Saturday, January 9, 2016

What was the second, third thing I thought of?

Of course El Chapo spoke to none other than Sean Penn, every Latin American dictator best friend. So I thought...
And then, as if on cue, all of a sudden.
Don't you love it?

23 comments:

Leland said...

You the man, Lem.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

When it's cooking, it's cooking.

chickelit said...

"Lemstradamus"

William said...

It's a fast track, but off all the Hollywood celebrities Penn is the most self involved, self dramatizing, and grandiose of the lot. Of course, Jane Fonda is getting older and doesn't get around the way she used to, but this is the most impressive display of fatuity since her trip to Vietnam.......Penn and Madonna had so much in common. I don't understand why their marriage didn't endure......Isn't it kind of racist for Penn to describe one of his rants as "Trump-gringo". Is gringo one of those racist words that whites can use freely the way blacks can use the n-word. I note that Trump probably employs more Mexicans at better pay and with far better health benefits than El Chapo.

William said...

Sometime back there was an article in The New Yorker about the cartels and their tunnels. They weren't referring to the one used to dig El Chapo out of prison but a far more elaborate affair at the border. Here's how they dug it. They kidnapped day workers and made them dig it. After it was dug, they killed the day workers. During other digs, there were cave ins, and the workers were buried alive. Cartel tunnels are not a victimless crime. During Penn's hard hitting interview with the cartel boss, he didn't touch on this awkward subject. Instead we learned that El Chappo loves and respects his mother. It's good that this key fact has been revealed. I see a Pulitzer in Sean's future.

William said...

I'd like to see a sympathetic biopic about John Wilkes Booth. Sean Penn was made to play the part, and Robert Redford can direct.

chickelit said...

I'd like to see a sympathetic biopic about John Wilkes Booth. Sean Penn was made to play the part, and Robert Redford can direct.

I see the resemblance, but Penn is getting a bit old for the part. How old was Booth when he died? [checks wiki]

26 years old!

William said...

If if were in Mexican law enforcement, I would surreptitiously leak word that Penn was in on the deal and had a GPS tracker hidden in the heel of his shoe. I would do this just for spite. The next journalist can ask El Chappo if it's true that he has a one hundred million dollar bounty on Penn's head.

chickelit said...

How many people has this Chappo chap had killed? And we have a Hollywood type enamored of him?

William said...

Penn looks remarkably young and fit for his age. If you have a trainer and nutritionist on staff and work out maniacally, you can play the younger roles. I think John Wilkes Booth was the first matinee idol to take a stand on his political convictions. It's long past time for Hollywood to pay its proper respects to this trail blazing star.

edutcher said...

We used to have Mafia groupies, who liked to hang out with gangsters.

now we have this.

AllenS said...

When ya got it, ya got it! Go ahead and flaunt it!

AllenS said...

Also, it's 20 below zero. I'm about 40 miles from the Seahawk - Viking game today.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sean Penn likes to visit Hugo Chavez grave and cry bitter socialist imperialist tears of rage.

bagoh20 said...

Imagine all the good that could be done if celebrities like Penn had an operating moral compass that guided them into supporting real heroes who actually help people, who do it legally and without killing or robbing anyone. Are those really so hard to find? Your compass has to be seriously fucked up to look around and see El Chapo or Hugo Chavez as the people to befriend and help out. It's like their compass works backward.

virgil xenophon said...

@Bags/

Ya gots to understand the psychology of it all, Bags. Hipsters inately despise "squares" --it's in their DNA--and America is, if it's anything, a nation built and developed by hard-working, middle-of-the-road, middle-class and blue-collar "squares." Think matter v anti-matter, oil & water--take your pick. Hipsters v Squares? In the psychic sense never the twain shall meet. Thus there is an inevitable explanatory logic to Penns choice of "heroes."

virgil xenophon said...

PS to Bags:

And it cuts no ice with me that Penn makes movies about the working-class, long-suffering "down-trodden" and claims to represent them. It's one thing to expose flaws (historical or otherwise) in our nation's political and socio-cultural make-up, but to suggest (as he does at every opportunity) that the nation which allows him to earn millions and live a material life-style that 99% of us can only dream of is somehow inherently "evil" is a bit much for this little Indian. If he despises our society so why continue to live here? LOTS of nice places to site a sumptuous hacienda in, say, Central or South America..

Amartel said...

New Hollywood superhero: Able to leap to completely illogical conclusions in a single bound without even pausing to engage in thought, Oblivious to logic, basic standards of civilized conduct, irony, and historical precedent. It's absurd, it's a pain, it's Super Dupe.

Amartel said...

I started reading the Rolling Stone article but had to stop. td;dr (too douchey;didn't read.

Amartel said...

Virgil, Spicoli is a lock-stepping authoritarian oblong. He just doesn't know it. Enjoy the hilarity!

Chip Ahoy said...

I do love it.

In retrospect it reads like a script.

I wondered about this, about Sean Penn, when I read this earlier, the piece is so disjointed you don't know what time period you're in, the writer slides back and forth between Chapo's escapades and contacts with law, the sliding of time like that in a way erased it, how does Sean Penn go from lovable goofball pothead in film to dictator-loving actor? Why is he even part of the story? How doe an actor become involved?

An intervening movie about selling government secrets. I think that's where Penn's film persona changed, from what little I know of him. Possibly where real life meshes with film.

It's possible our government is thinking, hey, maybe we can use this guy. It is possible to use his fame to position him between us and them. It's possible that Sean Penn is more patriot than imagined. But he needn't be. It showed in my mind as two separate dots, the US unable to interact with despots and we all aligned with the US. If there were such an apparently traitorous dot it could be shuttled between us for whatever purposes however in unforeseeable future.

Penn is foremost an actor. And I must say a good one.

I'm saying, we need not deplore Penn. He's seen as a dot that's being shifted. Is allowed to shift on his own. It really does appear scripted. Many elements of the real life story actually are scripted. The whole thing is about producing a script of the Mexican guy's life. The key factor is a lifetime of scripts. The actor with questionable contacts is contacted, a natural development that's used. Penn is used by our government. In the very least Penn's ambiguous loyalty to country is used. It's a tool. Useful tool. This tool is sentient. If we hear Penn express remorse about being key to Capo's recapture recall that foremost he's an actor.

If you haven't seen Postcards From the Edge, you really must. The film brings to life the whole reality is unreality is reality of Hollywood life even down to the actors being unable to believe each other. Relationships are impossible because every character knows the other person is acting. Nobody, is trusted. And as two actors have that heartfelt understanding between them at the seaside, the entire background is carried away revealing a downtown scene, then that is lifted to show set of drudging reality altered by alcohol and drugs. Nothing is real.

This insight bordering on opinion is John Le Carré approved.

He's the British guy apparently passing as French.

Time has been unkind. Chapo looks like a little bridge troll now.

bagoh20 said...

Acting in real life is called lying.

Amartel said...

Yes, Postcards was excellent. I think with actors, esp actors like Penn who have been in and around show biz all their whole lives, they are always playing a character and access to the character is always about the feelings of the character. These preoccupations of ego and emotion plus the lure of being a mouthpiece for momentary cultural enthusiasms, and voila. I do not believe he knew he was being used.