With Dr. Hunter S. Thompson moving on to bigger and better things, writers, critics, stoners and other hangers-on are organizing tributes around the country and around the world. But we have a feeling that the only one Hunter himself would have attended would be right here in San Francisco at the Edinburgh Castle Pub. Sure, Jahn Wenner will probably throw some blockbuster event full of literary luminaries in New York, but we all know that Rolling Stone lost any counter-cultural relevance it may have had when they moved across the country, and it's in San Francisco where the independent spirit and the embrace of the surreal that was Thompson's legacy still lives on. From the press release:

San Francisco is the fertile ground that provided the framework for Fear and Loathing. Without Oscar Zeta-Acosta, writing his own books at the Royan Hotel on Valencia and 15th, there is no gonzo journalism. Hunter S. Thompson was an early 60’s transplant to Big Sur, from his time as the Night Manager at the Mitchell Brothers, riding with the Hells Angels, writing at the old South of Market Rolling Stone, terrorizing the offices of Ramparts magazine in North Beach, holed up at the Seal Rock Inn polishing Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, or turning in copy to the old Examiner via fax an hour before the paper went to print, his stamp on the Bay Area is undeniable.

It's being called , and it's being organized by Patrick Hughes of SCB Distributors. There will be readings by writers such as Stephen Elliott, Michelle Tea, Bucky Sinister and SFist's own muse and guardian angel Susie Bright (who penned a really beautiful eulogy on her blog) among many others. Of course we'll be there, and it is our intent to celebrate. Beer and, we're sure, other psychoactives will be consumed in quantity, and we should easily make enough noise for him to hear us cheering wherever he's gone.

The Edinburgh Castle Pub is at 950 Geary. The wake starts at nine and admission is free.

Vicious Bullshit: A Hallucinatory Wake in Honor of the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson