The Wall of Conduct
This is an addendum to the last post about our antiquing. (And I think that will be the last time I use that word. I have a hard enough time being manly without talking about “going antiquing.”)
You may remember this post about “conducting one’s self.” It was inspired by an anecdote told by Tom Watson—a stodgy, old, white guy—about Byron Nelson—a stodgier, older, whiter guy—in which Nelson approached Watson, telling Watson he liked the way he “conducted himself.” Since I saw that story, my father and I have used the phrase “conducting yourself” to mean “being a stodgy, white, conservative, male.” In fact, just last night, my dad was watching the Tom Brokaw documentary “1968.” He called me to bitch about hippies and how annoying and completely self-absorbed they were (and are.) He said “I just wish they’d had the balls to call their ‘movement’ or whatever it was ‘The Do-Whatever-You-Fucking-Feel-Like Movement’! At least that would have been truthful!” He also admitted that at least part of his rage was “due to the fact that I was busy ‘conducting myself’ in the sixties—working a full-time job, raising a family—when I could have been out in California running around naked and getting some of that ‘free love pussy’!”
That’s what “conducting yourself” means.
Despite the fact that I’d been to the antique stores before, I’d never taken the time to look at many of the photographs or awful paintings they typically offer. Last weekend, I actually looked at a few of the photographs and found many of what could be described as “executive portraits”—photos of old, stodgy, stone-faced, white men in suits from the 30s and 40s. One photo, in particular, caught our eyes: The stone-faced executive who was clearly an alcoholic. His nose looked like it was made of cauliflower. I thought the photo was great. There were quite a few portraits of men who obviously knew how to conduct themselves.
I’ve mentioned many times on the blogs and on the forums that I have about three pieces of what I would consider “art” and two of those are junk. In fact, I’ve really got only one photograph I like a lot (a shot taken of the Hirshhorn Gallery in Washington DC by a friend of mine.) The rest of the stuff on my walls is garbage—and there ain’t much of it. My apartment is stark white, so my place looks sterile and cold. I’m constantly complaining about how I might like to decorate my apartment—to, as I put it, “make my apartment tough.”
That particular bit of Pickard family vernacular began in the late seventies. My sister and I were spending the weekend with my father in the house he shared with his then-girlfriend and her two children. One morning, my “step-brother” Jason and I plucked a brand-new box of Cocoa Pebbles out of the cupboard and were delighted to find that it contained a poster of Fred Flintstone. Jason, who was probably six at the time, said “I need to hang that up in my room! It’ll make my room tough!” “Tough” meaning “cool.” Jason and his mother are long-gone from our lives but my father, sister and I still use that phrase to this day. It’s even spread to a few of my close friends.
So, I need to make my apartment tough.
Cookie, who is just as amused by the concept of “conducting one’s self” as I am, mentioned that I should dedicate an entire wall to photos of old, white guys “conducting themselves”—a “wall of conduct”, if you will. I loved the idea immediately. I added that the wall could include pieces of bric-a-brac traditionally associated with conducting one’s self like ceremonial gavels and Kiwanis seals.
The next time I go anti—to the junk stores—I’m going to start looking for good photos of old, white guys from the thirties and forties conducting themselves so I can make my apartment tough.
Tags: antiques, my dad, shopping, white guys
December 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
A “wall of conduct” memorial covering your wall just seems utterly depressing IMHO. And even more so, considering your already previous admission of an even worse penchants for this introspective & self-destructive tendency to dwell on their lives.
Maybe you should do what one of my best (female) friends does, which is collect old sepiatone photos from the late 19th and 20th Century of little girls sitting on ponies. I mean sure, we’ve all seen at least one of these photos over the course of our lives; but you’d be [b]seriously[/b] amazed at the extent and commonness of this type of photos from this era. It’s almost as if they were the childhood equivalent of school pictures for that period.
In any case (weird though my friend may be. . . but then, that’s why she’s my friend), these warm & fuzzy photos always seem to cheer her up and brighten her day whenever gazing upon them.
Because honestly, how could anyone NOT smile at a cute 1950s photo of a little girl on a pony?
December 13th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I dig what you’re saying but I should explain a couple things:
1. I only get bummed out by people’s belongings, not photographs (unless the photographs are of pets, then they are sad.)
2. I find the whole concept of “conducting one’s self” to be hilarious and such a wall would truly bring me much happiness because a.) I’m happy to not be required to “conduct myself” b.) 98% of old, white, male conservatives are assholes, c.) I like to laugh at assholes, and finally d.) It makes me happy when assholes die.
3. I’m actually leaning more toward late fifties/early sixties vintage because I dig that era more. Think “Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” era versus “Hudsucker Proxy” era.
4. I don’t want any photos of anonymous little girls in my house. Even if they did bring me a great deal of joy, it just wouldn’t look right when they find my bloated corpse next to a wall of smiling little girls on ponies. The panties will be bad enough.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Another idea might be to make your own. You can easily print out photograph quality stills off the intertubes.
Don’t know if that would kill the vintage hunter vibe. I suppose you could do that to hunt for frames.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
“Conducting yourself” makes me smile and think about my Grandparents in Springfield Ohio and their country club.
These people NEVER got down……..Unless you count the one too many high balls, crank up the Chick Webb and may be we will cook with garlic tonight!
But, those pictures remind me of my Grandpa Bill’s den and the pictures on the wall of all of his “associates”, which inspires me to say things like “Scooter is a fine chap, top drawer, really.”
December 13th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Sounds like the Wall of Conduct is the new Hall of Douchebags.
(I don’t know and I won’t guess if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.)
December 13th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Weird. I thought that “tough!” meaning cool only hit my high school, and only a particular group of friends there… I’ve never heard it from anyone else.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:06 am
SE Hinton, author of the Outsiders, had her characters use “tough” as an adjective like “cool”.
Do ti for Johnny, man.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
My step-grandfather was very much of this mold (more churchy than highballs and golfing though), but he was of recently arrived Italian lineage. Perhaps, he was too ethnic to be included, but part of his staid demeanor had to do with how incredibly growing-potatoes-behind-the-tenement poor he had been growing up (this would have been in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s). ‘Conducting himself’ was his kind of makin’ it. But, it not would excuse his awful politics, especially when so many in similar positions were radicalized by growing up like that.
And it would certainly not excuse the WASPy born rich type, who raised hell in boarding school, drank and whored at blue-blood universities, and then got married, ran a bank and oppressed minorities. If there’s a hell below and all that.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:04 am
This is a great idea. My ex and I were avid antique shoppers and he did something similar w/ old photos in a Victorian sitting room in our home. I couldn’t visualize it until they were up in our wallpapered parlor.
I am a fan of social history so the process of picking and choosing from various Victorian men, women and children was fun and interesting.
December 30th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
[…] may remember this post, in which I told of my plan to construct a “Wall of Conduct” in my apartment. […]