Had to give Cruising for Howard Dean another try this weekend.

Decided I'd try it at The End Up, a long time San Francisco institution, where you can, ah, end up spending 12-14 hours from the time you get there to the time you go home. It's been going since 1973.

My first sally for Dean didn't give me a lot of hope. I was talking to a few of the younger guys -- this time, "May I talk to you about Howard Dean" wasn't the first thing out of my mouth, but I did get around to saying it eventually.

They had, I think, enjoyed talking to me until then, but they became wary. Was this a religious thing? Some damn survey and I'd spent time ingratiating myself so they'd have to fill out forms for 20 minutes fighting the urge to run away and dance?

They didn't know who he was. I explained and they said "well, if I haven't heard of him, he doesn't have a chance of winning." I asked who they did know about, and, well, they couldn't name anyone. "So now that you know about Dean do you think he can win?" This made them run off dancing, not bothering to give me a phone number, not even a fake one.

I was discouraged, so I had a shot and then tried to find the sticking place to screw my courage to. So there he was...

The next guy I walked up to I just asked directly, without introducing myself, may I talk to you about Howard Dean. He did a double-take, his eyes going wide.

"Yes, yes, yes! Oh my god yes!" (Howard Dean's own Molly Bloom) "I fucking love Howard Dean! He so pro gay and he doesn't want me to have to wear a stupid wedding dress! So talk to me about Howard Dean!"

Ah, he's just great, I replied.

I'd never gotten this far before. I wasn't prepared for it. Where had I left my talking points?

Besides, he knew more about him than I did.

I told him about the history of Cruising for Howard Dean--my first joke was that I was going to form a committee. Well, now I have. He was to become its second member.

The bastard--he was better at it than I was. Not just a little better, either.

Right away he ran off to a gaggle of boys and talked about Dean. The gaggle grew. In 5 minutes, they not only wanted to vote for Dean, but thought that Dean was sexy. I realized that I hadn't formed an opinion on that matter, another example of how badly I had prepared.

Then he recruited them to cruise for Howard Dean.

I kept up my efforts, and did meet a few attractive and smart guys. A few phone numbers for my efforts.

Oddly I kept running into people who said "that guy who's married to the ketchup lady--he's much better than Dean! This, er, happened more than once, so I've clearly underestimated the importance of condiments in political cruising.

Eventually, however, my committee had grown and I was falling far behind.

Every time I tried to cruise a guy for Dean now, I found that he has been pre-Dean-cruised.

"Oh, yeah," I was told "this guy over there told me everything I need to know about Howard Dean. Not only do I want to vote for him, but now I also think he's cute. Why don't you go talk to him to find out more about Dean?"

Well, I'm afraid, my initial convert may be the cruising for Howard Dean man now. I asked him to remember details of his Dean cruising so I could add them to my blog -- but, you know he's probably just going to start cruisingfordean.org now.

I caught up with him and we went to the bar. He asked the bartender "Can I talk to you about Howard Dean?"

She screamed. Her sister was working on his campaign. Many free drinks ensued. ("Cruise for Dean! It will lower your bar tab!") Well, that made me more talkative at least.

I just hope that he'll leave some place for me in this organization I formed that I never thought I'd really form. At least I did get those phone numbers -- and an offer for the most amazing haircut, for some reason.

So Lonewacko may not be right after all. But you know what they say about the End Up...

I've noticed that people are now finding my site by searching for "Cruising for Howard Dean" on google.

I suspect that I have other people at the End Up to thank for that.

So, who wants to sign up now and join us? I'm afraid it may be too late to stop us now.