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“You may be surprised about what this man can teach you… “ "Zamora is an icon in the modern day sideshow community… Cridland was among those who led the rebirth of the sideshow act, this time instead of touring with circuses, the show wed itself with the rock and roll scene." -- Reportage by Getty Images 02-01-2010 “A regular guy who does irregular things.” "Anyone who voluntarily lays his moist, twitching tongue across red hot glowing metal rebar gets our vote for loco rematado of the year. That’s how Zamora The Torture King rolls..." -- The Phoenix New Times 03-June-2010
“The Torture King’s act was better-executed than Jim Rose’s .... Zamora seemed much more in control and treated his audience maturely.”
“Acts like Zamora The Torture King made one producer giddily describe the show [Lollapolooza] as ‘kind of like Disneyland.’” “For the better part of the past 20 years, Tim Cridland has been driving sharp skewers into his tongue and pushing them out through his neck, chewing on shards of glass, using his body to conduct electricity and walking barefoot across a bed of razor–sharp knives. All in a day’s work for Zamora, the Torture King. The 46–year–old Cridland is a veteran of the contemporary American sideshow circuit. He also has a regular gig in Las Vegas, and has written a couple of books on freakeries, oddities and the darker aspects of the thrilling performance arts.” “With last week’s appearance by the Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow, the Wormhole Bar had its best-ever night – it was standing-room-only to see Zamora, the Torture King…” "Dr. Joshua Prager was amazed when he saw the pain-defying performer known as Zamora. "Cridland insists he is not an illusionist and credits "a disciplined mind and meditative techniques" for getting him through the ordeal. "Cridland startled journalists by piercing a long skewer under his tongue and letting it pop out from under his chin. Amazingly, there was no sign of blood or trauma throughout the demonstration." "...Zamora the Torture King, a Las Vegas-based performer who has entertained (and disturbed) audiences for years with his peculiar brand of showmanship.... Zamora’s tolerance for pain was tested by Dr. Joshua Prager of the UCLA School of Medicine. According to Prager, Zamora’s ability to withstand pain was 'off the charts,'..." -- Benjamin Radford writing in The Skeptical Inquirer Nov/Dec 2008 WHAT PEOPLE IN SHOW BUSINESS HAVE SAID “Known all over the world as one of the most complete sideshow performers in history.” •Jim Rose of The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. “The best there is, the best there was, the best that there will ever be… a true living legend.” •Show promoter Doug Higley writing in Circus Report “The only show of its kind in the world. Truly out-of-this-world.” •Ormond McGill, author of The Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism. WHAT SCIENTISTS HAVE SAID “He is able to change what he experiences. Its not that the stimuli is not there, it's that the way that he processes them is different than you or I would.” •Joshua Prager, MD of The UCLA Pain Medicine Center. “As a scientist, it’s a fascinating phenomenon.” •Dr. Kenneth Pelletier, Stanford University Medical Center. Press from the Past Below is a sampling of newspaper and magazine articles about Zamora and Zamora's Sideshow from over the years, arranged from oldest to newest. SIDESHOWS ADD AWE TO HERITAGE FESTIVAL The Palm Beach Post - November 9, 1995 by Tim O'Meilia Remember the fire-eaters and the sword-swallowers of the old-time traveling carnivals that stopped for a weekend and then went down the road? Maybe your parents or grandparents told you about them. How they weren't quite certain how much was trickery and how much mysticism. Let's hear it for the Torture King, who holds a razor-sharp meat cleaver to his chest and lets his assistant wallop it with a two-by-four, leaving only a red mark on his torso. The Torture King offers a taste of art of the old sideshow at the Heritage Festival at the South Florida Fairgrounds through Sunday. A few of those who weren't listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter in the entertainment hall Wednesday stopped by to see ``Beyond Belief,'' a glimpse at skills that are slipping away as sideshows have disappeared. The Torture King, otherwise known as Tim Cridland, walks on crushed glass, besides eating fire and swallowing swords. In the finale, the Torture King slides a skewer through his upper arm, creating a shish-ka-bicep. ``I knew a guy in Vermont. He swallowed razor blades. The double-edged ones,'' said 74-year-old Francis Pawlusiak, who now lives in Boynton Beach. ``I think he's still alive. In Massachusetts,'' he said, as if that was an even greater feat. DAILY DISH... 1998 “What kind of man likes to eat fire and swallow swords? Meet Zamora the Torture King, one of the featured performers in . . . The Secret World of Circuses and Side Shows. "What I do isn't causing me pain or injury," insists Zamora, a king of pain who also answers to the name Tim Cridland. "I'm showing that I'm overcoming situations that would normally be painful or cause injury." He doesn't take his "classic sideshow feats" — which include walking on broken glass and having sticks broken over his back — lightly. "Everything I do is very dangerous," says Zamora, who researches all the stunts very carefully before he attempts them. "Almost everything has life-threatening potential. In sword-swallowing, the sword actually does go down my throat and into my stomach. If I punctured the stomach lining, it could lead to peritonitis, which happens when the stomach acid gets into the system. That can be a fatal injury." The Secret World . . . isn't, strictly speaking, the first TV appearance for the Torture King, who caught the attention of The Simpsons' writers when he toured with Lollapalooza in 1992. When the Fox toon had an episode featuring a Lollapalooza-like festival, says Zamora, "There was a character on there named Impervo the Painless who seemed to be based on me. He showed up again on the carnival episode of the show. So I can say I've been on The Simpsons twice, a brag most people can't make." What's next for Zamora? He's preparing to take his show . . . on tour throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada, and has also begun learning a new act. "There was a guy in the '40s who would take a sharp fencing sword and have it put through his back. It would come out his front, underneath his solar plexus — right through the middle of the body," says Zamora, who has been researching the stunt through newsreel footage and medical journals. "I've got a long way to go. Obviously, it's a major feat. But that is something I'd like to do." — Susan Campbell Beachy From TV Guide October 31, 1998 Written by Mark Schwed Meet Tim Cridland of Seattle, one of the "stars" of the new Fox series Guinness World Records: Primetime. His claim to fame, or should we say pain? He's the Human Pincushion, who, in trying to set a Guinness world record, skewered his chest with about 100 pins. By the time the pin man got to 98, one burly camera operator was so unsettled that he nearly hit the deck while shooting the record attempt. "He got that look you get when you're about to pass out," says our spy. "And he says to the guy behind him, 'Take the camera now! I think I'm going to faint.' And he quickly sat himself down and put his head between his knees." We can only hope home viewers don't have the same reaction this November. New generation of fans, performers take in the show St. Cloud Times December 10, 1999 By Scott M. Larson "No, he can't do that," one man gasped as Zamora the Torture King cut into his stomach Thursday night at the Java Joint. Yes, he can. He is the Torture King and this is his touring sideshow. Using surgical scissors, Zamora dug into the hole in his stomach and started pulling out about three yards of twine he had swallowed. "I don't want to see this," a woman yelped, just as Zamora, otherwise known as Tim Cridland, dangled Christmas ornaments then pulled the twine free of his body. It is a technique known as a Yogi internal floss, which Cridland used to clean out the glass he just swallowed from a broken light bulb. Gather round, one and all. Come see the resurgence of the sideshow - a lost art that was seemingly doomed after circuses quit sideshows to go for a more wholesome, family appeal. "This used to be family entertainment," Cridland said before the show. "It's strange. It's bizarre. It's shocking. But it's a fun type of shocking." Cridland has been on the road for about eight months. He and his cohorts play five shows a week. He laments the fall of the sideshow from its glory days as part of the circus. But he is trying to resurrect the lost art through his show, which includes driving needles through his muscles, licking a red-hot iron and bending it with his feet and using his chest as a butcher's block. "The advantage is people see so many special effects on TV that when people see it up front there is no question that it is real," Cridland said. Like Patrick Wyman and Emily Streit, who debated the merits of the show with squeamish sounds and painful noises. They said they knew it would be interesting, but they still were not prepared. "Not this, man. I didn't think he was going to cut his stomach open," Wyman said. "I'm astounded that someone could do something like that," Streit said. Cridland said his goal is to entertain. He equates his act to the same feeling a person gets from riding a rollercoaster. "It's scary, but you want to get right back on," he said. He uses meditation techniques to diffuse any pain he might feel on stage, and he controls his body's reaction."The reaction is what you have control over," Cridland said. "By changing your external output you can change the world around you." The crowd was wary at first. It wasn't sure what to think. But as the show went on, the crowd got more and more into it, yelling and screaming and clapping wildly. "If you were squeamish, you wouldn't be here in the first place," Cridland said on stage with an overly dramatic tone. But some in the crowd still squirmed and gasped at each act of torture. "Don't worry, I know my anatomy well," Zamora the Torture King announces JIM ROSE AND TORTURE KING WAGE WAR OF CARNY CARNAGE WINNIPEG SUN Winnipeg, Manitoba - Jill Wilson 1999 Jim Rose is slick, eloquent, egomaniac - a man who's equal parts snake oil salesman and Tony Robbins. Of course, that's the perfect combination for someone who makes his living as the ringmaster of a travelling circus. The charismatic frontman is probably best known as the leader of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow - a collection of self-made freaks who toured with Lollapalooza. He and the troupe are back in Winnipeg tomorrow with their Secrets Of The Strange tour One mystery the entertainer is eager to explain is the appearance of former Sideshow member Zamora The Torture King at the same venue one day after his gig. "It's not a strange coincidence. He is intentionally booking shows, trying his hardest to screw me and to puff himself up," says Rose of Zamora, who contributed to Circus of the Scars, a less-than-flattering book about the troupe. "I guess I'll have to fear him when he no longer has to say, 'Formally of the Jim Rose Circus' - He didn't resonate and I guess the reason he's doing this is because there's nothing more bitter than an opporunist that miscalculated." But there's really not much else Zamora, whose real name is Tim Cridland, could do. There's not a lot of call for a sword-swallowing, egg-walking, human pin-cushion outside the entertainment world. Or maybe there is. The soft-spoken Cridland recently appeared on a 48 Hours segment dealing with chronic pain management - if you've seen The Torture King calmly stick skewers though his neck, you'll know he's got a handle on pain control. "There's nothing abnormal about me physically," says Cridland, 35, who's been studying circus feats and anatomy since he was a teen. "The things I do have to do with the mind and the body - I've changed the way my brain reacts to an external stimulus. I feel it, but it's not a negative feeling." Cridland also denies negative feelings towards Rose. "He just took the show in a different direction," says the performer, who travels with a contortionist and a strong man. "It was more comedy stuff, more crude. I'm bringing traditional stunts back from the past." He says he didn't set out to stage a showdown with Rose's show but admits that the publicity is to both of their benefits. "Perhaps it's a friendly feud," he says. "It's going to help both of us it it's newsworthy and gets both our names in the press." You get the feeling the two men may be playing the duel up for dramatic effect - no real feat for such consumate showmen. But as P.T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute - and whether they're playing us for fools or not, they're both probably worth the price of a midway ticket or two.  PERFORMER GOES TO GREAT PAINS The Ottawa Sun July 7, 2003 BY Derek Puddicombe For Tim Cridland, the blues is all about pain. With 180 acts at this year's Bluesfest, Cridland, 39, is probably the only performer that doesn't carry a guitar, drumstick or horn or sing a note when he steps on stage. But he knows all about pain and grossing out his audience. Although Cridland, who hails from Las Vegas and is also known as the Torture King, doesn't sing the blues, his show is in keeping with the carnival theme of this year's Bluesfest. "My act lends itself to outdoor performances, but it's not crude or rude," he says. Rude and crude is a matter of interpretation, which he leaves up to his audience. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted or squeamish. And as Cridland tells his audience before his shows, he hopes they have successfully digested their meals. To warm up his audience, Cridland demonstrates his taste for fire-eating. He then moves on to sword swallowing -- just a "light snack," he explains. Still feeling a little peckish, Cridland smashes a light bulb with a hammer and begins to chew its shattered remains. At this point, it's about 10 minutes into his 30-minute show and the first time groans, gasps and nervous laughter are heard from the audience as the crunching sounds of glass between his teeth are amplified by a microphone. The gasps return when Cridland reclines on four sword blades. A few cover their eyes as a cinder block is placed on his chest and smashed with a sledgehammer. "I don't think this is disgusting at all. I think it's great," said Justin Trudeau, 19, from Montreal. "I can't believe that someone has such great command over his body." The part of the act that had most squinting was when Cridland penetrated his body with long, sharp skewers. He took one skewer, pierced his tongue, then let it work its way down so it popped through skin underneath his chin. But it didn't bother Trudeau or his friend. "The blues is all about pain," said Steve Joncas, 20. But what had 24-year-old Lindsay Ross wondering was how Cridland was going to digest the glass. "I want to know how he goes to the bathroom the next day after eating the light bulb." | |||
