We used to think we couldn't stand Sean Penn, but he never really did anything to deserve our ire. He's talented; seems to have similar political to ours; married to her, wonderful her; surfs; from Southern California; lives in the Bay Area; and above all else, is attractive. Then we figured it out: we didn't hate Sean Penn, we feared him. He seems like the kind of guy who could and would kick our ass right-quick if he ever encountered us.

But you know who really wants you to know how much he loves the Oscar winner? LA Weekly's Joe Donnelly. Read his interesting yet fellating article of Mr. Penn here, or for your convenience, our truncated version below.

"One of Sean Penn’s best friends is stuck there in San Quentin, maybe for good, and Penn cites this unfortunate fact as one of his main reasons for choosing to live in this corner of Marin County."

"...that was a lesson in humility."

"...picture if you will a sleepless and forlorn journalist chain smoking..."

"...there are deep crags around his cowboy eyes..."

"He’s muscular like a construction worker."

"I like this guy already. A lot."

"'You’re a good writer,' I say."

"'That’s my baby,' Penn grins mischievously."

"...salvation comes in small packages."

"Thankfully, Penn has a pack of American Spirits nearby."

"I’m getting divorced." [Donnelly, not Penn -- SFist]

"Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice..."

"Sammy Hagar..."

"President Bush..."

"...fishing old people out of flooded New Orleans..."

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez"

"The Colbert Report...Meta-Free-Phor-All...Robert Pinksy."

"...Steinbeck, Saroyan, McCarthy, García Márquez, Dostoyevsky, Ford."

"For me, his protests exist somewhere between metaphor and metaphysics."

"'...those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and blood-soaked underwear...'"

"His public denouncements are saturated with a rage that frightens some, while others witness these performances and think, Fuck yeah, I’ll take another dish of that."

"...full of shit..."

"(we’ve moved outside by now so we can take minutes off our lives unfettered)"

"Dennis Kucinich will be president."

"[Regarding surfing] Penn says he can handle eight-to-10-foot Pipeline on a good day if it isn’t too crowded."

"I tell him that five-foot is about my cutoff."

"...an infantile culture."

"Penn’s main muse is language...evident in the journalism he’s practiced — the attention to details, the facility with structure."

"So, let's dish, girl. Just how fabulous was Madonna as a wife? And what's your favorite song of hers?" [Might or might not have appeared in the final article. -- SFist]

Image: LA Weekly / Kevin Scanlon