Rocca talks politics in Pitt Union

‘ ‘ ‘ Unless you haven’t turned on a television since 1998, it is truly hard to escape the… ‘ ‘ ‘ Unless you haven’t turned on a television since 1998, it is truly hard to escape the reach of Mo Rocca. ‘ ‘ ‘ With appearances on ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,’ VH1’s ‘Best Week Ever’ and each ‘I Love the …’ series, MSNBC’s ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann,’ ‘The Tonight Show,’ ‘Larry King Live,’ ‘Iron Chef America’ and quite a few others as a cultural or political commentator, Rocca has made his career on having a lot to say. ‘ ‘ ‘ And while anybody can mouth off on hot topics like politics, religion or, say, the hottest music video babe of 1987, few can do it with the wit and finesse of Harvard grad Rocca. ‘ ‘ ‘ Growing up outside of Washington, D.C., Maurice Alberto Rocca was the most vocal member of an already vocal and quite opinionated family, giving him both the know-how and the strong will to argue his way out of any situation. Now on the verge of his 40th Rocca is a long way from his humble class clown beginnings, but his motivation is the same: Make ’em laugh first, then make ’em think. ‘ ‘ ‘ Rocca spent some time on the phone with The Pitt News to talk Facebook, dating and his, ahem, undying love for Sarah Palin. Here’s what he had to say. The Pitt News: So the Facebook group started for this event has already swelled. The campus seems pretty excited. Mo Rocca: Oh great. I’m not sure what that means ‘mdash; I have a Facebook page, but I can’t get my head around the etiquette of accepting or ignoring friends. Should I confirm someone who I don’t know at all? If somebody writes a message, I’ll almost always accept them. Now I’ve been out of college for… TPN: 17 years. MR: Exactly, and people will friend me who I haven’t talked to since college. It’s like you’re collecting friends. It’s the equivalent of passing somebody in a courtyard and just saying ‘hi’ or stopping for conversation. I prefer to only confirm the stop and converse friends. TPN: Understood. I was recently friended by an elementary school friend’s mother. MR: That might be more about your fear that you’re actually sexually attracted to her. Or if she was recently divorced, that could get a bit uncomfortable. TPN: When did you realize how people responded to your humor? MR: I was definitely a class clown, a spaz. It became kind of addictive ‘mdash; it was fun to perform for the class. My father told me once something that, in retrospect, was kind of kooky. He said, ‘The class clown is just being laughed at, which isn’t good unless you want to grow up and be Johnny Carson.’ It was such a wonderful rationale ‘mdash; don’t goof off in class, unless you want to make a profession of it. Then you’re just building your career really early. TPN: Is there one moment that was your pinnacle of class clowning? MR: I often pushed it to the point of almost getting in trouble. The most creative I got was when my best friend and I created a gossip tabloid about other kids at Pyle Junior High School. It was highly evolved class clowning. I was so proud of it because it was good enough that teachers actually bought copies of it. Even the vice principal bought a copy. TPN: You graduated from Harvard. How close is that school to its stuffy, Ivy League stereotype? MR: The reputation of Harvard manifests itself in student behavior in two ways. It can be very obnoxious with students who think they are the chosen ones, out to run the world. That’s obviously not very appealing ‘mdash; not even to insiders. At the same time, there’s a kind of relaxed way that people think, well, I’m here. I think some graduates of Harvard get hung up on what they think people expect from them, that they’re supposed to take over the world. And when they don’t three years out of college, they get really neurotic. But my first job out of Harvard was a roller skating waiter outside of D.C. Thankfully, I didn’t think of myself as the next world leader. TPN: What were you involved in at school? MR: I did a ton of theater. I did some G.E.D. instruction at a prison ‘mdash; otherwise I would’ve had no dating life. I was a member and the president of the Hasty Pudding show ‘- it was an originally written musical, but all the actors are men, though half the characters are women. It was probably much more fun to be in then watch. TPN: You’ve had some really interesting career moves. You were a Perfect 10 Magazine consultant, you wrote for (children’s television series) ‘Wishbone,’ and you were a Larry King correspondent. Is there a method to your choices? MR: Hopefully there’s more rhyme or reason than not. I’ve gotten to the point in my career that I only do stuff I’m interested in. Remember the little variety packs of cereal? I love those ‘mdash; that’s reflected in my career. I mean, if I could do college over I’d only do electives, no concentration. I do want my own show. I love being out in the field and doing interviews where the comedy comes from real moments, not scripted jokes. That’s really hard to do, but I love mining laughs from the real exploration of something ridiculous. TPN: What was your first role in the media? MR: I did theater for a while. I was in the Southeast Asian touring crew of ‘Grease,’ which was really wild ‘mdash; standing room only in Jakarta. Then I started writing for [’90s PBS series] ‘Wishbone.’ How you tell a story is incredibly important, whether you’re writing a screenplay, a comic monologue. ‘Wishbone’ was about taking the greatest stories every written and breaking them down ‘mdash; it was obviously a kids show, but it was great. Taking a story like the Odyssey, making it funny and recasting it with a dog, that was a great boot camp for my career. TPN: A lot of what you do now is humorous political commentary. Were you always politically savvy? MR: If you grew up in L.A., you probably knew weekend box office figures. Growing up in D.C., it’s just more likely to be aware of what’s going on ‘mdash; you learn through osmosis. I’ve been interested in the personality of politics. In D.C., the president is the above the title movie star ‘mdash; he’s Al Pacino in ‘Scent of a Woman.’ It’s like George W. Bush in ‘The White House.’ That’s why this election is both totally absurd, but gripping as well. I don’t like to be cagey, but let’s just say that my baseline for all these guys is that I don’t trust them. As far as I’m concerned, politicians are guilty until proven innocent. I will say that this situation with hot Annie Oakley from the tundra would be hysterically funny if it weren’t serious. It is completely absurd. Truly absurd. It would be very difficult to sell a screenplay of these events and have them taken seriously. But still, I’m not an Obama worshipper, but this latest development is off-the-charts silly. This gun-toting beauty queen leaves me slack-jawed. TPN: Well, the polls have shown a bump in McCain’s ratings, likely due to her … MR: Which bump are we referring to? You mean [Palin’s pregnant daughter] Bristol’s bump? TPN: Why do you think it’s important for us to be able to laugh at the political process? MR: The disparity between what a politician says and does is the sweet spot where the joke lies. When a politician is guilty of that, it’s not only funny, it’s something important to notice. That was a really pretentious and unclear way of saying that if you poke fun at a politician’s hypocrisy and you’re funny about it, you accomplish two things: you make people laugh and you direct their attention to something important. TPN: Ignoring your personal feelings of what you want to happen, what do you think will happen in November? MR: If you promise to burn all copies of this newspaper and erase all electronic evidence after the election, I’ll tell you … I’ll only say these two things. I didn’t think it was a contest until the last week, but it definitely is now. And I think Obama has to be leading a significant margin going into Election Day in the polls. Because, and there’s nothing funny about this, there are going to be a lot of people that lie, saying they’re voting for the black guy and don’t. Every poll has to be adjusted for people who want to seem open-minded and feel guilted into saying they’ll vote for him. TPN: What’s the best thing about being Mo Rocca right now? MR: Having enough cake that I can pay for a personal trainer and having a lot of frequent flier miles … No, I think it’s that I’ve got really great skin. Whenever I’m on a cable news spot, the makeup lady will say, ‘Oh my god, your skin is great!’ I’m still waiting for that big Neutrogena contract. TPN: Finally, what do you see as your most important contribution to American culture so far? MR: Oh … Jesus. I’d like to be the guy who can talk about both Teddy Roosevelt and Teddy Ruxpin with the same level of authority.