Hate Man

March 3, 2011 12:00 PM

Hate Man. "How a New York Times reporter dropped out and became a hate evangelist in Berkeley."

The subject of this story, Mark Hawthorne, was also interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2010 and The Daily Californian in 2002.

The Chronicle piece was picked apart at the time by author Avery Glibert on his blog.

posted by zarq (49 comments total)

It's behind a paywall, but the New York Times website does have an archive of articles he wrote. One of the commenters at the East Bay Express link also created a pdf of his first article for the Times.
posted by zarq at 12:05 PM on March 3, 2011

Wow.
posted by grobstein at 12:12 PM on March 3, 2011

Hmm, I thought he'd be a horrible person spouting off racial and homophobic slurs, but he actually sounds like an eccentric but likable guy. I guess it shows how "hate" has kind of picked up a new meaning these days.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:14 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rats. I was just going to post this. Fuck you, I hate you.
posted by mykescipark at 12:15 PM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Drugs and mental illness, apparently. Although, it sounds like he's a lot better off than a lot of people in that situation.
posted by demiurge at 12:15 PM on March 3, 2011

mykescipark: "Rats. I was just going to post this. Fuck you, I hate you."

I should have offered to push you for it! :)
posted by zarq at 12:16 PM on March 3, 2011

Haters gonna get profiled.
posted by defenestration at 12:16 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: I hate you
posted by randomination at 12:16 PM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

“You want your money, but you don’t want it. You will keep five hundred thousand credits, FOE money, which will leave you the richest man in Old North Australia for the rest of a very long life. The rest you will give to a foundation which will teach men to hate easily and lightly, as in a game, not sickly and wearily, as in habit."
posted by grobstein at 12:17 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

BTW, I read this earlier when I saw it on Long Reads, a website/service MeFites would do well to keep an eye on.
posted by defenestration at 12:19 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

This dude is the Siddhartha of hate?

I don't think it's going to work out all that great.

I'm the Siddhartha of 'meh'.
posted by GuyZero at 12:20 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"...He believes that people are most caring when they're upfront about their disdain for each other. Only then, he says, can people trust one another."

I refute it thus: The Tea Party. I'm pretty sure I've voiced my disdain for them plenty, and vice-versa, and I still don't trust 'em. Now fuck you, give me a cigarette.
posted by KGMoney at 12:21 PM on March 3, 2011

BTW, I read this earlier when I saw it on Long Reads, a website/service MeFites would do well to keep an eye on.

Yep, a lot of stuff ends up here either from Longreads or from Longform.org. There's a lot of cross-pollination between them as well.
posted by mykescipark at 12:22 PM on March 3, 2011

defenestration: "BTW, I read this earlier when I saw it on Long Reads, a website/service MeFites would do well to keep an eye on."

Absolutely. I follow them! (I think I've even credited them before in other posts.) Didn't find this there today, tho. :)
posted by zarq at 12:23 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

DaDa-DaDa-DaDa-DaDa-DaDa-DaDa-DA-Hateman!
posted by doctor_negative at 12:32 PM on March 3, 2011

I hate this. Fuck that guy.
posted by Construction Concern at 12:33 PM on March 3, 2011

Year: 4012 A.D.
Setting: a large parking lot strewn with debris
A man stands on a rusty car body and pulls a book from his bag. Hundreds of people stand in front of him.
"I turn now to the Gospel of Jaguar, page 42, section 3: 'Just be oppositional and straight in all you do.' Now, let us all push."
posted by perhapses at 12:33 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rick Starr and Stoney Burke were more entertaining.
posted by Mountain Goatse at 12:45 PM on March 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Crazy people that live on the street is news?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:47 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Crazy people that live on the street is news?

He's eccentric, but doesn't seem crazy in any egregiously out-of-touch-with-reality way.
posted by juv3nal at 12:56 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to Hate's younger sister Prudence Hawthorne, who lives in Montana and is something of an archivist of Hate's life, her brother seemed particularly sensitive of other people's phoniness.

You know, he would have been about 15 when The Catcher In The Rye was published and grew up in the northeast.
posted by TedW at 1:01 PM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't really hold NYT in such high esteem as a lot of you do. I kinda see this as "well he had the choice for becoming management at NYT, or spouting hate...and he took the better option".
posted by hal_c_on at 1:04 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The advantage of time is that we only remember the clever things Diogenes said.
posted by klangklangston at 1:05 PM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Stoney Burke is gone?!

Man, anyone, *anyone* who has attended Berkeley in the last 20 years has spent a Friday afternoon baked on the steps of Sproul Hall watching The Hate Man go at it with some crazy ass Phelps-wannabe preacher man. You have not lived until you have seen some loudmouth jesus freak with a megaphone preaching about drugs and homosexuality and the end of the world, trailed by an elderly homeless man in drag chain smoking Virginia Slims who is responding in rapid fire to everything Preacher-Man-in-a-cheap suit says with a "fuck you!" "you're wrong! "you don't know shit you child-fucker!" all while the Preacher Man is completely ignoring the raving lunatic 2 inches from his face. Every Friday at noon, same place. It was like the perfect yin and yang.

I'd spoken with the Hate Man a few times and I can tell you, at least in the 80's and 90's, he was not mentally ill. More like a professional character or performer. Really mind blowing. This was a nice article.

I wonder what happened to Stoney Burke? Rick Star was pretty awesome too.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:14 PM on March 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

...a website/service MeFites would do well to keep an eye on.

OR ELSE WHAT
posted by circular at 1:17 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Stoney Burke was living in Ann Arbor over the last 20 years, and ran for president as John McTaint.
posted by klangklangston at 1:22 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

He can actually be pretty amusing when he gets rolling on a rant. Especially when he's tangling with fundamentalist street preachers.
posted by gallois at 1:22 PM on March 3, 2011

klangklangston: "Stoney Burke was living in Ann Arbor over the last 20 years, and ran for president as John McTaint."

Whoa!
posted by zarq at 1:23 PM on March 3, 2011

OR ELSE WHAT
or else it will be TOO LATE by the time we realize they have replaced mathowie, jessamyn, cortex, pb, & vacapinta with tank-bred tleilaxu infiltrators.
posted by juv3nal at 1:23 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

He's eccentric, but doesn't seem crazy in any egregiously out-of-touch-with-reality way.

But ... he ... lives ... on the street. And eats garbage. This isn't merely cute and endearing.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:24 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

He has crafted a persona he says is modeled after Jesus, except that he says "fuck you" instead of "I love you" and dispenses cigarettes instead of miracles.

This is the history of our country in human form.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:27 PM on March 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

There's plenty of safe, edible food in the "garbage." The U.S. throws out 50% of its food. I'm glad somebody's eating some of it.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:27 PM on March 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I refute it thus: The Tea Party.

But you have reasons for hating them, so it's not real hatred, which is unconditional. You're still holding out the possibility that they could reject their political positions and earn your love. This encourages people to manage the way they present themselves to you.

Hate Man hates you unconditionally, before you've even said anything. That means you can say anything, because there's no possibility of making things worse. His hatred is universal, which means that unlike most people, you aren't the one ugly, hateful thing in his world that sticks out among all the happy, positive things that he loves, so he has no reason to destroy you.
posted by AlsoMike at 1:31 PM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think teaching people to express their hatred in a responsible, harmless manner is a fine idea. However, delivering random meaningless fuck-yous to strangers is probably not the best way to go about it.
posted by LogicalDash at 1:32 PM on March 3, 2011

But ... he ... lives ... on the street. And eats garbage. This isn't merely cute and endearing.

So he does by choice what thousands, if not millions, of people worldwide do out of necessity. That's not crazy.

I like this guy. I like his praxis. I would subscribe to his newsletter.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:32 PM on March 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

So, what happened to his daughter after the divorce and the death of his ex-wife? Did he just go off on his hate crusade and leave her behind? If so, I totally understand why she might feel abandoned by him.
posted by katemonster at 2:01 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

But ... he ... lives ... on the street. And eats garbage. This isn't merely cute and endearing.

If you've ever lived or worked in Berkeley, or been anywhere near People's Park on a typical day, it qualifies as harmless eccentricity. Even cute.
posted by blucevalo at 2:27 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

katemonster: "So, what happened to his daughter after the divorce and the death of his ex-wife? Did he just go off on his hate crusade and leave her behind? If so, I totally understand why she might feel abandoned by him."

It would appear so.

Having a father who refused to tell her he loved her probably wouldn't have been pleasant, either.
posted by zarq at 2:29 PM on March 3, 2011

katemonster, zarq, from near the very end of the article:

But while oppositionality may have inspired others, it didn't exactly soothe Hate's relationship with his daughters. He says he's at "arms-length" with his older daughter, who [sic] he calls "Equation" and who lives in Ohio with her husband and daughter, and ZiZi, who still lives in Berkeley. "That's one thing I have not solved," Hate lamented. "The kids feel abandoned, like I don't care about them." When they do get together, he said, "it feels fake. There's an emotional rift."
posted by dhens at 2:55 PM on March 3, 2011

I grew up in Berkeley, and this guy was a fixture of the angsty adolescence I spent hanging around the UC campus pretending to be a cool college kid (i.e. ordering lattes at Cafe Med, trawling Moe's Books for sufficiently pretentious philosophical tracts, and getting fashion tips from the Telegraph Avenue street vendors). Thanks for reminding me -- I'd almost forgotten.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 3:03 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

College campuses seem to attract these sorts of eccentric "fringie" characters. Ann Arbor had a few although I left before I really knew who they were, and I'm sure places like Madison WI and other college towns have them too. Maybe those towns are like the minor leagues, and the fringies hang out in them until they work up a good enough act to hit the big time, i.e. Berkeley. He sure seems to have captured the attention of North Cal journalistas, eh?
posted by motown missile at 3:35 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel unnecessary.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:00 PM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hate isn't what you might expect from a homeless person....He is also thoughtful and clearly educated.

...because back then the New York Times hired only thoughtless ignoramuses. :)
posted by storybored at 5:37 PM on March 3, 2011

Then in his mid-thirties, Hate was working as a legal secretary and living near campus in Barrington Hall, a co-op whose tenants had a reputation for rampant drug use.

And, of course, he's a co-oper. So, there's only one degree of separation (or is that opposition?) between us.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 5:42 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

But ... he ... lives ... on the street. And eats garbage. This isn't merely cute and endearing


Much like my guru, Oscar the Grouch
posted by Redhush at 6:49 PM on March 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

back in 1977, i was a telegraph avenue street hippie and encountered the hate man going at it in classic style with a glassy eyes evangelist named raymond who seemed to be on something - after the fun and games were over hate man introduced himself as "berkeley baby" and we began rapping about his philosophy and why he preferred to tell people he hated them

"it's more honest," he said - "a lot of times people are irritating the hell out of you and you hate them, but you won't tell them that - we all hate each other - it's something deep inside us that we hardly ever admit to each other" - he went on about this and told me that he used to be a new york times reporter and just couldn't deal with the straightness any more - that he wanted to live an honest existence and be free

what really fascinated me about him that he was an obviously kind man, a sort of psychedelic saddhu who was fairly straight and warm with people in spite of his professed hatred - dressed in a white robe and looking much like the picture in the article, only much, much younger - i don't remember any pushing involved, but we got on well - and when he found out that i had been crashing at maggie's farm, a vacant lot on the north side of campus off of euclid ave, he invited me to crash at his place - he didn't charge me anything, either

i wish i could remember everything we talked about, but to me, he was a lucid and kind-hearted person - and he told me that he was the inventer of the "bullshit" rubber stamp and got about 600 bucks in royalties a year from it - his apartment was spare and simple - and he was an engaging conversationalist

he seemed to have a real affinity for street people, too - and it doesn't surprise me that he's become one - i don't want to romanticize what is a desperate and thankless existence for many, many people, but a few do this by choice, at least in the people's republic of berkeley - they like the freedom and simplicity of it

frankly, i was depressed and crazy as hell at that time and couldn't handle anything else but that - it was a bad time for me and a good time for me - i wasn't well but there were people like berkeley baby, aka the hate man, who looked out for me and tried to keep me up during a hard and crazy time - i wasn't right, but you know, a lot of the people i hung with were pretty damn righteous anyway

and yet, there's a part of me that wishes i was over there still, hanging out with him and whoever else has hung on through those times

i can't feel sad about what has happened to him - he's kept to his path and refined it, i think, and i - i've wandered around through light and darkness and become someone else - more rooted and responsible, but less free

well, it would have been a duller life if i had never met him - god hate and bless you, berkeley baby hate man
posted by pyramid termite at 9:55 PM on March 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

Miss Berkeley. Miss Hate Man. Miss young again.
posted by humannaire at 10:15 PM on March 3, 2011

If this were India, he'd be a holy man.
posted by dhartung at 12:27 PM on March 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, I grew up in Berkeley and this guy was always called The Hate Lady, I guess because of the crossdressing. What up with "hate man?"
posted by damehex at 12:56 PM on March 4, 2011