The Book Launch. Hinckle and Thompson

This was an event I didn’t want to miss. Last Gasp Books and Comics was having a “Book Launch” for their ambitious publication of: “Who Killed Hunter Thompson?” I had seen mention of the event online. The Sunday Chronicle had an article about the event at the bottom of the front page. Another article inside recounted some of Warren Hinckle’s exploits: "Friends Remember Hinckle =  bar by bar.” The first bar mentioned was Cookie Picetti’s Star Buffet. That really got my attention.  

The book is an anthology with thirty contributors describing their adventures with the good Doctor. It begins with a “book length introduction” by Warren Hinckle. The heavy tome is 530 pages and weighs three and a half pounds. 

The list of contributors is too long to repeat here, but here are some that stand out for me. Susie Bright, Robert Crumb, Johnny Depp, Ben Fong-Torres, William R. Hearst III. Dan O’Neill, Paul Krassner, Garry Trudeau, Wavy Gravy, S. Clay Wilson, Tom Wolfe. Even Governor Jerry Brown gets into the act.

The book has been heralded as the long awaited appearance of “The Night Manager.” Hunter Thompson and Warren Hinckle had shared an upstairs office at the infamous Mitchell Brothers Theater. The Mitchell Brothers Theater was a revolutionary advance in the area of adult entertainment! They redefined the strip club. Hey, it was the Seventies! Hunter was hired as the night manager, but that was probably just an excuse to hang out there all the time.    

“The Night Manager” was expected to be a description of Hunter Thompson’s adventures at the theater. Fans waited well over a decade for the book. It never appeared. Dark rumors swirled. One story was that organized crime had paid him to not publish the book. “The Night Manager” was probably just a victim of Hunter’s procrastination. Ron Turner said it never got started. Gonzo journalism and deadlines just didn’t mix.

Sam Whiting’s article in the Chronicle says that after Thompson died Jim Mitchell advanced Hinckle $10,000 to work on a book about Thompson. That was over ten years ago. Hinckle was notoriously hard to work with. He usually ignored deadlines. “Who Killed Hunter Thompson” was finished hours before Hinckle passed away.     

The book launch was held at 111 Minna, an art gallery. During the day it serves as a cafe. At night it’s a bar disguised as an art gallery. The Gallery is a block from the historic Palace Hotel. Technically it is South of Market, but I think of it as being an outpost of the Financial District. Maybe in today’s tech boom it doesn’t matter anymore. The bars and restaurants I passed on the way were crowded on a Monday night. 

The gallery is on a corner where Minna, which is really an alley, meets Second Street. This event would have drawn a big crowd anyway, but the article in the Chronicle guaranteed it. I arrived early. The event started at 6 p.m. I got there about 6:15. There were a few people outside. I entered and was surprised to find the place was already packed. It was still early. Where were they going to put fashionably late arrivals?   

I had been here for the Fortieth Anniversary of Last Gasp Anniversary, but that had been held in the larger Frank Zappa room. It puzzled me why they had it in this smaller room tonight. I checked the larger room. A sign warned: “Private Event.” It must have been some big Christmas party. The Frank Zappa Room does have an impressive bust of the man himself. It’s worth a visit.   

Right inside the door there was a table with copies of the book for sale. I debated getting a copy but there were about five people in line, so that could wait. I didn’t feel like lugging it around and I'm not much for asking for autographs. Another Hunter Thompson book? Maybe I’ll at least get a look at it first.

The paintings from the Gallery’s feature show that month were hanging around the room. “Forks In The Road. The Mike Davis Solo Show” had surreal landscapes that perfectly fit tonight’s event. There were works of another artist: “It Was Written In the Future. The Beau Adams Solo Show.”   

A table held some artifacts. There was an odd figurine of Hinckle. I recognized an ad from Hinckle’s mayoral campaign. Buttons with his opponents names were stuck on piles of dog feces. “Tired of the same old crap?” Hinckle did have a down to earth sense of humor. There were pieces of original Ralph Steadman art work. 

Hunter Thompson and Hinckle came along after the heyday of the Beats in San Francisco, but I expected some of the old guard of San Francisco’s literary scene to be there. Anybody who was anybody in San Francisco’s literary scene had to be at this one! San Francisco had been losing its true eccentrics at an alarming rate. There won’t be too many more events like this.  

People seemed to know each other and there were warm greetings and reunions. What had I expected? Maybe I would spot a familiar face from the North Beach days. Wait a minute... Who’s that guy. At least I know who he is. It’s Barry Melton! The Fish from Country Joe and the Fish! Well, at least I know who he is. Jerry Cimino, the founder of The Beat
Museum in North Beach entered.

A photographer wandered through the crowd. He had a professional camera. People gladly posed for pictures, but one guy did crack, “Is this going to be posted on Face Book?” He was trying to be humorous, but I could tell that it seemed like a repulsive idea to him. I figure it probably will be posted on Face Book.

I headed to the no host bar. It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked hopeless. Three bartenders were obviously overwhelmed. I made a stand for a while. I could have used a beer, but I hadn’t come for the booze. It was a chance to survey the room. The place was packed.

Display boards with photos divided the room into parts. Tables with a seat for the contributors were placed around the room. Each spot had a card with the signers name. Few of the signers had arrived. There was a card for “Governor Jerry Brown.” If he showed up his security would love getting him in and out of here.   

Meeting an idol usually doesn’t work out. It was during the early Eighties. I was taking an afternoon break in Tosca, a great North Beach spot. Murals on the wall were covered in nicotine. There was a back room with a pool table. An empty pool table was a valuable find at the time. As the years went on Tosca became a haven for celebrities, especially writers and those in the entertainment field. The back room was closed off for VIPs. Tosca was the kind of place with both Country and Western classics and Opera on the juke box.   

  An odd looking guy was standing near the bar. I thought he looked strange, even for North Beach. He seemed to be mumbling to himself. It took me a minute to realize who he was. I knew that Hunter Thompson had been hanging around in San Francisco and that Tosca was one of his spots. 

He said something to the bartender. I couldn’t understand a word he said. He talked in an odd, staccato way. This was my chance. I offered to buy him a drink. It’s funny to think back at how naive I was.

He recoiled and looked at me like I was a repulsive insect. I was a little surprised.  Buying drinks usually worked back then. Certainly he would want to compare notes on the state of the world with me. My buddy Hunter and me weren’t like everybody else. I’d tell him what a great writer he is, and he would share his literary secrets with me. He quickly went back to the privacy of the back room. Maybe he was tripping on something. Later I figured out how many times this probably happened to him. A younger, star struck fan wanted to hang out with the great writer.   

The place was just getting too crowded. I retreated across the street to a bar called Eddie Rickenbacker’s. Rickenbacker’s had been one of the early “fern bars" in the Seventies. It was a place to pick up members of the opposite sex. There were new owners, but it still had some of its historic decor. It wasn’t extremely crowded. Young people stood at the bar and had a good time.

I had seen Hinckle around, usually in Gino and Carlo’s. There’s not too many guys who wear an eye patch, even in San Francisco. Hinckle was one of the regulars. There was some of that North Beach aloofness. Hinckle was deeply rooted in San Francisco. He edited The Fog Horn, the student paper at the University of San Francisco. His big break was transforming Ramparts. It had been a Catholic literary magazine. Hinckle put it at the center of Sixties controversy. He was one of the first to question what was going on in Vietnam. Nixon put him under government surveillance.

Hinckle was something that was called a journalist, but he was also a prankster. He loved to roast City officials, especially prissy Mayor Dianne Feinstein. He got San Francisco police so riled that they arrested him for walking his beagle, Bentley, without a leash. The harassment backfired when pictures of the incarcerated beagle ran in the newspapers.

San Francisco has many “Sister” cities. One of them is Cork. Hinckle loved to mock the local authorities. He arranged for a visit from one of Cork’s City Council in June of 1986. Usually this wouldn’t have attracted much attention, but the councilman Hinckle invited was Bernie Murphy.
Hinckle was stirring it up again. I couldn’t remember most of their shenanigans and did a Google search. There were obituaries from The Irish Independent News and The Irish Examiner of September, 2007. Murphy was an illiterate “sandwich-board man” or as he put it, an advertising agent. Cork had been hit hard by the Recession. Casey ran for the City Council. Murphy rode a protest vote and was elected by embittered voters.  

Others saw it as “a betting coup.” The odds had started at fifty to one. Heavy betting for him lowered the odds. It was suspected that solicitors bet on him and then funded his campaign. The bookies “took a hammering.” Hinckle appreciated his notoriety. He invited him to San Francisco.

Murphy said he came to get a new set of teeth, but his official mission was to promote investment in Cork. His fellow legislators didn’t feel he was “representative.” He arrived for a ceremony at City Hall with an empty suitcase. He said he would take delivery of promised aid money right then and there.

 

A report about the ceremony said they were headed to Gino and Carlo’s. They were celebrating, but I’m not exactly sure what they were celebrating. For some reason the City authorities didn’t fill Bernie’s luggage with cash. He didn’t seem to mind. There was some kind of strange Irish diplomacy going on.  

On election day The Argonaut was planted on doorsteps and distributed throughout the City. Hinckle resurrected the news paper founded by Ambrose Bierce. It was one of my favorite parts of an election. There would be articles about the election, and there were great articles on San Francisco history. I still have copies aging in a box.

I left Rickenbacker’s, crossed the street and went back to the Minna Gallery. People were starting to huddle outside the front door. I went up the alley that was next to the gallery. 

It’s hard not to recognize Ron Turner, the creator and owner of Last Gasp Publishing. He’s tall and has long, stringy white hair and beard. He looks like a Hippie elder statesman. He was with four people who looked like they were in their twenties. He was obviously pleased to have the book out. Hinckle was notorious for procrastination and ignoring deadlines. Turner must have been ecstatic to get this book done. 

It still puzzled me that they weren’t using the big room for the book launching. A couple of valets stood in front of the door to The Zappa Room. It didn’t look like anyone was there. The valets almost looked embarrassed.  

There was a side entrance and I slipped back into the Gallery. There was more room back here and I had another look. There still weren’t many signers. Few were gathering autographs. The night was certainly a success though. 

It was still early, but it was time to leave. I couldn’t figure out what, if anything was going to happen. 

The construction of the Moscone Convention Center had eradicated a strip of nearby bars that catered to newsmen. Breen’s was gone. M&M’s moved up the street, but was never really the same. They would be called dive bars now, but in older San Francisco they were respectable establishments that served those in the newspaper industry. I hit these places in my early days in San Francisco. I knew they probably wouldn’t be around long. 

I imagined Warren HInckle and Hunter S. Thompson ditching out of the book signing and going down the street to a dark and smoky bar. God knows what they would be talking about in these dark times. Thompson always had a great way of describing evil. What would he be saying about Trump?