Arts & Entertainment
Irish national track champion comes out as gay
Another international pro athlete has come out as gay, in a podcast interview dropped by Outsports on Monday.
Denis Finnegan, a 10-time national track-and-field title winner in Ireland, made his revelation on the Five Rings To Rule Them All podcast, telling interviewer Cyd Zeigler that he has been “drifting” toward coming out in recent years even though being gay is only a small part of who he is “as a person, and an even smaller part as an athlete,” in order to help other LGBTQ people in sports feel less alone.
“For younger people it will hopefully give them more confidence in what they’re doing,” the 33-year-old Finnegan said. “There are still people who are scared or unsure of what’s happening, so I hope just telling my story might help one person notice there’s more acceptance out there.”
The athlete, who won his 10 championships in triple jump, said that he eventually gravitated toward track and field – as opposed to team sports like basketball and Gaelic football, which he played in his younger years – because he found the atmosphere more welcoming.
“Athletics was always a place that, because it was quite mixed, it was a place I could have gotten away from everything,” he told the podcast.
“I think those sports, because they were a team sport with males, there were times when it wasn’t comfortable,” he elaborated. “Athletics was always my favorite sport, it was always the sport that was the one that was the most open. I’d be training with girls, I’d be training with guys, and I think that did help a bit. I was never worried about any kind of comments on the track. But when I was going for, say, football, it was more of an issue.”
He also said that after growing up with sports as a major part of his identity, it was important for him to find a way to continue participating after his university years.
“I loved sport and my whole family was sporty. I’d want to be doing the sports, but there was a part of them I wasn’t enjoying at all,” he said, echoing a sentiment shared by many LGBTQ athletes who feel pressured to remain closeted due to the hyper-masculine environment and hetero-normative expectations typically found in male-dominated team sports.
In the interview, Finnegan also opens up about the strains of being publicly “closeted” while maintaining a personal life, as well as additional issues he faced in both the public and private sphere.
As a final thought, he shared a quote from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
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Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
New book ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ delivers the laughs
Can we all agree that there’s nothing worse than reading a book by a humorist and not laughing? Not even once. Fear not, as gay humorist and performer Randy Rainbow more than exceeded my expectations, as he will yours, with his hilarious new book “Low-Hanging Fruit” (St. Martin’s Press, 2024). If you loved his 2022 memoir “Playing With Myself,” you’ll find as much, if not more to love in the new book. His trademark sense of humor from his videos, transfers with ease to the page in the essays. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments throughout the two-dozen essays. Always a delight to talk to, Randy made time for an interview shortly before the publication of the book.
BLADE: I want to begin by apologizing for putting you on speakerphone so I can get this interview recorded, because I know you are not fond of it as you pointed out in the “And While We’re On the Subject…” essay in your new book.
RANDY RAINBOW: [Laughs] Thank you for paying attention. But yours is a good speakerphone. I would not have known.
BLADE: Your first book, “Playing With Myself,” was a memoir and the new book, “Low-Hanging Fruit,” is a humorous essay collection. Did it feel like you were exercising different writing muscles than you did for the first book – essays versus memoir?
RAINBOW: It did a little bit. I think I had a little more fun writing this book. Save for the fact that I was shlepping around on tour as I also make well known in the book. That wasn’t fun. To not have the, I hate to say burden, but the responsibility of doing a chronological memoir, really getting everything right and then telling your story. I felt like I was just free to shoot the shit and have a little fun.
BLADE: Were these essays written in one creative burst or over the course of years?
RAINBOW: Over the course of a few months. The second half of my tour is when I started doing it. So, probably about five to six months.
BLADE: The first essay “Letter of Resignation” reminded me of Fran Lebowitz…
RAINBOW: I’m so glad.
BLADE: And then, lo and behold, you name-check Fran in the second essay “Gurl, You’re A Karen.” Do you consider her to be an influence on your work?
RAINBOW: Not directly. I’m a fan of hers. But I just feel sympatico with her for all the obvious reasons. I have a problem with everything [laughs] and being able to be funny and creative about it in this book was very cathartic, I felt.
BLADE: Something similar occurred when I was reading the essay “I Feel Bad About My Balls,” which recalled another humor essayist — Nora Ephron, whom you mention at the conclusion of the piece. Is she an influence?
RAINBOW: Again, a fan. I wouldn’t say she ever directly influenced me although I guess since becoming an author myself, I read all of her books, so I love her. But not a direct influence. I think I listened to her audiobook of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and that’s what inspired that chapter.
BLADE: Do you know if Jacob Elordi is aware of his presence in the book?
RAINBOW:I would assume that word has gotten back to him. This is gonna make him!
BLADE: In “Rider? I Hardly Know Her,” you wrote about being on tour as you are about to, once again, embark on a tour throughout October. Do you consider this more of a book tour, as opposed to one of your stage tours?
RAINBOW: It absolutely is. The way it worked out was I’m doing two of my concert shows in Palm Desert. I start my book events here with Harvey Fierstein in New York and then fly to the West Coast and do two musical concerts and then I embark on the rest of my book tour as I make my way back to New York. In that regard, it’s a little less nauseating … taxing.
Yes, although I just finished an eight-month tour. I’ve only had the summer off, and I find myself having to remind myself, “You’re just going for a week, going for a week, and then you come home, and that’s it. I have PTSD from all that travel. I’m not built for it.
BLADE: I’m based in Fort Lauderdale. Are there additional dates in the works, including one in your former home of South Florida?
RAINBOW: That’s where I’m from! That’s where my mother is still located.
BLADE: Yes, we saw you here at the Broward Center, and your mom was there.
RAINBOW: That’s right! No South Florida dates for this tour, but there’s always next year. We’re already planning a few strategically placed tour dates for summer and fall of next year. I’ll definitely be in Florida then, but you’ll have to wait for it.
BLADE: “Notes From A Litter Box,” written in the voice of your cat Tippi, made me wonder if you’d agree that there has never been a better time than now to be a childless cat person.
RAINBOW: Isn’t it funny? That was the least political chapter in the book, the least controversial chapter, and now it’s all anyone’s talking about. It’s our time! What with Taylor Swift and everything, it’s terrific. I wrote that long before all of this J.D. Vance nonsense, but it certainly has put some wind in our sails. And Tippi’s! Who heard her name and she’s looking for treats. Here you go, dear. In the audiobook, the great actress Pamela Adlon voices Tippi.
BLADE: Could you foresee writing a children’s book about Tippi?
RAINBOW: Well, what can I say? I don’t know how much I’m at liberty to discuss. Fuck it, I’ll discuss it! I did write a children’s book, and I’m saying it to whoever asks me. It comes out next year, and that’s actually what we’re planning the tour around, when it comes out around Pride next year. I won’t get into exactly what it’s about, but I will be revealing that very soon. And Tippi is a major character in it.
BLADE: Fantastic! As a 10-year resident of Fort Lauderdale, I especially enjoyed your mother’s takedown of DeSantis in “Ladies and Gentlemen…My Mother (the Sequel).” I take it she didn’t need any prodding from you.
RAINBOW: No. No, she did not. I actually asked her ahead of time – we did a little pre-interview like it was “The Tonight Show” – and I asked her about her topics, so she had her DeSantis material all laid out.
BLADE: Would you please tell my husband Rick there’s a right way to load the dishwasher? He won’t listen to me, but he’ll definitely listen to you.
RAINBOW: I, sadly, do not have a husband, so that is one example that I don’t actually have specifics on. How does he do it?
BLADE: Just wrong!
RAINBOW: Wrong for you.
BLADE: For example, the silverware is just pell-mell in the rack, instead of being grouped, spoons with spoons, forks with forks, and so on.
RAINBOW: He’s not putting mugs or glassware on the bottom, is he?
BLADE: No, not at all. But the plates should go in the same direction, right?
RAINBOW: Absolutely, yes.
BLADE: Thank you!
RAINBOW: I would get rid of him [laughs].
BLADE: “Low-Hanging Fruit” arrives in advance of Election Day 2024 and includes the “Randy Rainbow For President” and “My Gay Agenda” essays, along with running political commentary, as well as a dig at “Donald Jessica Trump” which you say you couldn’t resist. All kidding aside, please share your thoughts on the 2024 election.
RAINBOW: Oh God, kidding aside? How dare you! I have no thoughts that are not kidding because I have to kid to keep my sanity. It’s literally insane. I’ve left my body over it. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to expect. I try to be positive, but I don’t know what that means anymore. I cannot wait for it to be fucking over!
BLADE: Finally, when it comes to “hot tea,” which you write about in the essay “Do I Hear A Schmaltz?”, may I also recommend Harney & Sons’ “Victorian London Fog?” I’m savoring it as we speak.
RAINBOW: Good one! Thank you! I’m very into Harney and Sons now. I have just a few from their catalog, but that’s the next one I’ll try.
The 2024 Winchester Pride festival was held on the grounds of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Va. on Saturday, Oct. 5. Performers included LaLa Ri of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Star of “Pose” Dominique Jackson was the special guest at the vogue party “Kunty” on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Bunker. DJ Mascari provided the music.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
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