Hate Man Abides
Posted by Ted Friedman July 16, 2013He's second only to Berkeley's Pink Cloud, who claims to have been homeless for sixty years.
A forty year veteran of Berkeley's streets, Harold, died last year of complications from an untreated foot infection.
Yet Hate Man, 77, abides with nothing more than a sleeping bag and incessant smoking. He declines drugs and alcohol.
Although housed in the 70's, Hate, as he is known to his "followers" has been homeless by choice for more than forty years, surviving by foraging food from Berkeley's South Side cornucopian trash cans and trafficking in street-economics barter and "pushing."
Pushing is a Hate Man ritual which pits your shoulder and velocity against his. The loser may forfeit a cigarette or an argument.
Hate founded Camp Hate in the 90's at the Southeast corner of People's Park when U.C.'s Sproul plaza, where hate became a campus landmark, became "nowhere…nothing happening."
The camp, which does not get its due from Hate Man Wiki, is in session from dawn to camp curfew. Anyone within ear-shot will hear an endless stream of vituperations interspersed with philosophies from the camp.
The Hate-Man Cult operates on a simple set of rigid rules. The main rule is no bull. State your requests directly, and most importantly, be sure to address each other with "I hate you," being sure to throw in a few f-words.
Hate recently survived his latest legal entanglement by serving three days in county jail.With his attorney unavailable, he reluctantly copped a guilty plea for "illegal lodging" at the Christian Science Church across the street, after the park curfew evicted him for the night.
But the days of hunting for food are mostly past history. Churches and others make regular food drops and recently Hate has been honored with his own nearby city dumpster.
Hate Man photo-essay @berkeleyreporter.com
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Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Hate Man, 73, has been a well-known homeless character for more than two decades on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.
From: http://www.sfgate.com/
Photo: Kevin Fagan, The Chronicle
Known as Mark Hawthorne when he was a New York Times news reporter from 1961 to 1970, Hate Man has lived mostly on the streets in Berkeley since opting out of normal society in 1986. For a man whose penchant for wearing cast-off women's clothes and eating garbage seems a tad feral, the 73-year-old Hate Man is a surprisingly gentle, lucid conversationalist about most anything - particularly his philosophy that everyone must acknowledge that they really hate each other. He went over the fine points with reporter Kevin Fagan.
Q: You require people to say "I hate you" before you begin a conversation. Do you really hate everyone?
A: I do. But it's a new way of hating. It's about being straight with people. The dictionary defines hate as hostility, but that's heavy. My idea is to be straight about negative feelings that we all have, which is what hate is, and then you can have a real conversation. Don't be threatening or angry or snotty - just straight.
Q: So do you not believe in love?
A: Love? There's nothing wrong with that. I'm into positives, but we should be straight about the negatives to clear them first. My philosophy is to feel the positives more than say them. Act them out.
Q: Why do you like to eat out of trash cans?
A: It's free. It makes your immune system strong. It's risky and offensive to some people, but I'm cautious. I sniff it and don't just eat anything.
