There Must Be Some Misunderstanding

A lot of my idols have dealt with either specific instances of misunderstanding or misinterpretation. What's the deal with that?

Exhibit A: Bruce Springsteen. When Born in the USA came out he was catapulted into mega stardom. Lots of people heard the chorus "I was born in USA" and didn't figure they needed to listen to the rest of the lyrics. Take the first two lines of the song: "Born down in a dead man's town/the first kick I took was when I hit the ground." This is clearly not the beginning to a happy tale.

His frustrations were misinterpreted as patriotic. Another twist of irony (and this was prevalent during the Bush/Cheney days): this type of frustration was easily and readily spun as unpatriotic. Go figure.

Another excellent example of a Springsteen song being misunderstood is the sappy "Secret Garden" piece from Jerry Maguire. Lets just take a quick look at the end of the last verse: "She'll let you come just far enough/so you know she's really there/She'll look at you and smile/And her eyes will say/She's got a secret garden/Where everything you want/Where everything you need/Will always stay/A million miles away."

And this is the song that girls swoon over. This is cock-blockery of epic quality. "She's got what I really, really, really want - and she'll never let me have it!" Sounds terrible! (...feels like a typical weekend for me ;) haha).

Recently, David Letterman had a joke misinterpreted in a way that ended with him apologizing (twice) to an inconsequential former VP candidate - only after she accused of being a pedophile. Wow.

Here are the facts: Sarah Palin's daughter (now 18) had sex, got knocked up, and was paraded stages around the country while her mother tried to get elected in a national campaign. Enter Letterman: Alex Rodriguez, the slimey, 'roided out dude that makes a lot of money to not hit well in the clutch, is the punchline for a joke about getting Sarah Palin's daughter knocked-up during the 7th inning of a Yankee game.

You get that? The joke is about A-Rod knocking up the daughter. In all of this - not a word from him.

It turns out the 14 year old daughter was at the game with Palin. Letterman is castigated for something he clearly didn't intend for - but whatever. That doesn't matter. The joke was misinterpreted by people all over the nation. My favorite critics of the joke were the people that clearly understand comedy better than a man that has had a late night talk show for thirty-plus years - talking heads on cable news channels. They had a field day (actually it was a field week) spinning the misinterpretation of the Letterman joke to make him out to be a man that couldn't possibly be trusted around a teen girl.

Now that's a heckuva misunderstanding.

Over the course of his career, Howard Stern has gotten bigger, better, and more famous because of the general public's misinterpretation of him.

Does he do sex jokes? Convince women to take their clothes off? Ask extremely personal questions of celebrities that are in poor taste? Does he feature guests that do gross things - involving bodily functions and shenanigans of that sort? Does he instigate fights amongst his staff purely for entertainment reasons?

You bet.

What people don't take into consideration is the fact that he does a daily four hour show. Four hours. As an avid listener for about ten years now, I can guarantee you that the most interesting parts of the show - and the most common - are when he and the main cast of stars (Howard, Artie, Robin, Fred, and Gary) are just riffing back and forth. Howard's favorite shows are American Idol and The Bachelor, and he loves talking about them incessantly. He and his wife are active animal activists. Howard speaks frequently of how much he supports the gay community. He tells gobs of stories about his parents, his kids, his nights out on the town with friends and family. There's only so many sex jokes and farting you can broadcast in a day. Let alone a week, a month, a year, or decades.

People see the foul-language and the naked girl and see him as evil person. He's just a dude doing a radio show that has a bunch of fans. You don't have to like him, you don't have to demonize or criminalize him, though.

And poor, poor Joey Belle (you may know him as former Cleveland Indians slugger Albert Belle...he hates being called "Joey," hehe!). Talk about a guy being misunderstood. Those kids that egged his house one Halloween deserved to be run over and brutally murdered by an SUV - it's just too bad Belle wasn't ultimately successful in that endeavor.

There's probably no person in this world more greatly misinterpreted/misunderstood than yours truly - Scott John Esterly. I can't tell you how many people - even people I know and work with everyday - have confused me for that dude in the Dos Equis commercials. I know I may seem like the most interesting man in the world, but I'm just trying to play the game like everyone else.

I'm just better at it than most.

Lots of misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and exaggeration out there these days. Springsteen, Letterman, Stern, Belle, me...we definitely got the worst of it. People just don't understand the difference between being literal and being figurative, being romantic and being realistic, being funny and being over the top, being crazy and being rational.

We exaggerated the image of this working class-type guy from Jersey and made him "The Boss." We exaggerated a persona to create a "shock jock," when he's just a guy with a family trying to get through the day - albeit he's mega famous and rich.

We take things way too literal.

Now, if you'll excuse me - I just had a brilliant idea. You see, there's this girl that I really dig, but she moved away. So now I've got like 500 miles to walk, but I'd happily walk 500 more, just so I can fall down at this girl's door - and in no way is that creepy.

Well, that's just my interpretation of what isn't creepy...

Scott.