stutzman took to sword-swallowing. Boyle took to blockhead. During performances, he's apt to shove a switchblade and power drills up his nose. He has plans for other tools, too.

"I'm trying to incorporate more of the vintage style of our show into it," he says. "So I picked up some old-time hand drills that I plan on working into the show. Whether it's swords, blockhead or other, the trick is to make the next implement just as interesting as the first. And what I have lined up should deliver."

Full circle

Barry Silver swallowedpart of his molar after breaking a tooth in half while eating glass. He chipped part of his forehead after a staple went too far in during the staple-gun routine. He broke his elbow three times during the straitjacket escape. But he's not backing off. With Stuart's help, he's become a master at the human pincushion.

"I enjoyed doing the pincushion initiation with Red at the Bean Café," he says. "We were inside a coffeehouse shoving pins through muscle and tendons. Now I've gone as far as shoving metal spikes through my hand."

Broomfield tells how a compatriot stage-named Betty Bloomerz prepared to break the record for longest sword swallowed by a female.

"Red used to have an old 28-inch serpentine that he was a master of," Broomfield says. "He sold it off to [Silver] who took using it to a whole new level. And eventually Barry passed that sword down to Betty. Most people can only swallow a sword down to their rib cage. But for whatever reason, Betty can swallow one past her hip bone. When Barry gave her Red's old Serpentine sword ... she was able to swallow all 28 inches down to the hilt."

To Broomfield, it's a story about community — albeit one very freakish community — that's come full circle.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Olde City Sideshow performs Fri., Oct. 9, 9 p.m., free, National Mechanics, 22 S. Third St., oldecitysideshow.com. The Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow perform at Carnivolution Fri., Oct. 9, 8 p.m., $8, Ellen Powell Tiberino Museum, 3819 Hamilton St., myspace.com/squidlingbrothers.