Riding in the back seat,
On the road from Duluth to Minneapolis.
Jen is cocooned to my right, listening to her iPod.
Michael’s driving, Toussaint’s shotgun.
The moon is pretty near full,
And we’re bathed in moonlight that competes with the glare of my Blackberry screen.
The highway hurtles into our headlights from the darkness ahead of us,
And recedes back into it behind us.
I can see a lot of stars, though I’d see a lot more
if the moon weren’t so bright.
I’m reminded of Louisiana, driving down Hwy 1082 at night.
Or even I-12 between Mandeville & Hammond.
I miss it.
Especially since it’s probably 60 degrees colder here than there.

We’re headed straight home from a show at St. Scholastica,
Another “Strange Like Me.”
Last week, I was impressed by Damian’s performance
of what we refer to as “The Meanie Man monologue,” or simply “Meanie Man.”
Originally intended for the white male actor, but now played by whoever wants to give it a shot,
Meanie Man is a torrent of words that kicks off the show
With a stream of invective and racial epithets aimed at the audience.
The aim is to use specific audience members, engage them, and get the whole house involved.
I’ve always been timid about it though, just rattling off the monologue like a bad audition piece.
I’ve only done it well once or twice.
Damian’s extensive interaction with the audience last week,
Even getting them to contribute actively to the piece,
Is exactly what is needed, and exactly what I never do.
Wearing a dress shirt that he borrowed from me,
Damian rocked the piece like I hadn’t seen before.
He even had one guy stand up and become the lightning rod for his vitriol.
He asked for racial epithets from audience members, and got plenty.
Wearing the same shirt tonight,
I did the Meanie Man, and probably better than I have before.
I credit the shirt.
It had been infused with the power.

I actually had fun, particlarly mocking the audience’s shocked reactions.
As vile as it is, the material no longer shocks us,
So their gasps did genuinely strike me as funny at the moment.

As with most of our larger shows, we wore body mics tonight.
When he handed me my mic, the tech guy said,
“You’ve got Al Franken’s mic.”
Last night, that space hosted a DFL function of some kind,
And Al Franken participated.
The wireless mic I used to verbally assault freshmen
Was used 24 hours earlier by Al Franken.
As with the shirt Damian wore,
I figured Al Franken’s mic had been infused with power.
We had a good show.

One noteworthy event:
During the talkback for “Linda, Ted, and Al”
(The show’s first real scene, jampacked with sexism and racism discussion points)
A white kid named Walt challenged Toussaint (playing Al, the black male).
Al is supposed to be super standoffish.
Walt wanted to really communicate.
Eventually Walt said, “I’d like to come down there and talk about this with you.”
Toussaint said okay.
Walt joined us at our “cafeteria table” set, toting a bag of Twizzlers.
I gave him my seat and milled around while he and Toussaint talked.
During this fellowship, I helped myself to Walt’s Twizzlers.
It’s in Ted’s character to do so, I decided.
Plus, I was hungry.

Now we’re in the car,
Ruminating on the particular idiosyncracies of tonight’s talkbacks.
We always find some students’ specious logic hard to believe.
How can they not see the cognitive dissonance in what they just said?
Why is the idea of white privilege so unbelievable for some white Minnesotans?
Why is Linda a bad guy for wishing Ted had told her that Al was black,
But Gary should have told Rich that he’s gay?
Most of these people have probably never talked about this stuff out loud,
And not with so many other, different people.
Prompting the dialogue is the thing.
And we watch it work wonders.

I’m enjoying gas station French Vanilla cappuccino,
A guilty pleasure of mine for the past decade.
To me, it’s inextricably tied to cold, late night road trips.
Although, to me back then,
“Cold” meant 40 degrees,
Now it means 5.
It’s just a matter of perspective, I guess.