ASPEN, Colo. -- Friends of journalist Hunter S. Thompson say they want to blast his cremated remains out of a cannon in a final salute to the gun-loving writer who committed suicide last weekend.

"If it can be done, we will do it," said Boston attorney George Tobia Jr., who represented Thompson for about 15 years. "Maybe it will be part of a public thing or maybe one night a shot will ring out and people will know."

Thompson, 67, shot himself in the head Sunday night with a .45-caliber handgun in the kitchen of his home in the Woody Creek area north of Aspen. Friends said he had been in considerable pain over the past year after breaking a leg and undergoing hip surgery.

The family tentatively plans a private commemoration of his life on March 5, family spokesman Douglas Brinkley said. He said it's being called a "commemoration" because "Hunter hated words like 'memorial."'

A larger event to celebrate Thompson's literary career may be staged in April, he said.

Thompson's remains were cremated on Tuesday. He was long fascinated by firearms and explosives; his friends say he often joked that he was cannon fodder and wanted his ashes to be shot from a cannon.

Pitkin County sheriff's spokesman Joe DiSalvo said that would probably be legal.

"It think if someone wanted to fire a cannon on their own property, I think they could do that," said Pitkin County Sheriff's Investigator Joe Disalvo. "I think by statute it would be OK."

Thompson was cremated in Glenwood Springs Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Thompson-related items are hot sellers on the Internet auction site eBay. By 5 p.m. Tuesday, eBay had 1,800 bids placed on 601 items related to Thompson.

The items include a 5-inch tall action figure of Uncle Duke, the Doonesbury character based on Thompson.