A Bland Burden

Many people don’t stop to appreciate the burden others live with. And some burdens are weighty—such as those of us with Bland for a last name.

Ever since that fateful day in 5th grade Vocabulary Class when I saw the word bland listed on the page of our Vocab workbook, my life altered. The reckless teacher casually read aloud the definition (“Boring. Dull. Tasteless”), and every single one of my classmates turned to look at me. It wasn’t just a tilt of the head, either. They full-body-turned to stare at me, even the ones who got picked on almost every day, their eyes hopeful that I might replace them.

While my level of picked-on-ness didn’t noticeably increase after that scarring day, my struggle began in earnest. I knew almost immediately that I could never release a line of food products with my name on them, nor could I ever become a one-name icon like Shakespeare, da Vinci, or Cage. Instead, I had to learn to carry my head high, even as the jokes about my clothes, hair, dance moves, and everything else I did were pre-written for my attackers.

Instead of running from it, I embraced it. As my friends and family can attest, I try to slip the word bland into normal conversation as much as I can. The egg foo young is a little underwhelming? Nope, it’s bland. Is the wall color beige? Looks bland to me. And Leo DiCaprio’s love life? Anything but bland. I admit, I was tempted to use the word “bland” repeatedly in my novel The Price of Safety. I’m talking piles-of-money-lying-on-the-ground-with-no-one-around tempted. But I resisted, because I’ve read that artists are supposed to suffer for their craft. So, I suffered.

It didn’t have to be this way. Last names originally had denoted something about your family: where you were from, your occupation, a distinct body trait like red hair, etc. It’s why there are so many Smiths. During wars in the past, blacksmiths didn’t fight; instead, they worked on the weapons used in those fights, so they had a much higher survival rate than the Kingsmen, the Slaughters, and the Asskickers. When my great great (great?) grandfather came to America, his last name was something like Blaudevesloski. Since this was an age when political correctness and sensitivity weren’t even a twinkle in society’s eye, the officials at Ellis Island instructed my ancestor to write down his name. His handwriting was so atrocious, they thought the “u” was an “n”, drew a line after the “d” and said, “This is your new name. Welcome to America.”

As a result, you could say America made my people bland. In fact, I say that myself. But a name doesn’t define us. Our actions do. So I carry my name with pride, and use it in jokes way more than necessary. But it could’ve been different. I could’ve been Michael Blaudevesloski which doesn’t have the same ring…although I like to believe that Blaudevesloski in some Slavic language means “dashingly handsome”.