• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, January 11, 2016

Lots of people are giving Rolling Stone and its special celebrity correspondent Sean Penn a hard time about their contact with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, a Mexican drug lord. When he met Penn, Guzman was on the lam following his escape from a Mexican high security prison. But he was recaptured last week, thanks to the interview with the Hollywood star, which gave away his location to law enforcement officials.

Critics are bashing Rolling Stone and the actor-turned-journalist for actions they say might appear to laud, condone and encourage Guzman’s criminal career, by satisfying his vanity and evident need to boast about his crimes.

Free-press advocates are also pointing to the fate of hundreds of less famous journalists who have been murdered because of their reporting on Mexico’s drug cartels.

I personally don’t feel too perturbed by the idea of a magazine sending a celebrity to interview a drug lord, per se. American culture already glorifies and celebrates criminals — just check out “Narcos” and “Breaking Bad.”

It’s possible to present a nuanced profile of such an individual, capturing the sensational aspects of his life without omitting to mention that he is a mass-murdering sociopath.

From the magazine’s perspective, using a celebrity to get a scoop is a perfectly sensible strategy, and it’s hard to see how it evinces any disrespect for journalists who have been murdered because of their reporting. Journalists occasionally get privileged access to terrorist leaders or reclusive tyrants who have jailed, tortured or murdered their colleagues.

Charlie Rose’s interview with Bashar al-Assad comes to mind.

No one suggests that they should forego these rare opportunities to speak to important figures because of their previous atrocities. After all, Guzman was apprehended because of his desire to brag to a Hollywood big shot – so in the end, Rolling Stone and Penn actually did everyone a favor, even if unwittingly.

No, the problem with the Rolling Stone Guzman interview is that it is a completely unreadable mass of awfulness, demonstrating beyond a doubt that celebrities should stick to their own areas of expertise and leave the writing to writers.

The fact that it was apparently published more or less unedited, and received final approval from Guzman himself, only add to the editorial embarrassment. In short, a respectable publication like Rolling Stone should never have let this see the light of day.

Where to start?

All I can say is that Sean Penn writes exactly like you would expect a tightly wound narcissistic “creative type” to write, and the result is terrible. Just consider: “Espinoza is the owl who flies among falcons. Whether he’s standing in the midst of a slum, a jungle or a battlefield, his idiosyncratic elegance, mischievous smile and self-effacing charm have a way of defusing threat. His bald head demands your attention to his twinkling eyes. He’s a man fascinated and engaged.”

Too many adjectives! Odd syntax! Weird word agreement! And the verbs are all slightly… off somehow? Moving on: “It is not he who necessitated weeks of clandestine planning. Instead, it’s a man of about my age, though absent any human calculus that may provide us a sense of anchored commonality.”

Boy, that’s not the only absent calculus, if you know what I mean.

Then there’s this doozy: “Are we saying that what’s systemic in our culture, and out of our direct hands and view, shares no moral equivalency to those abominations that may rival narco assassinations in Juarez? Or, is that a distinction for the passive self-righteous?”

To be honest, I’m not sure what we’re saying, Sean, but I will say it kind of sounds like you got into Guzman’s party treats before you sat down to write this.

And there’s more: “I’d offered myself to experiences beyond my control in numerous countries of war, terror, corruption and disaster. 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.”

Sean, Sean, Sean: maybe calm down a little?

The capper? The article goes on this way for 9,000 words! That’s like a longform piece in The New Yorker – except instead of a delightful mediation on, say, the pace of life on a Mississippi barge by John McPhee, it’s a wild-eyed rant delivered by some dude who follows you home after the bartender kicks you out at closing time.

Not cool, Rolling Stone, not cool.