Brooke Finegold is The Blue Haired Lesbian Your Parents Warned You About!
Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet
I first met Brooke Finegold at The Woods on a Wednesday night. New York dykes know exactly why a gal like me and gal like Brooke were in this specific bar on this specific night of the week. It was “Ladies Night” otherwise known as the weekly dyke mecca to a usually straight Williamsburg bar. In the swarm of lezzies, I spotted Brooke in all her blue-haired, pink tutu-ed glory. Being a colorful girl myself, I was instantly mesmerized by Brooke’s glittery pastel presence. And then she asked to take a picture of my hands and the rest was history.
Brooke is a comedian, poet, community builder, entrepreneur, and all around LEGEND. She is personally soft launching my boy-girlfriend and I via her locally renowned and globally growing instagram account @lesbianhands , reinvigorating my love for poetry through her biweekly poetry workshop, Poetry is Gay (PIG), and making everyone laugh their asses off through her writing for @gaydar and her stand up comedy. She seems to know everybody, be everywhere, and do everything and she is actually making money doing it! I just had to interview her for our Dream World Girls.
Q1: Hey legend! What weird gay shit were you up to most recently?
A: Hi Diva! Last night was super gay. I was on the Dykes & Dolls live show doing stand up. It was soooo fucking fun. I love stand up comedy and it’s funny because a lot of people don’t even realize I’m a comedian because of all my other work! But my first art form was comedy and I love it so dearly. The show was amazing– there was drag and one of my favorite queens, Dev Doee did Misery Business and I am a HUGE Paramore stan so I freaked out. Then she did Zombie Boy by Lady Gaga and I’m a little monster (paws up), so it was so fun. My mom was in town randomly from Austin and she brought her new boyfriend who I’d never met. They sat with my roommate and it was so funny watching them react to the drag/burlesque acts. Definitely a first for them and it was so fun to have them be in my little world and see my awesome community. D&D was started by some of my very best friends and I felt so loved and supported!!
Q2: What is it about live art that you think makes it so special?
A: I’m sort of old school, I love live performance more than anything. One of my mentors, Sophia Cleary, always says“ Why is it live?” which I think of often. Why isn’t someone watching this on their phone, on their bed? How can you create those“ you just had to be there”, moments. Those“ holy shit I was at the show where we found a unicorn for this girl and her boyfriend during the live poem”, something unable to be recreated, something you can’t even capture on camera. I love making a moment that can only exist there, now. It’s so easy to be dissociated and not present, always Airpods in, world out. I want my live shows to feel like a little snowglobe, a little container, of a world you can step into and leave after, changed, excited about the possibilities. I love connecting with the crowd, and connecting them with each other. People have so much more in common than we think– we all experience love, loss, grief, horniness, shame, and I want to put it all on the stage, together, and see how alike we all are, and throw a party for it, costumes encouraged!
Q3: You have an instagram account where you showcase lesbians and their glorious hands. For you, what makes lesbian hands worth documenting, celebrating, worshiping?
Well thank you so much for asking. You are one of my greatest muses– as you know. Lesbian Hands have been said to be“ lesbian cock”, they are literally what we fuck with, and in a unique way we are able to show off our“ cock” in public, decorating them with rings, finger tats, press-ons, clean, short nails, etc. Lesbian Hands are the grey sweatpants of the sapphic community, for any straight girls reading. One of my artist friends told me the hands are more expressive than the face. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but after photographing so many lesbian hands, I will literally recognize people not from their faces, but from their hands. I meet so many people every day in New York, and I forget so many names, but I’ll never forget a pair of hands. Spiderweb finger tat, long hot pink acrylics, moon stone rings on every finger, these aren’t details I forget. As lesbians we live [somewhat] in a bubble of utopia where cis men aren’t needed, required. We lift our own bags into the overhead on airplanes, we mount our own shelves, tend to our own gardens, dye our own hair, we literally create our own world from scratch, with our hands, without the need of men, and that to me is with documenting, celebrating, and worshipping.
Not to mention, I have met so many amazing people from this project, such as yourself! I have also been able to connect with lesbians all over the world from the Instagram account which has been so cool. I studied Spanish in college so I’ve been DMing with some Spanish speaking dykes online which has been so cool to hear of the lesbian experience all over the world. There’s even an account based in Barcelona called @tusmanoslesbianas (your lesbian hands), and we talk about how cool it is [that] we founded the same project across the world. It’s not competitive either, it’s all love, community, enough room for everyone at the table. I’m hoping to plan a trip all around the world documenting lesbian hands, and I want to start with Latin America, speaking Spanish and meeting every dyke I can.
Q4: Tell me about your work for Gaydar, how did you get involved, what work for the show are you most proud of?
It’s so funny because my first comedy writing job at Gaydar actually came from my poetry group, Poetry is Gay, which you are a devoted piglet of. Amelia, who started Gaydar, and I actually went to college together but didn’t know each other despite being next door neighbors (we briefly shared a hot tub, so LA). I met her at Zebulon in Silverlake and she was dating one of my guy friends and I was like“ Baby– that’s a dyke”, she had magenta hair and lezzy vibes. So when she moved to NY after me she reached out to try to make some friends and I invited her to PIG. She started coming and after a while she told me she was starting this show and needed a comedy writer, so a collab was born!
I really love Gaydar. It is the perfect situation for me– I get to research gay shit (Gresearch), finally put all my“ useless” knowledge of gay pop culture to use, and book my hilarious comedy friends and show baby gays in Minnesota how we get down in Brooklyn. I love working with Anania– she is sooo funny and her energy is so contagious and inspiring. She works so fucking hard and I am so in awe of her.
I’m really proud of the work we’ve done with politics and advocacy– people like GLAAD, Zohran, Chi Osse, Gretchen Whitmer, have been so cool to work with. One of the best parts of being a comedian is getting to be the spoonful of sugar with important information. The queer/trans community is facing so much political backlash right now in such a scary way, and we can get out the important information in a lighthearted, bite sized way to show people watching at home what is really happening, and who is out there advocating for us. Working with people who devote their lives to protecting our community and implementing policy that helps us survive the fascist hellscape is a light in a very dark moment.
“Working with people who devote their lives to protecting our community and implementing policy that helps us survive the fascist hellscape is a light in a very dark moment.”
I feel so lucky that all of my work is by gay people for gay people and I really hope I can continue to spread the gay agenda online for the rest of my life.
Q5: Writing, even with all the time in the world, can be difficult. You’re now infamous for your live poems crafted at your poetry workshop, in your live shows, and in Washington Square Park. What’s your secret to the perfect live poem?
A: Listening! I really focus on active listening, on hearing a turn of phrase or a metaphor and holding onto it in my brain until I start typing. I love reading a poem back of words I literally stole from their mouth and them saying,“ Oh my god, that’s exactly how I feel!” A lot of people will even cry, feeling so seen. I’m like babe I was just listening to you! Mostly that’s what a poem is, listening, reflecting. Art is a mirror, and that’s what I’m here to reflect. I also think it’s important to have a mixture.
Q6: What is something that you’re currently working on that you are most excited to share?
A: I have a lot of irons in the fire, always, which can be stressful but also so fun. I am really excited about a documentary I’m making, about my late cousin who tragically died of AIDS the year I was born. I never met him, and I didn’t know he existed until I came out to my only out gay living cousin. I’m flying to Georgia next month with a small camera crew and going to interview his mom, sister, my mom and some of our cousins and relatives. We’ll see where he spent his last few months on his mom’s farm with his azalea garden, painting clowns and landscapes. I love exploring family in my work, and it will be really cool to get some more insight on my queer lineage, and how chosen and given family can collide.
Q7: You are so well known for your signature blue hair, I personally can’t see this shade of teal without thinking of you. How did you know blue was your color? Why this shade specifically?
A: I feel like turquoise/teal had a huge moment when I was in high school, and I sort of latched onto it. Funnily enough, I was always the pink girl growing up. My older sister was blue, I was pink. My best friend was blue, I was pink. But this color really solidified when I was a senior in high school and I was leading a mission trip with my church to Mexico (I’ve lived many lives). Each team had a color and everyone picked classic ROYGBIV, and I went for“ seafoam”, very queer of me. I had a team of 12 high schoolers and we spent the week together getting to know each other, having deep intimate talks at lunch time, speaking Spanish and building a house together. There are many things about this trip/time I deeply disagree with, but it did show me that turquoise/seafoam was my color and that I loved spending time building community and being a leader, holding space for people to be vulnerable, share and connect. We wore seafoam all week, custom t-shirts, we had a dye party and I made seafoam overalls, and from then it just kept going. I had blue money pieces for a while and then one day I went into the salon for a touch up and just wanted more, so I impulsively bleached my whole head and went all blue. I genuinely feel like this was a huge turning point in my life, it changed the way I dressed, interacted with the world, my commitment to my life as an artist, and showed me I can do anything I want and it’s okay if people stare if I’m having fun and living my truth.
Q8: Oftentimes, for creatives, doing what you love is unpaid or even coming out of pocket, yet, it feels like you’ve found a way to make money doing everything you do, something wildly impressive in a gig economy. Do you have any advice for young creatives?
A: Yes, it’s so hard! I attribute my ability to monetize on what I call my“ Capricorn Father Wound”. My parents are entrepreneurs and ran a business together my whole life so I feel like I got a lot of business knowledge by osmosis, over the dinner table. I used to really resent it but now I’m grateful. I studied writing/language in college but I say I got a degree in business from the Finegold School of Hard Knocks.
This is all to say, anyone can monetize their work, you just have to be creative and a little shameless. It’s really easy to want to give away your time, energy and work in order for people to see it or for it to be accessible. I think there’s a balance to strike. I really try to keep my events affordable but also do some things to take care of myself. For example, Poetry is Gay is $10 a class but also I have an option for people to become a paid subscriber for $10/month instead, so technically if they come twice a month they get $5 each PIG! But also, if they can’t make it, I still get a little cash.
“anyone can monetize their work, you just have to be creative and a little shameless.”
Also teaching classes has been really helpful. I always thought I wouldn’t qualify to teach something, but it turns out you don’t have to be that qualified, just leap and the net will appear! I say this to my friends all the time,“ What would a straight white man do?” Most straight white men are lowkey dumb, and they make bank, simply because they are entitled to it. They never sell themselves short in job interviews, they act like they are God and they can do anything, so people trust them! It’s a very fake-it-till-you-make-it situation. I also always try to work with people who are willing to give me space for free/cheap and I also do a lot of trades. If you give us a discount on the photo booth we’ll write a glowing review and post on our Instagram, if you let me use the space for free I’ll help you start a Substack, if you want to take my class for free teach me how to pole dance. People forget about bartering!!! Get creative and know that we are all out here trying to get our art out there and make some money, and you can totally do it in a way that isn’t stepping on other people to get to the top.
It can feel scary to invest in yourself in such a big way, but you are ABSOLUTELY worth it and it will pay back in dividends. You have to spend money to make money, diva. Also, you have to make sure your shit is taken care of before you can take care of other people. Get sober, get into a 12-Step program, do the Artist’s Way, break up with your toxic partner, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours a night, you really have to have the basics down before you can truly start to grow in a sustainable way.
Also, talk to your parents less about your career. A lot has changed and they really don’t know what it’s like these days, if you need advice just call me.
Q9: What is something you wish I had asked you about?
I guess about my stand-up, my writing process, my influences, my craziest dreams!
This year is my 8 year anniversary of doing stand up comedy and I had to take a brief break for some ~mental illness~ reasons but I am finally feeling funny again and ready to perform and it feels SO FUCKING GOOD! So if you’re reading this, please book me on your comedy show! Have me MC your Battle of the Bands Night, roast your best friend on their birthday, hire me to talk at your prankster grandpa’s funeral, literally whatever, I will make it fun!
I am working on a solo show called Something Blue which is an hour of comedy, storytelling and a live poem. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever made, and I hope I can show my audience of gay people who love Gaydar, Lesbian Hands and Poetry is Gay what I feel is my strongest skill– my live comedy. It’s about my family history, uncovering secrets, being a bridesmaid at my sister’s bachelorette party/wedding, and the loneliness that comes with being a single, sober lesbian while all your straight friends are starting families. I love making people laugh more than anything, and I love making people feel less alone in the process. I’m not sure when this is coming out, but the next show is on Sunday Sept 28 at Q.E.D. in Astoria. I’ll do it again soon but follow me on IG for more info! @ilikerainbows
