Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

The city of Santa Cruz cancelled their organized and sanctioned New Year's Eve parade last month; some members of the community (particularly some Burning Man veterans who don't like waiting all year for an opportunity to act out) jumped at the chance to have an unorganized and unsanctioned event, and invited anybody and everybody to show up and march.

There is no logical reason for a komuso to join the freak parade, so there he was. Even in the staging area, the tengai preserved his anonymity so well that only three or four people saw my--I mean his--face all evening.

The parade was great, anarchic fun--at one point, the Komuso was accompanied by two drummers chanting Dr. John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters." The real payoff, though, came after the parade ended.

The parade route was a straight line; to get to his ride home, our man had to retrace the route. He remained in persona as he walked past the movie theaters, restaurants, and bars. A patron stepped out of one of the bars, probably not knowing there was such a thing as a Komuso, much less expecting to confront one. He stood and gaped for about ten seconds until he could grasp just what was so strange about the situation:

"WHOA. DUUUDE, you got a BASKET on your head."

And this is how the year ended.