It’s been six years since Plastilina Mosh released their funky homage to the machete-wielding action god with a heart of gold, Danny Trejo, so decided to celebrate with our own Throwback Thursday homage to the man who made being Danny Trejo cooler than just about anything else we can think of (as if we needed an excuse).
For those that slept on this track back in 2008, “Danny Trejo” (the song) was one of the standout cuts from Plastilina Mosh’s 2008 album All You Need Is Mosh, after which the band disappeared suddenly from the public eye. For just under four minutes, the Monterrey alt-rock duo extolls the innumerable virtues of being Danny Trejo — including his status as a “cabrón duro” and a “cabrón grueso”, then further highlighting the fact that after breaking laws during the day he kills “dos o tres güeyes” every night. While few humans have ever achieved this feat, it is not yet clear whether Trejo is actually human.
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But that’s not all there is to Hollywood’s multifaceted macho man. After spending most of his twenties in and out of prison, Trejo became a drug counselor in his native Los Angeles — a position that fortuitously brought him to the coke-addled set of Andrei Konchalovsky’s Runaway Train, where the screenwriter recognized Trejo’s unmistakable mug from San Quentin prison. After being hired to train one of the actors for a boxing scene, Trejo was eventually offered a small role as a boxer and the rest, as they say, is history.
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While not in front of the cameras, it seems Trejo is particularly fond of cooking up animal-shaped bread loaves (known as breadanimals), favoring representations of reptiles and amphibians, while also delving into the occasional flightless bird. This video gives a fascinating window into the soul of a man for whom the union of bread and animals is a true passion (We’re still not sure if this video is a joke or not.)
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And for those who ever doubted Trejo’s acting chops, here is a handy infographic that breaks down the range of different emotional states he has mastered over the years with unequaled subtlety and grace.
For those of us who have not had the good fortune of being born Danny Trejo, killing three dudes a night while maintaining a cold, sharklike glare may not be a feasible aspiration, but we can always take comfort in knowing that a sculpted, zoomorphic bread loaf brings us that much closer to the man.
To end our Trejo tribute, here’s one more clip. In Robert Rodriguez’s movie Desperado he, of course, plays the role of a bad ass with killer knife skills.
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