I agree, Mick.

It’s far more real that Sean Penn is: A father and an American.

One who makes his living in his craft of Filmmaking, but who has walked his walk on this earth & come to certain personally realized philosophical, civic, & human understandings by his own accord & intrepid life-experience. One who has taken a stand of integrity & conscience, has faced the music & lied in the bed he’s made even under the worst scrutiny. Some might say: A Man in Full. We all know these kinds of people in our everyday life—in their own way & by their own means. Probably even people here amongst the DBISers (who've sustained sidebar correspondences over the past decade+). But they are becoming more of a rarity, I imagine, as the 21st Century rails on. No?

So it's more likely Sean Penn saw something in Chavez, enough to wonder intellectually & physically amongst what the man did actually aim to accomplish, from his conscience, weigh in on the pros & cons that are his politics, and maybe attempt to act as international diplomat—as should we all if we have the means. Even Idi Amin (it's a stretch..but still) had his upside apparently. Can you imagine if he could’ve been swayed to have a conscience & less of a predator’s bloodlust? I mean this is a world of serious destructive spirit. Our own leaders are prime examples far more often than is [even] logical by human standards. Bullies just plain suck. But some may actually be just on the precipice of a more humanities energized epiphany. I don’t know, personally I’ve never been a guest of a monarch, emperor, revelator, dick-tater, senator, mayor. But I did sleep beside my gal for a night in the teepee of an Elder Chief of the Lenape Nation, and we found him to be incredibly welcoming & a man of great wisdom & responsibility.

To you who may say, “Actor, keep your mind out of politics/civics.” You’re being shortsighted, because you’re not considering “the whole of the man,” you only see the celebrity, not the life-vague. Here’s a cat who saw floods and adrift families on TV on the other side of the country ..and on the other side of the world; a cat who gave his cellphone number to the proper authorities, who rented a rescue boat, & who took to the rising waters (as some guy named Sean) with a small crew of likeminded people, and saved some lives. This is how one cat used his “Hollywood Boy” free-time. These are honorable, noble, gestures of open humanities during crisis situations. No more, no less. Even if his kids have come up in an on again off again fragmented home scenario, I don't imagine that Sean Penn has any trouble looking his kids in the eyes; and they know their father is a man who puts his money where his mouth is …then walks balls first directly into the eye of the storm. May sound like I’m touting the man, BUT these are merely facts & opinion based on bona fide ground pounded journalism…what remains of that anyway.

So you can be shortsighted or you can consider the bigger picture. I, for one, believe Sean Penn to be an asset to this country at odds with its own integrity, on this planet that has served as provider & hostage-prostitute to those who would usurp it all for sake of nothing meaningful. This ain’t politics, this is simply humanities attempting to right the errs of pooh-pooh politics, fatherhood, guts, money, time & scenery. When a person in the 21st Century is willing to sustain her/his compassionate romanticisms of the 20th Century, even whilst his own affluent are following the worms into oblivion, then this is someone we fellow Americans should probably offer some gratitude to, instead o the figureheads that spend billions weakening our national conscience. Let the chips fall as they may. Let mistakes be made, realizations be born, and corrections begin to take shape. & by all means, protect these people with heart & pride, allow them a forum, and if possible shoulder up beside them before the tide blasts the sandbags.

Aside: Trolls serve nothing meaningful. It is dark comedy masturbation. Those who walk with trolls may aim to make some sense but hang onto the status quo that has certainly chained us to the turnstile. You who would act as surrogate to trolls may love children & family/friends that love you, but you’re still serving the powers that maintain a crippling adversity towards the more enlightened means of human trial & error, so that we remain on this useless runaway train…even against our oldest wisdoms & new days’ dawning. Even though, I’d like to imagine, we DO know better. & so the dbis has suffered, for sake of the Bliss of Vitriol, when it could have flourished creatively for sake o the Delight of Human Arts & this Music experience as a whole, Delight with a conscience, Delight with vision & the occasional four-fisted alley fracas to keep it honest, the darkness before the dawn, before the powers-that-would-make-glad-food-of-you usurp what remains o that good humanities energy while gathering a gargantuan mob of yes-men, stewards to the slaughter, to break us in two again & again & again. Too easy. Too bad too.