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Hate Man was, reportedly, ordered by an Alameda County judge Monday to stay away from People's Park for three years.

The world-famous eccentric had been dodging trespassing tickets for years, managing successfully to stay one step ahead of the law, he has told me, but Monday, he misstepped.

Word of the eviction went out late Monday on local activists' Google lists. 

If you think you know Hate as Mark Hawthorne, a former New York Times front page reporter on his way up at NYT in the sixties, you know better than to call him Mark. 

Most of his fellow haters just call him Hate. Don't tell him it's a beautiful morning as I did not too long ago. "It's a fucked morning," he said. "You say it that way." He's always instructing in how he wants you to talk. 

But if you get through all that, he's good people, and very deep. Maybe that's why he is described at Wikipedia as a philosopher. 

Wednesday morning, "Camp Hate," Hate Man's encampment lay deserted at the far South east corner of the park, and appeared to one observer, "de-foliaged." To me the camp seemed a well-groomed ghost-town. 

Hates closest neighbor, a van-gabond. said, "It's not the same; its creepy, and weird, like they took him away to some re-education camp." 

The university's groundskeeper, who has an office in the park, was surprised by the eviction. Hate had been a good park user, according to the groundsman's past comments. The groundskeeper doubles as Park cop, counsellor, and friend. He has told me he likes Hate, but don't tell Hate. 

The old hate-cult gang is breaking-up. 

Hate once told me of his front page Times piece on a sit-in at Barnard College. "They sent me because I was close to the ages of the protesters," he said. "But the protesters didn't like my angle on the protest." 

"I told them, my story…my angle…Fuck you." he was showing early signs of his fuck-you philosophy. 

Only last week, I saw my famous neighbor pushing" someone on my block. One of Hate's protocols involves pushing shoulders for conflict resolution, cigarettes, and other goods. 

"I hate you," I said. You have to say that. "You're leading a world-wide Fuck You Revolution," 

"Fucked Up is competing with us," he riposted. 

Hate's been homeless on the South side for 35 years, although he goes with the more conservative number, 20. His renown these days is for pernicious homelessness while practicing homeless performance art. He refuses to write, although I see him writing in a notebook, occassionly . 

Make no doubt about it, Hate will survive this set-back--now if I can just find him to confirm that he's alive and well-- and looking forward to his next performance venue, now that Camp Hate is gone. 

THE SEARCH FOR HATE 

I set out Wednesday afternoon to get the old reporter's angle on his own story. 

Fred's Market: hadn't seen him. Habib's across the street, where he bought his cigarettes hadn't seen him. He has to have his cigarettes. In fact, earning money from recycling, or from winning a push to get a salable item, is all to finance his incessant smoking. 

Some of his favorite trash-cans, and dumpsters, which put food on the table, hadn't seen him either. 

I checked some known stash sites, and some other possibilities. No Hate 

Russell Bates said he saw Hate earlier in the day, just West of Teley. Bates said he learned of the eviction from Hate himself on Tuesday. 

The Van-gabond thought Hate had a storage locker somewhere. 

i checked the storage space behind a building on my block where I have seen him take things. The space was bare and abandoned, perhaps by Hate, who may have moved his stuff away from the park. 

Funny thing is, all Hate's followers are also gone, even Hate's philosopher side-kick Ace-Backwards, well known underground illustrator and laconic eye on Berkeley, has vanished. 

Earlier, I led a search party of three out of the Med to the Sproul Hall steps to see if Hate had re-established himself where he first emerged as a public character, often tangling with Holy Hubert, over whose world view, Jesus' or Hate's spoke best to the world. 

I always thought Hate won the debate with Holy Hubert. But I am a Jew. 

Hate was Molly Mucous back then, about the time he emerged as a major Berkeley street performer, with a skirt and mismatched clothing. "They don't expect men to wear skirts, that's why I do it." A lot of Berkeley men have taken the cue, but Hate was one of the first.  

Ever think of going back to Sproul, I have asked Hate. "Naw, it's spiritually dead there, now." Because Hubert's gone? "Naw, it's just dead now. It's the students." 

Now if I can just find him to confirm this all. He often has to correct me. I also have a relocation site to recommend--Constitution Square at the downtown Bart. While looking for Hate, Wednesday, I found myself at the center of a public manic-masturbation piece. 

It wasn't me. 

Drayco, who was stabbed by a tree-sitter in the park last year, says that "this stuff only happens in Berkeley," and Drayco has been on the street-tramp circuit for years 

If I find Hate, I have some good-bad news for him. He just got out of camp before a new tree-sit Wednesday night. Isn't this the fourth, after the others ended violently or misfired? Hate really hates the tree-sits in the park, can't ridicule them too often. 

One of the tree-sitters' demands is dropping Hate's court-ordered stay-away order, according to event-producer Running Wolf, who will somehow find a way to tie it to his race for mayor "Vote for me, I sit in trees?" 

The irony would not be lost on Hate; it's not lost on Running Wolf either.