The Last Days of Michael David Boyd?

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I am now into my third week of living on the street. I am now standing in a public bathroom with other homeless men filing in and out, charging my phone. I am out of money and cannot afford even a bus pass. I did not eat yesterday and do not expect to eat today barring some unexpected change. My disability check did not come on Wednesday as scheduled, and since it didn’t come today, I’ll have to go through the weekend in this circumstance. 

It’s fine. I’ve done a seven-day water-only fast before. It was easy until I foolishly decided to go out and play basketball on the sixth day. Dumb. So I’ll probably be fine, though back then I was sleeping in a warm bed in a nice apartment, not on a concrete bench out in the rain and cold.  But it doesn’t matter. At this point, there are things far more important than whether I live or die.  

I don’t expect any of this to be a tear-jerking sob story—I’ve long since figured out that people don’t really give a fuck. In this society, if someone is in trouble, we assume it is their own fault. Even most people committed to charity think this way, which explains the paternalistic or condition-laden manner in which they offer help. Most Americans are deeply and profoundly apathetic to the troubles of others. 

Perhaps someone may eventually care enough to wonder why I don’t ask for help. That is what is post will explain. I have rigid ethical standards and I am more than willing to die before I compromise what I believe. I won’t beg. I won’t go to a shelter. I won’t go to a soup kitchen. Why not?  Because of the simple, irrefutable fact that I am different from other homeless people, and I deserve better. The fact that it is considered wrong, impolite, arrogant or ungracious, to say “I deserve better” is one of the flaws in our society—a flaw designed in by powerful people to keep the social order by erecting a psychological barrier to deter people from demanding what they are owed. 

I went to college at Stanford University, one of the richest and most prestigious colleges in the world. And though I did not graduate, according to Stanford’s own criteria, I am an alumnus. So who should help me, a soup kitchen or Stanford?

There at Stanford with me were Chelsea Clinton, Tiger Woods, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Joseph Kennedy III, and award-winning actor and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Sterling K. Brown with whom I was once friends. These and a host of others now in prominent and successful positions in business, entertainment and politics were my contemporaries. Who should help me? These millionaires and billionaires who are a part of the same exclusive club I belong to, some of whom called themselves my friends, or a shelter?

I worked for lawyers most of my professional career, and I did a good job. The work I did was for some of the largest and richest corporations in the world, and following the mantra of Bill Belichick, I took NO DAYS OFF!  Who should help me? These lawyers and corporations I slaved away for, always underpaid for my skills and talents, or a stranger passing on the street?

I have a huge extended group of relatives—both my parents were one of fourteen children. I have aunts and uncles and cousins who are millionaires. Who should help me, my so-called family, or the San Diego Police Department’s “Homeless Outreach Team”?

Since my arrest, and especially in my days of homelessness, I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationships. Mostly, this has been focused on my relationships with individuals, but lately I’ve been thinking more and more about my relationships with the corporations in my life as well. 

As many thousands of dollars as I’ve spent at McDonalds over the course of my life, they could give me free McDoubles for a year and I would still be a profitable customer for them. But yet, I could not go to McDonald’s and get a free french fry now that I am homeless and broke. 

In these last few weeks, I’ve walked past many fine restaurants where I’ve spent thousands of dollars, including the Prado right here in Balboa Park that I walk past ten times a day. At some national chain restaurants, I’ve probably spent tens of thousands over my life.  But yet, now that hard times have befallen me, I couldn’t get a single free meal from any of them. 

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on shoes at Nordstrom, but yet, when my shoes were disintegrating off my feet last week, could I have gone to Nordstrom Rack and gotten them to spot me a free pair? No. 

I lived in the same apartment complex for almost ten years. While my rent may have been paid a few days late here and there, except for the last month when I was arrested, it was always paid. I paid about $150,000 in rent there. But now that I am homeless, would they let me stay in an empty apartment (which they always had) rent-free for three months to get back on my feet? No. 

I worked for law firms for over a decade. If you had worked for a grocer, and you were hungry, that grocer would probably give you a few bags of food, if not just tell you to come by and get whatever you need. But yet, the law firms I worked for could not even send a lawyer to spend a few hours looking at my case when I got arrested. 

All of this speaks to a major problem in our society. It is the problem that makes corporations toxic, even though we as individuals are to blame, too. We no longer value personal relationships. We don’t. And though I am a liberal person, certain theories in liberalism are partly to blame for this. We have spent so much time attacking the “old boys network” and the “smoke-filled room” and “corrupt influence” that we have forced corporations and individuals to pretend that they don’t know anybody. But like anything, this doesn’t affect the elite—they still get things their way. But as corporations have grown bigger and more impersonal, they don’t maintain real relationships with their customers. They pretend at it, with discount cards and loyalty programs, but these things in truth help the corporation more than the customer. I have grocery store discount cards, but even though I’ve easily spent over $10,000 at each of the large Southern California supermarket chains, Ralph’s and Von’s, I could not go to either and get so much as a can of Campbell’s soup on credit. 

In the past, if I’d spent ten years shopping at a store and the owner knew me, at a time like this, I’d be able to go borrow what I need. They used to call it a tab. But today, companies know your Social Security number, they know your credit score, they know your credit card numbers, but they don’t know you! And they don’t care. 

The seminal book “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith is widely regarded as the first coherent statement of the principles of capitalism. Evangelists for the capitalist system reference it frequently, but apparently they haven’t read it. The second half of that book is all about how capitalism becomes toxic and predatory if it does not have a firm ethical foundation. 

In one of the books I am working on, I propose that all corporations should have to appoint a “Matriarch”, a board-level executive who is personally accountable for the company’s ETHICS and personally responsible to its customers. Corporations should be required to keep, for every customer who desires it, a record of their full relationship with that customer—how much money you’ve spent with them and how much profit they’ve made from your expenditures—and customers should be able to appeal to the matriarch if they feel the record of their business with the company merits some concession. 

Part of the reason we have so many people in dire straits in this society is that we don’t keep records about the GOOD things people do. Or if the records are kept, we ignore them. It’s preposterous that you can have twenty years of perfect credit and one missed payment lowers your credit score. The system is designed to look for the negative and to make financial failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why? Because ultimately, creditors make more money on high-interest loans to “risky” consumers than on low-interest loans to rich people. The bank has an inventive to MAKE you a credit risk!

In my book, I have a chapter called “The Rape of Michael David Boyd”. It is a chronicle of all the financial injustices that I have suffered in my life and how they affected me in ways that reach far beyond material. I make the argument that the economically predatory behavior that men impose upon other men is in many ways analogous in its effects to the sexually predatory behavior men impose upon women, but that we as a society have no concern for the victims of the many forms of financially predatory behavior that are legal and routine in our culture. 

I won’t accept charity but I’m still desperately hoping to find someone willing to enter a PARTNERSHIP with me, the distinction being that a partnership recognizes that I have something to offer and intend to make the arrangement PROFITABLE for the other person in the long-term.  The person who helps me out of this jam, not just with some small band-aid but who really invests the resources to get me all the way back to stability, that person would be someone I would be loyal to for life. That is if we didn’t have a relationship before such that I feel they should have done something before now. Prior to my being arrested and my life disintegrating, there was a long list of people that if I’d learned they were in serious legal trouble, I’d have gone to every lawyer I know to try to get them good legal help. And a similarly long list that if I found out they were living on the street, I would have gotten in my car or gotten on a plane and gone to get them and put them up at my place until they could get back on their feet. And I wouldn’t have said, “You owe me for this.”. I would have said, “This is what I owe YOU, because you are my friend.”. I guess I’m not on that list for anyone, which is why none of my old friendships can ever be restored. 

I have contributed literally millions to this economy through my work, and much more in subtle value by my always striving to be a generous, compassionate and gracious person. I won’t accept charity because charity is for those who haven’t EARNED what they need. I have EARNED better treatment from this society, and if this society doesn’t have the ethics, honor and integrity to treat me fairly, if I have no allies who would refuse to let this situation stand, I will die in the street, because then this world isn’t worth living in anyway. 

Follow me on Instagram: @michaeldavidmodern