February 2010
10 (or so) questions with... Danielle Teal
By Steve Lange
Danielle Teal: I’m much hotter.
RM: If I do a Google image search of your name—and I did—what will I find?
DT: A porn star [laughing]. She’s ruining my name. I constantly tell people I’m no porn star.
RM: Yes. She’s been in Playboy and Maxim’s “Hometown Hotties.” I really need to turn my Google filter on at work.
DT: She’s way ahead of me on the Google search. Sex sells, I guess.
RM: How did you like being a concierge?
DT: Wow. You know everything about me. I actually loved my concierge work. That was in southern California. I think that’s where, besides moving a lot, that I got my people skills.
RM: Why did you move so much?
DT: My dad was in the military. I moved 23 times before I was 23.
RM: But you’ve been here eight years.
DT: This is my longest stint anywhere.
RM: Why here?
DT: My ex-husband is the reason I moved here. I have a three-year-old daughter. I’m 30 years old. I’m really proud of being a 30-year-old. I always tell people this: you live your life like a timeline. You say ‘Oh, I’m going to be in a white dress one day. I’m going to have a boyfriend and get married and have a kid.’ And that’s what I did. Then I woke up one day and said ‘What did I do? I’m not happy.’ So I just changed my path. I got divorced. I kept the kid, though. She means everything to me. When I turned 29 last year I decided that I would do something new that I had never done, once a month until I turned 30. It was my bucket list, but I wasn’t dying. So every month I did something new. October 2008 was when I did stand-up for the first time. Open mic. My friends always told me I was funny and I believed them, and I went on stage and I killed it. And killing it in comedy is just being phenomenal.
RM: What other things had you done for your bucket list?
DT: I went skydiving for the first time. I went to Las Vegas for the first time. I broke my wrist in Las Vegas.
RM: Was that on your list?
DT: No. I’d never broken my wrist before. I was running on a wet pool deck, and I was thinking “I shouldn’t run,” and I fell. I played on a softball team, and I’m not sporty. It was a disaster. But my funniness really helped out. Some of the people probably hated me.
RM: How often do you do open mic night?
DT: Three or four times a month. Less or more, just depends on the month and how busy. Juggling a child. By day a professional. By night, completely obnoxious. I have to really check myself sometimes at work.
RM: Fill in the blank. You said ‘I want to [blank] the people who created the Christmas Old Navy commercials.’
DT: Neck punch.
RM: That seems a bit harsh.
DT: It is harsh. I enjoy shocking people. One of my favorite quotes is saying “I want to make out with something.” I want to make out with the weekend. If you’re really into something, you want to make out with it, right?
RM: OK.
DT: My philosophy is I want to make out with life. I want to wake up to it in the morning.
RM: We have three mutual friends on Facebook. I’ll read a fact about each of those friends, you tell me which is true.
DT: Okay.
RM: Randy Brock [KTTC meteorologist] used to work at a Toledo TV station under the name Stormy McCloudson. CJ Jensen [KROC DJ] won a marathon chicken dance contest. Tracy McCray [P-B columnist] used to pick rocks on her family’s farm while topless.
DT: What are my choices again?
RM: Randy Brock as Stormy McCloudson, CJ chicken dancing, Tracy McCray picking rocks without her shirt on. Which is true?
DT: I’ll have to say the Randy Brock thing.
RM: No, it was the Tracy McCray one.
DT: Really? What?
RM: Yes, she said she picked rocks without her shirt on. But I think she was a young kid.
RM: So you plan on sticking around here?
DT: I love Rochester. I love the people. It’s what you make of it, wherever you live. One of my good friends said one time ‘Rochester is a place of transitions, and then you end up living here.’ And it’s valid and true.
RM: Anything about you that you don’t want me to know?
DT: I have an auditory dysfunction.
RM: What does that entail?
DT: People smacking their gum. I want to maim a person in a theater who is chomping on popcorn.
RM: Kristy, the magazine’s marketing director, couldn’t stand it when one of our interns would eat potato chips. It would make her angry.
DT: She has an auditory dysfunction. I’m diagnosing it now.
RM: That seems more like intolerance.
DT: No. Google it. It’s a real issue. I can’t open a biscuit can because of the anticipation of the biscuit popping. I created a group on Facebook for Pillsbury Biscuit Can Phobia.
RM: What else? Besides biscuit cans?
DT: Smacking gum. Jingling change. Tapping pens. Typing on a keyboard.
RM: After Kristy complained about the crunching sound, I’ve been trying to crunch as much as possible. Green apples. A lot of wavy potato chips. Walnuts.
DT: That’s the worst thing you could do to someone with auditory dysfunction. That seems mean, but funny. So I guess I like that.