LARKSPUR — Beside a giant rocking horse and maze, and not far from the jousting arena and unicorn, a crowd gathers to see a man take tomatoes to the face.

At least this is the goal for participants of Vegetable Justice: to hurl tomatoes at the face poking through the hole in the wall. This would be sweet, juicy justice for the insults being slung by the man whose arms are also trapped, resembling a medieval pillory fit for the Colorado Renaissance Festival.

That’s Brian Strong behind the wall.

“Dude,” he says to the next man gripping a tomato like a baseball, “you look like a busted tube of biscuits rolled in cat hair.”

The firing range is only about 40 feet, but it slopes slightly uphill so that the roof of the tomato stand poses an obstacle. The roof is hit more than Strong.

“I’m trying to figure out what it is on the roof that pisses you off,” he says to one misfiring contestant.

Many more tomatoes bang on the wall and plop on the ground below Strong. But the jokes hit every time.

“That’s it, sir! Sidearm around the beer gut!”

“Hey girls, we do discounts for cute girls. Know any?”

“Hey kid, you think this is weird? Wait until your parents make you reveal your browser history.”

Call it weird or hilarious, entertaining or disturbing ー Vegetable Justice is a tradition like no other at Colorado Renaissance Festival, the whimsical affair now spanning 50 summers in Larkspur.

And for about as long as Vegetable Justice has been around, going back to the 1980s, so too has Strong. A passerby this afternoon, a festival regular, remembers watching him some 30 years ago.

“I can’t believe he’s still here,” she remarks. “How can he do this all summer?”

Another question comes to mind: Why does he do this all summer?

Strong’s answer centers around the crowd. Look at them, he says: “They’re throwing something at another human being in a perfectly legal context.”

It’s fun for him, too. “I get to say stuff that most people can’t say at their job.”

One must be fun-loving, not mean, he acknowledges. But he admits to some “catharsis” now and then.

“If I get the stereotypical jock-looking guy that I couldn’t stand in high school,” he says with a chuckle, “yeah, I’ve still got that under my skin somewhere.”

Consider that high school student from Golden who first visited this scene in 1983: an enchanting, forested village occupied by kings and queens, knights and wizards, madrigals and jesters, horses and dragons, and other characters and creatures from a boy’s imagination. Strong had arrived here with friends.

“We were the kids that were playing role-playing games, reading fantasy and science fiction and stuff like that,” he says. “So the Renaissance Fair was pretty (darn) exciting.”

It appealed to him much more than college, which would have been an option for the teen with immense curiosity and wit.

“You know, like most kids in suburban America, you get out of high school and you just spent 18 years institutionalized,” Strong says. “So one thing I had picked up by the time I finished high school was this idea that you could go off to college, and you might be climbing a ladder to find out you’re up against the wrong wall.”

Better to see the country, he decided ー to travel to ren fairs and get to know talented, like-minded people.

“Ren fair culture is a lot of people that don’t necessarily fit into normal, real life,” he says. “So you’re gonna be talking with some very interesting people and learning some very interesting things.”

He learned about Joseph Campbell, who studied myths, epics and religious narratives and categorized them all under the “Hero’s Journey.” Campbell is known for another phrase: “Follow your bliss.”

Strong would follow his bliss to Hawaii, where he lives and works as an artist except in the summer. Also, along the way, he gained another deep-thinking idol: Alan Watts.

“I love when he said, ‘I try to be sincere, but never serious,’” Strong says. “I like to borrow that and use it here.”

Here, meaning Vegetable Justice. Here, where Campbell’s hero has been relegated to the pillory. Here, where Watts’ theory on the illusion of ego applies in the mind of the man ducking tomatoes on target (goggles now protect Strong’s eyes from damage he once endured).

Why does he do this all summer?

“I’ve thought about it,” he says, “and the reason is because I really enjoy the opportunity to use humor to transform something like criticism and harshness into something that is fun and that actually brings joy. And in the same process, to be able to have the opportunity to reduce the ego.”

Tomato throwers are asked to heed the posted notice: “This is an insult game. DO NOT PLAY if you are easily offended.”

A security guard keeps watch for those who are. But a greater threat than an offended, testosterone-fueled tomato thrower is one’s own ego, Strong says. He estimates there might be 20 other performers like him around the country. He’s not aware of anyone who’s done it longer.

“I’ve seen quite a few guys burn out,” he says. “Sometimes, like you see in other industries, they spill down the staircase of addiction. They can’t handle whatever it is.”

It might be “the intensity of the performance,” he says. “There’s a sense of self-consciousness. ‘Am I gonna do a good show? Am I gonna freeze up?'”

One must be able to let go, he says. To have fun.

This afternoon’s tomato throwers are having fun, but it’s hard to tell with the next kid. Strong jokes about the boy’s blue hair before easing up.

“It’s just weird, that’s all,” he says with a wide grin. “Weird is not bad.”