Berkeley’s homeless Hate Man dies at 80
Updated 9:17 pm, Monday, April 3, 2017
New, SFGATE, Hate Man Memorial in People’s Park April 3, 2017
Media: SFGATE
The Hate Man, one of the most colorful and endearing homeless people ever to hit the sidewalks of the Bay Area, has died at the age of 80.
His actual name was Mark Hawthorne, but he hadn’t called himself that since 1970, when he abandoned his job as a reporter for the New York Times after nine years and first took up residence on the streets of Berkeley.
Failing in health for the past year, he died of heart failure Sunday night at a hospital in Berkeley, according to friends who were helping take care of him.
Mr. Hawthorne sported a long beard, often wore women’s clothing, extolled the virtues of eating out of trash cans, and became a fixture in Berkeley’s People’s Park shortly after adopting a life outdoors. A gentle man, he engaged passersby in conversations about everything from philosophy to architecture on Telegraph Avenue and was a calming influence among the street’s other homeless residents.
He came up with his name, he once told The Chronicle, after deciding that honest communication can only be attained after acknowledging that hate exists between everyone.
He made a habit of talking to people only after they first said, “I hate you,” to which he would respond the same, often accompanied by a cheerful “f— you.” He also loved to do a “push,” in which he and the other person lightly pushed shoulders or hands with each other to get acquainted.
“There was nothing hateful about him at all. Eccentric, yes. But he was engaging,” said longtime friend Julie Sager of Concord, who met Mr. Hawthorne on the UC Berkeley campus 25 years ago and often visited him with her daughters for the conversation.
“He was very smart,” Sager said. “He’d talk about anything and everything, philosophy, people. And he loved talking about himself, which was fine, although he didn’t have an elevated sense of importance.
“He kept things calm on the street just by engaging with people with conversation. Even me, and I’m Miss Straitlaced.”
Asked by a Chronicle reporter in 2010 if he really hated everybody, Mr. Hawthorne laughed and said, “I do. But it’s a new way of hating. It’s about being straight with people. … 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.”
Mr. Hawthorne was born in Washington, D.C., to a mother who was a schoolteacher and a father who was a reporter for the Associated Press. After earning a degree in English at the University of Connecticut, he served in the Air Force and then wound up at the New York Times in 1961.
He once told The Chronicle that he took LSD in 1970 and decided to hit the streets. After living off and on inside for his first decade in Berkeley, he began his permanent camping life in 1986. His one nod to indoor life was a storage space to hold his continuously growing 20 boxes of “dream journals.”
“He was sort of like a social worker for those who slipped through the cracks,” said his nephew Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, an art teacher in San Francisco. “He was a very caring man, and I feel like his death is the passing of an era in People’s Park.”
Mr. Hawthorne is survived by Ficks and another nephew, Prometheus Hawthorne Jones of Lafayette; and a sister, Prudence Hawthorne of Missoula, Mont.
Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.co
Acid Heroes: the Legends of LSD
April 7, 2017
One more rainy night on Sproul Plaza
It’s fucking unbelievable! The weather tonight is like a middle-of-the-winter type rainstorm. On fucking April 6th. Sirens and firetrucks are blasting in my ears on the Ave. The wind actually breaks my umbrella in half. I start screaming “FUCK!! FUCK!!” at the top of my lungs as I’m walking down the street in the pouring rain. So I’m handling adversity with my usual maturity.
For a second I thought I was gonna completely crack up. But then I remembered I had cracked up a long time ago. So that was a relief.
I grab my back-up umbrella from my stash spot and head to my favorite late-night hang-out spot — this secluded awning over-looking lower Sproul Plaza. But some other bum has already grabbed that spot. Fuck!
So I trudge in the pouring rain to my second favorite late-night hang-out spot — this little nook in the basement of Dwinelle Hall. But wouldn’t you just know it?? There’s someone else hanging out there, too. Fuck!
So I go to my third favorite late-night hang-out spot — the lobby of Dwinelle Hall. It’s almost 10 o’clock, but there’s still a fair amount of people hanging out. But I find a spot in the back where I can probably get away with discreetly drinking my beer while I charge my cellphone. So I take off all my wet jackets, plug in my cellphone, pull out my 6-pack of Racer 5, and reach into my backpack for my bottle-opener. But wouldn’t you just know it? My bottle-opener is gone. Fuck! I search through every pocket of my backpack. Pull out everything in my backpack. To no avail. My bottle-opener is gone. I briefly try to open the bottle of beer with a pair of scissors. But there’s too many people milling around to be able to pull it off discreetly.
So I pack up ALL my shit, put ALL my jackets back on, and trudge off in search of a bottle-opener. It’s been just an unbelievably weird sequence of events over the last half hour. Where everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong — one thing after another after another after another. Like the Universe is fucking with me for sport, or something.
As I’m heading for the door I noticed a discarded umbrella lying on the floor by the trash can. I already got an umbrella, but I figure I might as well grab a back-up in case the wind destroys this umbrella, too. But as I’m walking out the door, this college student sidles up to me, and he’s following me step-for-step as I’m walking, and glaring at me with anger. So I stop and face him to see what his fucking problem is.
“Did you just steal my umbrella!!” he said.
“You mean this?” I said holding up the umbrella.
“Yes! That’s my umbrella!”
“Oh man, I just thought it was discarded and was gonna get thrown out.” I hand him his umbrella. “I apologize.”
“OK. It’s cool,” he says, still glaring at me. And storms off into the storm.
So it’s unbelievable. How everything keeps going from bad to worse. And everything I touch turns to shit. I mean, 90% of the time that would have been a perfectly good move, grabbing that umbrella — I ground-score all sorts of great stuff lying around that’s been abandoned. But when the stars are aligned against me — like they obviously are now — it was stupid of me to make any unnecessary moves. Because whatever I do is likely to back-fire on me. So I feel like an incredible fool.
* * * *
Now some Hindus believe that when a person dies, his spirit lingers heavily in the area where he lived for several weeks. Before it finally disperses and merges back into the Cosmos. And for those several weeks, the spirit can have all sorts of effects on the area. In extreme cases, it can rein lightning bolts down on it’s enemies. Or it can bestow gifts to it’s friends. Or it can just send out weird little signals as a way of saying good-bye.
So, as I’m walking in the rain, it occurred to me. The whole bizarre sequence of events that I just experienced was probably being directly by Hate Man and his recently disembodied spirit (he had just died a couple days ago). I mean, the whole thing was exactly out of Hate Man’s playbook. Battling with a rainstorm on Sproul Plaza. Cursing in rage. And getting into an angry confrontation that managed to somehow resolve itself peacefully.
* * * *
So I head to my fourth favorite late-night hang-out spot. This secluded table under an awning in the back of the patio of the Golden Bear restaurant on Sproul Plaza.
And — miracle of miracles!! — the spot is deserted and I can actually hang out there.
And there’s a metal grating on the side of the wall. I put the top of my beer bottle into the grating and pull the bottle cap off with ease. The beer foams up out of the bottle, like champagne when you pop the cork in celebration. But I manage to pour most of the beer into my cup before it all spills out. I take a big hit off the beer. And it tasted damn good. Things are finally starting to go my way.
I look in my backpack. Notice I have one last cigarette in my pack of Virginia Slims 100s that I bought yesterday in honor of Hate Man. I light it up, take a big hit. At that exact moment the Campanile Tower bell starts chiming as the clock hits 10 PM. Just as it had done on the countless nights when Hate Man had set up his Hate Camp on Sproul Plaza back in the day. Adding an other-worldly dimension to my smoke. And I thought back to the countless nights I had spent on Sproul Plaza with Hate Man and the crew. Thinking of all the memories. From all the years. . .
The rain kept pouring down for hours. Pounding down relentless on the pavement. The over-hanging tree branches nearby me kept swaying back and forth in the fierce gale winds. It was a pretty powerful storm. So there was really nothing I could do except hole up at my table under the awning and pop open 5 more beers over the course of the evening. Mostly thinking about nothing.
Then — it must have been after midnight but I was starting to get a little sketchy on the details at this point, if you know what I mean — after having finished off all the beer. I took out a couple of slices of leftover pizza that I had also ground-scored earlier at Dwinelle Hall (and no, I didn’t “steal” it!). And as I’m eating the pizza, completely out of the blue. A skunk shows up. And starts trotting towards me. Fuck. I have no idea what the skunk was doing back there. He was probably holed up in the far back corner of the patio, huddling under an awning, waiting out the storm. Just like me. But the smell of my pizza had probably roused him.
So I tossed the skunk one of my slices of pizza. Which he gobbled up readily. And then trotted past me. And disappeared out onto Sproul Plaza.
And then it occurred to me. That skunk was probably also a manifestation of Hate Man’s spirit. I mean, the similarities were striking. The skunk was black-and-white. Just like Hate Man’s black-and white shoes and uniforms. The skunk was kind of an “outcast,” mostly living on the fringes of human society. Just like Hate Man. The skunk had been huddling under an awning on Sproul during a rainstorm. Just as Hate Man had done countless times over the years. And I had shared a slice of leftover pizza with the skunk. Just as I had shared countless slices of leftover pizza with Hate Man, night after night after picking up the leftover pizza from Greg’s Pizza every night.
Even weirder. Just as the skunk disappeared onto Sproul Plaza. The rain suddenly completely stopped.
Which made me even more convinced that that skunk had been a manifestation of Hate Man’s spirit and magic.
Or maybe it was just a fucking skunk. Who really knows. But one thing’s for sure. This life is a hell of lot more mysterious than some people think it is.
.
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April 6, 2017
April 5, 2017
Hate Man eulogy
RIP Hate Man 1936 – 2017
I was just waiting on the line at the Dollar Store this morning. The guy on line in front of me was talking to this other guy: “Hey, did you hear? The Hate Man died on Sunday. Yeah. The famous person from Berkeley. I just heard about it 5 minutes ago on CBS. Hate Man lived in People’s Park for years and years. He used to be a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. . . ”
I thought I was gonna start crying right there in the fucking store.
* * * *
The worst thing is. It’s now 6:30 in the evening. And I’ve drunk the first half of my 40 of OE. And now this is the time of the evening when — for just about every evening for the last 10 years — I’d walk over to Hate Camp at the top of People’s Park. And I’d pull up a blue milk crate to sit on. And I’d buy a cigarette from Hate Man for 50-cents (Virginia Slims 120 menthols, naturally — a man’s man cigarette — “Come to Virginia Slims Country!” — we’re rugged “street people” after all). . . And I’d tell Hate the latest gossip from my day. And he’d tell me the latest gossip from his day. And by the time I finished the rest of my 40, I’d be ready for my next 40. And several more Virginia Slims to go with it, naturally. And yet another evening of the usual madness would start to unfold.
Except now. I was just getting ready to go check in with Hate. Like I’ve done a thousand times before. Only now. I realize. I no longer have any place to go.
.
.
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away . . .
(originally published June 5, 2015)
Me, Hate Man and Cheapseats enjoying the Good Old Days.
Yesterday, me and Charlie Cheapseats were hanging out with Hate Man in People’s Park, talking about the old days.
“When I first visited Berkeley in the summer of 1974 there was always a huge street scene happening on the Berkeley campus,” I said. “Back then it was hard to tell the street people from the students. ‘Hippie’ was definitely the style.”
“Yeah,” said Cheapseats. “Nowadays the campus is almost completely dead.”
“Yeah. There are just a few loner-type street people that mostly keep to themselves.”
“There used to be tons of street musicians, too,” said Cheapseats. “Remember that guy Rick Starr who used to croon those Frank Sinatra songs while singing into that fake plastic microphone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And Larry the Drummer. He used to drive everyone nuts bashing away on those buckets all day long.”
“All those characters are gone. Whatever happened to Paul of the Pillar?”
“Even the Christian preachers don’t show up any more. They used to be surrounded by huge mobs of people heckling them. It was great entertainment. Like a Roman amphitheater where they threw the Christians to the lions.”
“Even that nut the Happy Guy is gone. The guy that used to stand on a bucket saying ‘Happy, happy, happy’ all day long.”
“And if you started heckling him, he would point his finger at you and shout, ‘CIA!! CIA!! CIA!!’”
“Remember the lower Sproul drum circle every weekend in the 1990s?”
Suddenly, Hate Man had had enough of our reminiscing.
“I hate your guts with all this talk about the old days!!” said Hate Man. “I wanna’ kill you. I hate people who constantly dwell on the past. I prefer to live in the present moment and appreciate what’s going on now. Instead of all this lame nostalgia for the good old days.”
I realized recently that, nowadays, I live in a permanent state of mourning for my past. I remember when I was a young man, this old guy once warned me about the danger of living in the past as you get older. “You can get stuck in a rut if you don’t keep evolving with the times,” he said. “You stop growing as a person. You turn into a fossil. You end up yearning for the return of the Good Old Days that will never come back.” . . . I never thought I’d fall for that trap. Because (in spite of my pen-name) for most of my life I was a very forward-looking person. Whenever I finished an art project, my first thought always was: “Yes. But the next project is going to be the Best Thing Yet!!” But then suddenly, a couple of years ago, it was like there no longer was a next project. . . *sigh*
“I knowdja’ mean, Hate Man,” I said. “It’s like that famous scene in the book ‘Be Here Now’ where Ram Das is constantly talking about his past adventures or his future plans. And his guru says: ‘The past and the future are an illusion. Only the present is real. Be here now. Live in the present moment. That’s where all the action is.’”
“Yeah,” said Hate Man.
“My problem is, I yearn for the past. I fear and dread the future. And my present moment usually sucks. So I got all the wrong bases covered.”
Hate Man chuckled at that line.
Now I’m sitting here looking back fondly at that conversation I had with Hate Man and Charlie Cheapseats in People’s Park. It seems like only yesterday . . . Actually, it was only yesterday.
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April 3, 2017
April 2, 2017
April 1, 2017
Isn’t that just like a cat?
They both have the exact same food.
“Two can play at that game.”
March 27, 2017
The Cody’s corner
I always get a wistful feeling when I walk by this corner. I’m so haunted by my past in a way. And a thousand random memories might pop into my brain. Some happy. Some funny. Some bizarre. Some heart-breaking.
Just now as I passed I was thinking about the Summer of 1982. Remembering dropping off a big stack of TWISTED IMAGE #1 — hot off the presses! — and leaving it with the other free newspapers by the front door of Cody’s Books. It was my first real success in the world, age 26. After mostly fucking up, up to that point. So it was a triumphant moment. And it was the first (and certainly not the last) time I would leave my mark on Telegraph Avenue. It was kind of like a dog marking his territory by urinating on the corner. I guess that’s what I was doing, dropping off a big stack of my newspapers on that corner (“I’M HERE, WORLD!”).
Or — like Billy Pilgrim traveling in time — my mind might suddenly fast-forward to December of 1990. And the CBS News film crew is there to interview me and Duncan about the latest issue of the TELEGRAPH STREET CALENDAR. And I’ll think back to all the characters that were on the scene back then. And wonder where they all went. And why the hell I’m still here. . .
And it’ll keep going back and forth like that in my mind. Until I finally get to the next block. And I can stop thinking about all that crap.
March 25, 2017
High times on University Avenue
I lived in this apartment building on University Avenue in Berkeley for 13 years. 1982 to 1995. I had a studio apartment on the 2nd floor. That’s my kitchen window in the upper right corner.
I used to smoke a lot of pot back then. But I always got a little paranoid when I smoked pot in my apartment. Because the manager and his wife lived right next door to me. And I was paranoid that if they smelled my pot, they might report me to the owner of the building, who was extremely conservative, and I’d get evicted from my apartment.
Stan and Rose Mary was the name of the manager and his wife. They were a little, old gray-haired couple. He was about 70 and she was about 60. And pretty straight-laced. And back in those ancient days there were a LOT of strait-laced people who looked down on pot. It was definitely illegal back then, that’s for sure. And a LOT of people thought pot was just as bad as heroin or any other drugs.
So whenever I smoked pot in my apartment I’d always open up all the windows. And I’d blow the pot smoke out the window. Fan the smoke a little. And I never smoked by my front door, lest the pot smell leaked out to the hallway and into the manager’s front door.
For most of the years I lived there I was a pretty good tenant (aside from being a pot-smoking drug degenerate). But then in 1994 I got 4 months behind on my rent (I cleverly was sinking every penny I got my hands on, into recording and manufacturing a CD that I was convinced was going to be a big, big hit, but ended up barely breaking even).
So now I was DOUBLEY paranoid about Stan the manager. And I would dart in and out of my apartment hoping he didn’t catch me.
But then one day he caught me just as I was walking into my apartment.
“Uh, Ace, could I talk to you for a second about your rent?” said Stan.
Oh fuck! Busted!
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’m four months behind on my rent. I guess if I can’t come up with some money pretty soon I’m gonna have to move out.”
“Ace, this is what i think you should do,” said Stan.
Uh oh.
“Grow pot.”
“Say what??” I said.
“That’s right. You should grow pot,” he said.
“Say what??”
Now out of ALL the things I expected Stan the manager was going to say to me at that exact moment. That was probably just about the LAST thing I expected he’d say.
“Yeah, there’s a LOT of money in pot,” he said. “I’ve been growing it myself for years. And I even set up 8 other people around town with the grow-room equipment so they can grow it in their closets. And I supply them with primo seeds and plants to get them started. Then we pool the profits.”
“You’re kidding??” I said.
“Heck no I’m not kidding. Wait right here.”
Stan dashed into his apartment. And then came back with this big plastic container of green butter.
“We turn the buds into pot butter. This is pure THC. Then we turn it into edibles.”
Stan’s wife Rose Mary popped up behind him with a big smile on her face. “Here, Ace, try a couple of these,” she said, handing me two big oat meal cookies. “They’re from our latest batch.”
“Geez!” I said.
“But you might want to only eat half of that cookie,” she said, proudly. “They’re pretty strong.”
I guess I should have known. Stan often did walk around the building with a big, glassy-eyed smile on his face.
“I can set you up with all the grow-room equipment you need,” said Stan
It turned out Stan even subscribed to HIGH TIMES magazine and had seen my comics in there. Which is why he thought I’d be a good person for the job.
But it was the weirdest thing. It was like being strapped down into an electric chair to be executed. But then right before they pull the switch you get a call from the Governor, who not only gives you a pardon, but tells you you just won the Lottery.
But that’s the weird thing about living in those old apartment buildings. You just NEVER know what the people next-door are really doing behind closed doors.