I walk outside to find a couple nuts and bolts I need. I have the measurement, so it should be no problem. First of all, I am disappointed to be told that in Spanish there is no word for bolt, just a big screw. I guess that the phrase “nuts and bolts” only works in English then.

The other disappointment was that it wasn’t so simple to find what I needed, and I bounce from one hardware store to the next. Finally, I end up at one in the center of the transvestite district, and they have what I need. Ahead of me in line is a trannie buying a padlock. The clerk giggles as she/he leaves. The clerk still giggling tells me that the trannie has not shaved yet. Her boobs were all there, but also a 5-o’clock shadow.

After I pay I head home and pass by the train station. On the side of a newsstand are several porn magazines displayed. (You see that on any newsstand in Buenos Aires.) The headline of a gay one screams out “Hotwired.” I wonder if my former employer from the early dotcom days would have been more successful had we used that name to sell sex.

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games over a few other cities, including the United States candidate of Chicago. This was played up in the press as a failure of the US Olympic Committee. But living overseas one detail of the process stood out, a question posed to the USOC that President Obama himself fielded.

IOC member Syed Shahid Ali of Pakistan said that foreigners entering the US “can go through a rather harrowing experience,” and asked how would the US deal with that when thousands travel there for the 2016 games. Obama responded:

“One of the legacies I want to see coming out of the Chicago 2016 hosting of the Games is a reminder that America at its best is open to the world. And, as has already been indicated, we are putting the full force of the White House and the State Department to make sure that not only is this a successful Games, but that visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people.”

As many have pointed out, Obama is good with words (and I laud him for saying them) but they are just words. Those words can not alone reverse years of US intolerance not only to immigrants, but also to tourists. The US requires that every visitor from Latin America pass an expensive and arduous interview process to get a visa to enter for even the briefest of visits. Ironically, Brazil, the country who won the bid has recognized this intolerance by requiring the same from US citizens. (Though it’s still much easier for a US citizen to get a visa to visit Brazil than for the opposite.) This has hit me personally where my own boyfriend, who is an Argentine citizen, has never accompanied me in visiting the US in the three years we have been together; because the visa process is just too inhibiting. We can go to Mexico together instead, or to most countries in Europe, and not have to toil just for the privilege of standing on the soil.

On another side of this topic, why is it seen as a failure of the US that Rio de Janeiro won the selection? It is rather chauvinistic to see it as a shortcoming of the US Olympic Committee in place of recognizing that Brazil has earned the distinction of hosting the first-ever Olympic Games in South America. Let’s be happy for Brazil and celebrate by reforming our visa policies.

Finally the international swimming board has come to its senses. It is banning the use of those high tech all-body suits we came to know in the Olympic Games last year. There are obvious competitive reasons, but more important is how this policy improves things for the spectators. Competitively speaking, as long as regulations are consistent for everyone, there really is no difference between the all-body suit and brief-style except in times. I imagine the same athletes will place equally no matter which suits they use, just that with everyone in briefs their times will be a few hundredth’s of seconds more.

More significant is to consider the male swimmer’s body. Most would agree a well-trained swimmer has a beautiful physique that brings pleasure to gay men and female office workers around the world. How many more magazines have been sold over the past few years for featuring the bare torso of Michael Phelps on the cover? Just as more baseball fans crowd to parks when the players hit more home runs, more swim fans will tune in if the male swimmers are clad in brief-style suits than in full body ones.

Compare the two pictures below of Mr. Phelps. Notice that he has a nice set of Olympic rings tattooed at the hip line that would be a complete waste in the full-body suit:

“The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies [in Latin America], but over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don’t always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States.”

– US President Barack Obama

Formerly just another gay flight attendant, he endeared much of Argentina. Fernando Peña passed away suddenly on June 17. Even though there remains a lot of machismo and homophobia in this country, Argentines of all walks of life were fascinated by Fernando Peña and mourned his death.

I don’t know the story so well as I have only been becoming acquainted with him and his personalities, yes his personalities, but I’ll try my best. I say flight attendant because he became a celebrity at 30,000 feet. Fernando worked for American Airlines, Aerolineas Argentina, and others and his humor on the planes became known. I imagine he was a bit better than the typical one-liners  you hear on Southwest Airlines. He knew English pretty well, because he lived in Miami and New York for a period of time.

The legend is that more than ten years ago he became known to a frequent passenger who worked in radio brought him to a morning radio program on a rock station. He became a sensation for how he would create complex scenarios with up to a dozen distinct characters interacting simultaneously, while he was the only one at the mic. Sometimes the personalities can be scarily convincing but in moments become completely ridiculous. I think that some of those personalities were born from his shtick on the airlines. In one newspaper I read, not only was there an obituary for Fernando but also for several of his personalities, who are almost as well known as he is. A Cuban woman, Milagritos López, was the best known and since she was only known from radio. Her character was so convincing that a few guest who arrived at the radio studio were shocked to discover that the señora from Cuba was really this tall thick-built guy.

Fernando Peña had a weekly TV show a few years back when I first got to know him (its name “Isla Flotante” comes from the most over-the-top dessert you can imagine), but on the radio is his mainstay and I regret only having the presence of mind to tune in a few times. My Spanish is very good now for conversing, reading, etc, but for acting when people speak rapidly with lots of colloquialisms, I am very challenged. Plus there are still cultural references that I still don’t get. The parts I understood were usually hilarious. I have also heard him talk and read interviews, and when he is himself I understand him a lot better. He was a complex person with his dark sides, very provocative, and philosophical. He hid nothing about what he believed or who he was, even video-taping his cancer treatment at the very end.

Fernando always did theatrical performances too. Shows based around various characters he created. Last year I went to a re-do of his first ever show, “Gracias por Volar Conmigo” (Thank you for Flying with Me), about flight attendants, performing a monologue each of a stereotype of a certain type of flight attendant. I had a hard time understanding a lot of it because all the characters were so hysterical and talked so fast, and at moments felt out of place amongst an audience of everyone cracking up except for me. But I still was pretty amazed, and I did understand a couple characters and when Fernando sat facing the audience to talk from himself. Also, he would serve himself a cocktail from the drink cart and fixed a few for members the audience. He also appeared to inhale a line of coke, which I found unbelievable, but Guille (my boyfriend) assured me it was for real and part of who he is. It has been my goal in to improve my Spanish enough to return to a show of his and understand it all. Well, unfortunately I’ll have to look for some recordings now.

Infected with HIV, and I believe at  one point Fernando was near death with AIDS. He did not appear unhealthy, a big masculine type with various tattoos and piercings and painted finger nails. His appearance was always to me very masculine and very feminine at the same time, punctuated at T.V. interviews by the accompaniment of his poodle. The cause of his death was not related to that but to a very aggressive cancer that was only discovered recently. Guille and I had no idea he was even sick when we saw the news.

Fernando Peña, Milagros López, Diputado Porelorti, Cristina Patricia Megahertz, and others will be deeply missed.