a&e features
Losing a lover to AIDS
My years with Rob are how I measure time now
Gary Barton was an actor and former senior vice president of production at Walt Disney Co. In 1992, along with his partner Rob Hershman and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, he won the Leadership Award from AIDS ACTION in Washington. (Photo from Barton’s Facebook page)
That last month, I could look only in his eyes, for that is where he was. His face was covered with raw open sores. His gray translucent skin was stretched tautly from bone to bone. He had become a body with which I had no history.
When I got scared, I held him in my arms and stared into his eyes. They were clear and beautiful and familiar. That is where we connected now.
That last month I remember as snapshots of black and gray. Even the blood Rob bled, in my memory, lacks color. Time is distorted and that month seems much longer than a month is. I can still feel myself pushing away certain memories.
It has been years since Rob died and the black flashes stay a little longer now, and very slowly, like a photograph coming up in a darkroom tray, I begin to see the memory develop and fix. When I met Rob, he was beginning to lose weight. I watched him chart his unexplained fevers daily.
A friend commented that he thought I was courageous to get involved with someone who was beginning to get sick. Courage had nothing to do with it. I knew after spending a few weeks with Rob, that this was the man I would allow myself to love and with more difficulty, allow to love me. I committed to make the journey of my life with him, not knowing where it would lead. It was quite simply, the wisest decision I ever made.
My years with Rob are how I measure time now. Everything else comes either before or after.
The differences between Rob and me were considerable. Rob was very well read and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. I barely made it through high school. Rob was compulsive about neatness and order. I would leave my clothes in a pile where I removed them. I had been living on my own since I was 17 and had developed street smarts that Rob never did.
In fact, he never stopped being naive. But instead of allowing these differences to become a wedge, we learned from each other because of them.
Three years before he died, Rob told me he needed to pursue a spiritual path to deal with what he knew was in store for him. He decided, having been born a Jew, that he would study the Torah. Up until then, he had no particular religious connection with Judaism, but like many Jews, he had a strong cultural bond.
In typical fashion, he excelled in his studies and for this, in that last month, the rabbis with whom he was studying, honored him in a ceremony naming him a maggid. Maggid in Hebrew means: a teacher or storyteller.
It is an honor that is rarely bestowed to a layperson and Rob was indeed honored. He had won many awards including two Emmys and a Peabody award for journalism but this was the acknowledgement of which he was most proud. At that ceremony, our family and friends listened as Rob spoke of how generations ago a person’s character seemed to be so important, and that today no one talks about character. Rob had character. He was the most decent person I have ever known.
That last month, we had another ceremony at our home. For a long time Rob had wanted some formal acknowledgement of our love. I’d had no interest in emulating a tradition that had never welcomed me. But one night, that last month, I looked at Rob’s body in the bed and decided I wanted to marry him. He was so riddled with pain that there was a moan coming from him that seemed disconnected, as if his body was screaming but not his soul. He once described the pain as a beehive in his brain with thousands of killer bees swarming and stinging him from within.
I wanted to give him this gift. And so, before our closest friends, family, our dogs and our doctors, we stood on our deck and celebrated our love for each other. Not a commitment ceremony really, for the commitment had been made many years before. Rob was frail and had trouble standing that Sunday, and yet his face radiated enormous power and strength. His eyes were present and filled with tears of joy.
He died exactly one month to the day with the gold band on his bony finger that matched the one on mine. He was 41.
That last month seems nonlinear. The events are jumbled up. Extraordinary moments of profound joy mix with unbearably painful ones. I didn’t only lose Rob that last month. I also said goodbye to Paul Monette, my beloved friend and fellow warrior, who died with his icy, yellow hand sandwiched between mine.
For many seasons past, Paul and I talked almost daily, sharing our anger and comparing our t-cells. For 10 years we ran neck and neck, only in this race the winner comes in last. There was no room for anything or anyone that was not directly connected to Rob’s care. Even mourning Paul’s death had to wait.
As our world became narrower, Rob’s world of learning, teaching, and touching people seemed to expand. I often think of him sitting at the dining room table with our Guatemalan housekeeper Dani. Her husband had forbid her to go to school to improve her English. Rob offered to teach her, which he did until a week before he died, his patience vying with his pain.
One of the things I so admired in Rob was his total lack of classism. I came home one day and overheard Rob on the telephone explaining to the person on the other end how in American English it was common for certain words to have an opposite definition such as cool and hot, and yet in certain circumstances, they mean the same thing.
“People could say that something was very cool as in ‘that song is very cool’ or “that song is really hot” and mean the same thing. I assumed that Rob was talking to Dani continuing one of his lessons. When he got off the phone I said, “how is Dani?” He said,“oh, that was not Dani, it was Prince Charles.” I sadly thought Rob’s previous dementia had returned and as upsetting that was to me, I just let it go.
The next day Rob mentioned how nice it was for Prince Charles to call. With further inquiry I discovered that Rob actually had been talking to the Prince. Rob had done a story about architecture when producing news for CBS. He had interviewed Prince Charles at Highgrove House, his country estate. They had kept up a correspondence and a friendship and when Charles had called Rob at CBS, he was informed of Rob’s condition and called him to wish him well.
I remember Rob used to laugh when he told the story about being left alone in a room at Highgrove, which evidently had hundreds of Faberge eggs just sitting on tables with no security. I thought it was odd that Rob did not pick one up and put it in his pocket but Rob was much too ethical to do that. I viewed it more like taking an ashtray from a hotel. What I thought was cool (and hot) was that Rob did not differentiate how he spoke whether it was to a housekeeper or to British royalty. That was just part of who Rob was. The fact that Rob never made a big deal about his friendship with Prince Charles from before he and I met, was just one more example of his genuine modesty and humbleness.
That last month, Rob was diagnosed with a fungal infection that was literally eating through his sinuses to the bones surrounding his brain. His physical pain was extraordinary and only slightly helped by morphine.
Morphine frightened both of us. It frightened Rob because he so hated the feeling of being disconnected to the very life at which he was clutching and marveling. His inability to study and meditate made the spiritual pain of being on the drug as bad as the physical pain of not. It frightened me because it dulled the bright life force that shone in his eyes.
Rob began losing his vision that last month before he died. He could not see out but I could see in.
That last month I took a photo of Rob in the desert. I look at it often. He is standing next to an also decrepit cactus, both looking up at the sky. Rob is beaming with unlimited joy and the desert bright, washed out light seems to be originating from within him rather than from the sun. Most of the time when I look at the picture, my tears blur my vision, but not my memory of his eyes. Still, that is where he is.
a&e features
The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
Spotlighting chaotic ways family, romance, identity take shape in their lives
Kevin Chen’s family tombstone has room for four: him, his parents and his boyfriend. The arrangement might prove to be a little awkward.
“My boyfriend is 100% white, and my parents are 100% disappointed,” Chen confessed.
Jokes about family traditions and the untraditional ways they’re practiced earned a burst of laughs at the bar where Chen was opening for the Pride Comedy Special. The D.C. stand-up event, produced by Comedy Bonfyre last month, spotlighted queer Asian comics who shared the chaotic ways family, romance and identity take shape in their lives.
From candid oral sex takes to top surgery hypotheticals like “Where do the boobs go?”, the night highlighted the loud camaraderie of the queer Asian experience — one that sounds like a cacophony of snorts, cackles and belly laughs. While the comics say they are not quite a community, there’s more than enough shared material to bring them together.
“It was such a magical experience. I loved performing in a queer API lineup. It feels so validating,” Chen said after the show. “I’m wondering, ‘Is this how white men feel all the time?’”
Each performance evoked queer Asian joy through a medium that could use more of its presence.
According to Chen, who is based in D.C., it’s hard to say whether there is a true queer Asian comedy presence in his city. There are only a scattered “handful” of Asian comics, and people of color are underrepresented in queer comic circles, he said.
When Tarunika Anand, a nonbinary lesbian comic, first entered the mainstream D.C. comedy scene, they mostly encountered straight white men, describing the experience as “a culture shock.”
“I feel like sometimes a lot of queer spaces are really white, and then a lot of Asian spaces are really straight,” Anand said. “I don’t feel like I fit into either.”
But feeling marginalized didn’t stop these comics from honing their craft and creating spaces for others like them. Alex Kim, who headlined the special and is based in Brooklyn, runs the queer Asian comedy group Boba Gays, which began on WhatsApp and has since made its way to Lincoln Center.
Every Wednesday, Anand co-produces a free comedy show called Funny Side Up. The queer-led group focuses on inclusivity and showcasing new talent.
“It’s really beautiful to speak about your experience and your existence in a way that’s uplifting,” Anand said.
Family is a major throughline of their comedic repertoires.
Chen, for instance, shared that he identifies with jokes about having Asian immigrant parents and the expectations they pass down.
“You see me, you know this part about me, you know this experience intimately, and I can see the truth that you’re trying to wrap a joke around,” he said. “That hits even harder because that’s my truth too. I think that’s what makes good comedy.”
Anand had the audience at the special howling when they explained that their parents’ be-more-like-them comparisons didn’t end when they came out. Instead, the expectations took on a new form.
“Now, my parents want me to be the best gay,” Anand said. “They’re like, ‘Do you know Ellen DeGeneres?’”
Kim said he’s been trying to unlearn things from his Christian Korean mom. Yet he described a moment when he was getting ready for the club and realized he looked just like his mother getting ready for church.
“I’ve been finding it hard to escape her,” Kim said.
Mutual recognition also radiates through the different ways queer love can take shape. From singlehood to death-do-us-part commitments, the comics cover just about every corner.
Anand is holding out hope for settling down with “a nice, pretty, Indian girl.” They recently went through a breakup and said they felt they dodged a bullet.
“As a person of color, I just don’t think I should be with a Swiftie,” they said.
Chen, touching on what it’s like to be in a queer interracial relationship, said that meeting his white boyfriend’s baby nephew for the first time felt like he was forced to participate in a diversity, equity and inclusion training.
“The dad was like, ‘Please welcome Kevin. Be curious about his culture, his history, his foods,’” Chen joked.
Laughter is not the only reward for the comics.
To Anand, comedy is a space where they can say whatever they want. “It gives me a voice,” they said.
Nik Narain, a North Carolina-based trans and nonbinary South Asian comic who performed at the special, said meeting older trans comedians and taking the stage helped him feel reassured in his identity during his transition.
“Stand-up was a really cool way to process that onstage,” he said. “[It] became a way for me to repackage my thoughts.”
Queer Asians are still figuring out their place in the greater D.C. comedy scene. The group is small in numbers and many are still working toward a full-time comedy career. But Narain feels he’s already made it.
Narain is reluctant to pin it all on one moment. He feels that success is already peeking through in milestones — opening for celebrities, traveling to performances and self-producing shows.
“As long as I can keep doing this, I’m super happy,” he said.
This story was produced as part of the AAJA VOICES fellowship program, a student journalism project of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
a&e features
Mr. Henry’s celebrates 60 years of proud inclusivity
Capitol Hill staple remains ‘a caring community’
America’s 250th isn’t the only milestone birthday D.C. is celebrating this year.
Beloved D.C. restaurant Mr. Henry’s, that Capitol Hill staple, celebrates its Diamond Jubilee all year long. Named for its original owner Henry Yaffe, the restaurant opened on a warm day 60 years ago in the summer of 1966 and has never looked back.
Yaffe took over what was then a country western restaurant, renovated the interior to his liking, and created an institution. Yet Yaffe had another goal. As a gay man, “he created Mr. Henry’s to be a place where everyone felt welcome — not easy in 1966 — and he succeeded,” says current owner Mary Quillian.
“Mr. Henry’s has long been a place the LGBTQ community has supported because they felt and still feel welcomed,” says Quillian. Even in the current administration, “the gay community and the diversity-minded community continue to come.”
Since then, Mr. Henry’s has changed hands, opened and closed its second floor, welcomed famed musical acts, and played host to politicians, date nights, breakups, and birthdays. But it still feels like home (and has a note in the National Trust for Historic Preservation) at 601 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.
Its wood-paneled, Victorian-inspired art-filled décor in the downstairs dining room and bar serves American pub fare for lunch and dinner daily, with brunch on weekends (and a dog-friendly patio). Upstairs, Mr. Henry’s hosts live jazz performances and special events most nights, continuing a musical tradition that has defined the venue for decades. That upstairs bar has played host to names like Roberta Flack and Woody Allen.
Musician Kevin Cordt said that, “Mr. Henry’s has been a part of my life for more than 30 years. I started as a customer, then became a bartender and server, and now I have the good fortune to play trumpet at one of the best live music venues in Washington, D.C.”
Aaron Myers, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, is also a supporter. “Not many cities can sport venues that have consistently served the community in the space of culture for more than 50 years, let alone can brag as the birthplace of culture defining talent.”
From the start, Yaffe promoted a rare yet celebrated combination of locals’ bar and soulful nightlife venue. Mr. Henry’s has attracted a diverse crowd at a time when such spaces were – and perhaps still are – uncommon, a diversity that is credited with helping protect the pub during the 1968 D.C. riots.
Longtime customer Evelyn Branic said, “Mr. Henry’s has been my ‘Cheers’ hangout since my wife and I moved to the Hill in 1987. I’ve experienced many iconic moments meeting politicians, reporters, civic activists, and neighbors engaging in spirited conversations. Whether political, LGBTQ, historians, neighbors, or out-of-towners, everyone could find a special place to be greeted as a friend.”
Its welcoming tables come dabbed with a bit of tea: In 1971, in a moment that has since become part of Capitol Hill lore, Yaffe lost the pub in a poker game to Larry Quillian. The Quillian family, recognizing the special role Mr. Henry’s played in the neighborhood, took over ownership, and committed to preserving its spirit. Today, Larry’s daughter Mary owns the bar, having given it a bit of a facelift for the bar’s 50th birthday, bringing in new tables and some fresh menu items.
For example, the menu has some of those dishes that regulars would riot if they disappeared. The Reuben and the hamburgers, the chili and in-house roasted turkey have never departed the menu. Dishes do evolve, says Quillen: they added wings about two decades ago.
In 2026, the restaurant is hosting monthly ticketed “decades” parties, celebrating each of the 10-year periods the restaurant’s been open, plus there were specials in June for Pride. The official 60th anniversary gala takes place Aug. 29, featuring performers, beverages, timeless favorite foods, swag – and the unveiling of a new cocktail.
Inclusive, eccentric, eclectic, Mr. Henry’s is looking forward to maintaining its centrality to diverse crowds in Capitol Hill. Battling inflation, rising menu prices, changing tastes, and thin margins, Quillian says that Mr. Henry’s has — and will always be — “a caring community for so many different folks. And THAT is why I am committed to keeping us going. Society needs places like Mr. Henry’s, now more than ever.”
a&e features
Television loses a legend, longtime ‘Will & Grace’ director James Burrows
Iconic hitmaker leaves behind a legacy of telling LGBTQ stories
You don’t have to be a pretentious film major to name 10 movie directors. But naming television directors is not that simple. They’re the unsung heroes of your favorite shows, and the late James Burrows was the television director. He passed on June 19, but his DNA runs through television history.
He directed over 1200 episodes of television and over 50 pilots. He co-created “Cheers” and directed many episodes of long-running series like “Friends,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Two and a Half Men.” You also may remember him from playing a heightened version of himself on the Lisa Kudrow comedy “The Comeback.”
He has left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ community. As recently as last year, he directed the series run of “Mid-Century Modern” starring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. He was also a longtime director of “Will & Grace” and directed every episode of the series revival. He even directed the unaired “Absolutely Fabulous” pilot with Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Johnston, and Zosia Mamet.
Not to mention he’s worked with queer icons throughout history, including Betty White and Stockard Channing on their single-season series, and Jennifer Coolidge in “2 Broke Girls.”
He started his career on shows like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and the first four seasons of “Taxi.”
He continued to work steadily and directed successful pilots that went to series for “Roc,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Dharma & Greg,” and “Wings.” He directed multiple episodes of “Friends,” “Caroline in the City,” and “Frasier.”
This magic continued into the 2000s with him directing the pilots for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and multiple episodes of “Mike & Molly,” and the entire return series of “Will & Grace.”
What was the secret to his success? He’d enact the “fun clause” in his contract. In his words, “Life is too short to deal with obnoxious leads,” he shared. “So as long as the writing is good and the cast is fun, I’m going to enjoy the experience.”
He had the magic touch, having multiple pilots turned into long-running series. He was nominated for an Emmy 24 times in 26 years and worked consistently until a year before his death.
The secret was the way he brought the cast together. He describes, “it was my job to mold them into an ensemble, and they did round into a group of people who loved each other.”
This earned him 11 Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards, including being awarded the inaugural DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Television Direction.
In a 2003 interview by the Television Academy, he was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he said, “That every night forever you can tune in somewhere, and there’ll be a show I did.”
He’s survived by his wife, Debbie, four daughters, seven grandchildren, and the countless people whose careers he launched and the countless viewers he inspired with his television legacy.
Wanda Alston Foundation announces passing of founding executive director Brian Watson
Beloved local master gardener Frank Asher dies at 69
DOJ seeks to dismiss some claims in gay FBI employee’s bias lawsuit
The government pressured USA Rugby to ban transgender women. A Baltimore team refused to comply.
LGBTQ community center opens in Leesburg, Va.
Lindsey Graham has passed away. Do LGBTQ people have a right to celebrate his death?
The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
Hegseth announces testosterone initiative as trans troop ban continues
ROSENSTEIN: Vote Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
Literature is my companion
-
Congress5 days agoLindsey Graham has passed away. Do LGBTQ people have a right to celebrate his death?
-
a&e features5 days ago
The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
-
Pentagon5 days ago
Hegseth announces testosterone initiative as trans troop ban continues
-
Opinions5 days ago
ROSENSTEIN: Vote Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
