In the wake of Sean Penn’s stunning Rolling Stone profile of El Chapo, we learned that the meeting (which took place in the Sinaloa mountains) reportedly led to El Chapo’s arrest. Actress Kate Del Castillos and Penn are under investigation for meeting with the drug lord and never alerting authorities. Rolling Stone fully endorsed the profile, which shines light on their often murky journalistic ethics. Folks aren’t keen to forget the publication’s styling of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev like a teen idol or the journalistic lapses of the UVA rape story. This El Chapo piece won’t help matters.
The article itself also drew much criticism. Penn drew the piece like a diary entry with a few interview questions tacked on at the end. The wide-ranging internet reactions took aim at Penn’s morally ambiguous stances and fart-sniffing prose. For sure, farts were definitely sniffed in this profile, so here are some of the most outrageous words from old man Penn:
The piece begins with Penn rambling about burner phones, encryption, email, and the “clandestine horror show” of technology:
“At 55 years old, I’ve never learned to use a laptop. Do they still make laptops? No f*cking idea!”
Penn introduces the world to his companion and “brother in arms,” who may or may not exist as a well-traveled bald man:
“Espinoza is the owl who flies among falcons.”
This bizarre statement has drawn attention for simply being “out there”:
“I step from plane to earth, ever so slightly sobering my bearings, and move toward the beckoning waves of waiting drivers. I throw my satchel into the open back of one of the SUVs, and lumber over to the tree line to take a p*ss. D*ck in hand, I do consider it among my body parts vulnerable to the knives of irrational narco types, and take a fond last look, before tucking it back into my pants.”
He describes the journey ahead with a chaotic statement about chaos:
“Places where what can go wrong will go wrong, had gone wrong, and yet in the end, had delivered me in one piece with a deepening situational awareness (though not a perfect science) of available cautions within the design in chaos.”
Penn isn’t a fan of “carne asada” for its implications in the cartel sense:
“‘Carne Asada,’ an oft-used cartel term describing the decimated bodies in cities like Juarez after mass narco executions. Hence, I go for the tacos.”
Penn goes full-on gonzo journalist with this descriptive gem:
“I’m in my rhythm. Everything I say to everyone must be true. As true as it is compartmentalized. The trust that El Chapo had extended to us was not to be f*cked with.”
He feels like a Fight Club protagonist over the henchman Rodrigo:
“The look in his eye is far away, but locked dead on me. My speculation goes audio. I hear chain saws. I feel splatter. I am Sean’s dubitable paranoia.”
Penn describes the usefulness of tequila as a stress-relieving mechanism:
“As he and his cohorts share a chuckle, I look to the sky and wonder how funny it would be if there were a weaponized drone above us. We are in a clearing, sitting right out in the open. I down the tequila, and the drone goes away.”
When El Chapo arms himself to the gills, Penn sees him as a superhero:
“Following this Clark Kent-into-Superman extravaganza, Chapo returns to the table. His demeanor, casual. His battle gear, anything but.”
The glorious fart-sniffing moment arrives when Penn hugs El Chapo:
“In a narrow, dark passage between ours and an adjacent bungalow, Chapo puts his arm over my shoulder and renews his request that I see him in eight days. ‘I’ll be saying goodbye now,’ he says. At this moment, I expel a minor traveler’s flatulence (sorry), and with it, I experience the same chivalry he’d offered when putting Kate to bed, as he pretends not to notice.”
Penn’s negotiations with El Alto (over sleeping arrangements) are mildly poetic:
“His six-foot-three frame towers above me, knowing he is inadvertently caught with proximity to the five-foot-three couch, and that I, at five feet nine, am left standing only inches from a king-size bed. It’s a Mexican standoff.”
Penn’s plans to get back to El Chapo are a heist movie come true:
“I make a plan to hide myself in the trunk of a friend’s car and be driven to a waiting rental vehicle. I would then drive the rental from L.A. to Yuma, Arizona, then cross the border at Algodones.”
A Donald Trump mention arrives with a nod to Penn’s buddy, Oliver Stone:
“I mention Trump. El Chapo smiles, ironically saying, ‘Ah! Mi amigo!’ His unguarded will to speak freely, his comfort with his station in life and ownership of extraordinary justifications, conjure Tony Montana in Oliver Stone’s Scarface.”
Trump appears once again, this time from inside Penn’s consciousness:
“I go Full-Trump-Gringo on Kate, battering her daily by phone, text and encrypted email.”
Penn tells the world how he, like Tom Cruise, feels the need for speed:
“We are cruising at well over 100 miles per hour. I like speed. But not without my own hands on the wheel.”
Finally, Penn romanticizes his new friend, El Chapo, looking “wide-eyed”:
“His hair combed, or perhaps cap-matted, conjuring the vision of a wide-eyed schoolboy unsure of his teacher’s summons. His hands folded across each other, a self-soothing thumb crossing the knuckle of the other.”
(Via Rolling Stone)