Former NYT reporter sleeps on street, eats out of garbage cans

by Xeni Jardin

"Hate Man," a homeless fellow who lives on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, wears cast-off women's clothing, and eats out of garbage cans (because "It's free [and it] makes your immune system strong"), once worked as a reporter for the New York Times.

Actually, he wrote at the Times from 1961 to 1970, nearly an entire decade. Back then, he was known as Mark Hawthorne. Why the identity change? Snip from his interview with Kevin Fagan at the San Francisco Chronicle:

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.

This nytimes.com search query returns some of the articles Hate Man wrote for the New York Times back when he was Mark Hawthorne. They include "Long Hair and Sex Freedom: A Social Critic's Proposals for Youth" (PDF), "A Gallery of Apartment Doodles Lies Just Below the New Paint; The Artist Breaks Out" (PDF) and "Washington Sq. Singers Invent Own Instruments" (PDF).

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/14/former-nyt-reporter.html