It’s been said that the most dangerous place in the world is between me and a microphone. That’s why I found Spectrum Dance Theater’s invitation to come soapbox at Westlake Center to the accompaniment of a troupe of interpretive dancers utterly irresistible. I didn’t talk about homelessness. Others had that base covered.

Instead I railed against boring people, who bore you with their boring problems. “I mean, how dare they!” I shouted, my voice quivering with unexpectedly real outrage.

But the center was held by the street kids, who would have been there anyway and unexpectedly found themselves at the coolest speaking platform ever. They talked about “spanging” (the contraction of spare changing), having nowhere to go, and being despised.

The punker-girl who was up when I arrived sounded for all the world like she was addressing her high school civics class, which is where, in a less screwed-up time, she would have been. Others talked about how they weren’t like those spangers who use drugs (homeless teens apparently never use drugs), and how your judiciously offered money would go to things like, oh, clean shirts for job interviews. This kid looked like a four-foot-eight version of Sean Penn in one of his seedier roles.

But in one aspect, they were completely convincing. They were kids. Immature, petulant, stressed out, vulnerable kids. All that armor didn’t hide a thing. To indict society, they only had to be there.