Kind: captions
Language: en
everything that i went through
everything that i learned everything
that i think brought me to the person
that i am today i don't think i could
have been
as redeemed
if i hadn't been
basically a sociopath
i wouldn't piss on you if you were on
fire to be in somebody that just i care
about people i care about animals every
morning i wake up i say my prayers and i
i ask god let me help as many people as
i can today and that's the way i live my
life that's the way everybody around me
lives their life
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to another episode
of impact theory i am here with a living
icon the one the only danny trejo danny
welcome to the show dude your new book
trejo nice and simply titled is
breathtaking i read every word of it um
i actually didn't know your background
so i know you i'm a film
buff i'm a total psychopath so i've seen
you a bazillion times but didn't know
how you came up for people that don't
know your background give us like the
quick sort of 60-second sketch of how we
go from convict to icon
just you know what i got
i had an uncle that showed me
everything that i was
needed to know
when i got to san quentin prison
and uh you know it was really simple the
transition was very easy from
from juvenile hall camp youth authority
prison prison prison and uh
and uh
i i became a well-known person in in in
prison simply because of my
boxing i i was lightweight and
welterweight champion of every
institution i was in and that's
thank god my uncle gilbert for that he
he uh taught me how to fight
time i was eight years old and uh well
he didn't just teach you how to fight he
was like throwing rocks and bricks yeah
and he would hit rocks he would throw
rocks i would duck them you know i got a
couple of scarves from when i wasn't
quick enough to duck but you know what
it was funny it really showed me that uh
i didn't want to get hit so what would
you attribute the difficulties to
obviously you don't end up in prison
because things are going well
you end up in prison because things have
come off the rails you talk a lot about
in the book about there wasn't love in
your household um you know even your mom
you said didn't want kids yeah that's my
stepmom i kind of my dad married my
stepmom
to take care of me but you know we
thought my she didn't really like kids
and my dad was a tyrant you know what i
mean it's like there wasn't they were
i've never
met anybody as tough as my dad and uh
and uh
my whole family was that way my dad came
from five brothers you know six sisters
and the five brothers were all
you know the trejo name was well known
you know and uh for being toxic and
fighters and
um being involved in gangs and all that
yeah and the well not so much gangs
because they were a gang and and but but
the only one that i kind of
gravitated to
was my uncle gilbert he was the youngest
and i guess
of like what 11 kids so
so
my grandmother and grandfather were all
done with
like bringing up kids so me and me and
gilbert kind of like tied up i was only
child and we were only like six years
apart
so he was my mentor and uh and uh he
happened to be a
drug addict and an armed robber and a
fighter he was a he was the welterweight
champion of the paratroopers when he was
in the paratrooper so so he could always
fight you know and uh that's what
he taught me you know no yeah see that's
what's really interesting to me so i
don't know how much you know about my
background but i've i've ended up
working in the inner cities a lot and my
last company was a manufacturing company
so we had 3 000 employees a thousand of
them had grown up in the inner cities
because when you're manufacturing you
know you're in compton you're in
paramount you're in like all these sort
of rough and tumble neighborhoods
and because i believe it doesn't matter
where you start it just matters where
you want to go
we told everybody hey
we will hire you we'll consider you for
employment even if you have felony
convictions
and you know that isn't something that a
lot of people do so we had people line
up around the building just for a chance
to be interviewed and it was it was
crazy but what i began to realize is
intelligence is evenly distributed
but who you look up to
what you're being taught to do how
you're being taught to think is
not
uh always useful so you know like you
said when you went to juvenile hall
suddenly you're around a whole bunch of
other mexicans and you think oh this is
where mexicans are meant to be i go and
so
what's interesting to me is all right so
what i talk about the inner cities a lot
that it breaks most of the people that
it touches so most of the people that
grow up in the inner cities they're
they're [ __ ] forever and it's just
they never get back on track
and you were
in the prison system you've been in and
out your entire youth but you end up on
a 10-year stretch for
selling drugs to an undercover cop
and what i want to know is how you go
about
unwinding all that like you're known as
like this ultra hardcore badass
obviously for i don't know if you use
the term putting in work but that's what
the guys uh that that i worked with
always said like guys with teardrop
tattoos and stuff i was like what does
that mean like oh he put in work uh so
you'd obviously earned a reputation for
yourself so you're the the
king of the pile in inside in prison
how and why
do you undo all of that to sort of start
at the bottom again
you know uh
the thing that i've realized about
prison it's easy to be a big fish in a
little pond
you know and uh
basically
you know if you
do something when you first get there
that makes people take notice you you
automatically kind of like pushed a lot
of people away from you
that would uh
come at you and make somebody take
notice i always say i always say that
there's only two kinds of people
in in prison there's predator and
there's prey and you have to figure i'm
gonna be a predator or
you'll be praying it's very simple you
know enough you talk in the book about
how if you're gonna go and be a
shotcaller in prison if you're gonna go
and be a predator you have to find a
sociopathic place in your mind like you
have to groom yourself you have to strip
yourself of humanity so that you can
assert yourself and be dominant
which i find
incredibly interesting so i very much
believe that the the human animal is
capable of great atrocity and great
beauty and everything in between
what's so beautiful interesting is that
you have crossed both
you start your life learning how to
fight and and this is one of the the
cool stories in the book so
you're i don't know 12 or something like
that you'd only been around women or
maybe you were younger than that at this
point but you pee
squatting yeah and your cousin basically
makes fun of you mocks you and
that was my uncle gilbert we were going
fishing and we i was like eight years
old and i had to pee so i sat down i
squat down and he pushed me what the
hell are you doing
and all my girl cousins with we all peed
i don't want to be the only one standing
you know and uh and uh
and uh
and that's when i realized you know i
think i went from from being shirley
temple to john wayne in a day
you know and finding out that that you
know men don't peace sitting down men
don't like kittens
men hate flowers you know i mean just
all this stuff that used to be great
with my grandma
drawer of flowers
and you know that [ __ ] don't go anymore
you know what i mean and uh
and it's like i thank god for my uncle
gilbert you know i mean because
guys that be sitting down don't make it
in the pen
see that's what's interesting what what
i love about your story and and anybody
that's listening to this right now i
just i cannot encourage you enough to to
stay with us as we go through this whole
journey because of course it comes full
circle to the danny trejo that everybody
knows um who you know has dedicated the
vast majority of his life to helping
people get off drugs to helping people
on skid row i mean just like one of the
most generous humans alive
but it starts with
you still show gratitude for gilbert for
helping prepare you that would be pretty
easy to say that gilbert is part of the
reason that you end up in trouble in the
first place why is it that you're
grateful
to gilbert even now
everything that i went through
everything that i learned everything
that i think brought me to the person
that i am today i don't think i could
have been
[Music]
as redeemed
if i hadn't been
basically a sociopath
you know uh or
i don't know if that was right but
i i went to
[Music]
to i wouldn't piss on you if you were on
fire to to be in somebody that just i
care about people i care about animals i
you know i just care i i every morning i
wake up i say my prayers and i i ask god
let me help as many people as i can
today and that's the way i live my life
that's the way everybody around me lives
their life now in your book you you
don't
you don't seem to try in any way shape
or form to sugarcoat what you did what
you've been through
why why not try to make yourself sound
better in their early rough days
you know
uh i had a guy once that showed me his
book he'd been in prison and stuff you
know
and me and he gave it to me and eddie
bunker i won't mention his name but he
gave it to me in a bunker and we read it
and eddie was a prolific writer prolific
i learned that since we've been like
in the in writing books but uh
but he said you know this guy didn't
show his ass i mean it's a bio
nobody's nobody's that telephone and
that's the one thing that i got about
the book i said you know i know this guy
man he went all that tough and so when
we started writing this book it was kind
of like
like
a confession almost you know
and
we got down to it and then
uh i gave it to maeve who is my kid's
mom we've been together for 35 years you
know but we have been together but we've
you've been involved for 35 years you
know
and uh
she read it she's probably the only
woman that i ever confided in you know
and she said you know that's great it's
great you know you sound like a white
guy what do you mean yeah
dance i mean he's like you know you're
you're a wonderful person and it's like
what made you
you know what made you it's like you
know yeah we all know you're tough we
don't but what made you and he said what
about your mom what about your dad i
said well that's their businesses says
danny why do you think you've been
married four times why do you think
you've had
children with women you weren't married
to
because you spent more times on the
streets than you did at home yeah it's
interesting in the book how you break
that stuff down from a psychological
perspective of why
you know where some of that stuff comes
from and you know all the different
things you're trying to work through
which
to me is so important to that arc of
redemption of getting your life back on
track of going from you know using drugs
to finding sobriety to staying sober and
i'm curious like if you were to think of
um redemption or turning your life
around as a recipe what are some of the
ingredients like why did it work for you
well i think i think one of the reasons
one of the reasons is like in in the
program i'm in naaa we do inventories
inventories
and i did inventories on myself on
myself on my cell phone myself and but i
never got into wait a minute man what
what made me you know it's like
something you know why i haven't been
married four times but the reality was
wait a minute it's me
you know there's a reason why
why you know that
my
motto my family's motto was
one in the one at home one on the
streets
you know and uh uh that's what i grew up
with and that's not
that's that's that's not good for like a
marriage
what is the process of doing inventory
so how do you begin to think through
okay this isn't working i'm married a
bunch
uh what's that process
you know what it's like you come down to
you're only as sick as your secrets
remember that that's the only sick is
your secrets your secrets you won't tell
anybody
your secrets is what you think about
just before you fall asleep so it's like
you start putting that stuff down that's
incredible walk people through so when
you first get out you go back to the
neighborhood that you grew up in so
these are people that you rob terrorized
all of that and how do you begin to
rebuild your reputation let me tell you
the first day i was out i was out i got
out on a saturday sunday i was standing
out in front of my mom's house and i
didn't know how to tell people i wasn't
drinking so i had a double shot glass
with some coke soda in it and and ice so
it looked like i was drinking and i was
i'm sipping and i'm
passing guys would go by the
neighborhood hey what's up yeah it
looked like i was drinking
and soda
and monday was trash day
and this is before they had the big
rolling kind of trash cans they used to
put everything in a tub and drag it out
and i seen this one lady dragging
her trash out right and uh
i went over to help her i'll never
forget what she said she said
you know danny don't rob me you know
i shut up
and i went i grabbed her trash can and i
pulled it out then i went to her
backyard to get her other trash can she
never took her eyes off me she knew she
knew i was gonna break for that garage
and take her lawnmower take something i
could sell
and uh i didn't i grabbed the trash can
and pulled it out and then i just walked
away
and i can remember this big sigh of
relief
that she had and then i can remember
feeling like wow
you know and walk into my mom and that's
what i started doing i went around the
block and i went to the
neighbors yards and i pulled out the old
people's trash you know they watched
that venetian blind open you they knew
they knew i was some of them the next
time i did it they had a lock on their
garage door because they knew i was
setting them up for something
you know
and that's what i did the first present
i ever got
was a
a fake suede double-breasted jacket
that the old man with
really bad he had chronic arthritis in
his hands and he couldn't move i think
about him every day because i started
getting arthritis and this
in this uh hand and it's like every time
i think of that old man because he
couldn't grab his trash cans he would
have to like kick off the tub he'd drag
it out you know i'd take him out for him
and he gave me that suede jacket
fake suede but it was real popular in
the in the 60s
it's so interesting to me that you know
as you
something so simple right so you are
heavy [ __ ] man you outline it all in the
book from you know armed robberies a lot
of violence you stab a guy in the face
with a broken bottle like this was not
light [ __ ] this was like super intense
um and then you know it starts with
helping people in prison and then it's
taking people's trash out then it's
mowing the lawn of a woman who has a
just horrendously tragic story and
you know this idea that the people that
have the most in their life are the
people that give the most to others
and it's you know kind of cliche but
cliches become cliches for a reason
because they're true
and so when you think about
people getting sober you've spent so
much of your life helping other people
get and maintain sobriety what is that
role of helping other people why do you
think it's so important
i think that's the way god wants us to
live i think that's the way humanity
should live i think if more people
thought like that we wouldn't be in the
problems we're in we wouldn't have these
wars going on we wouldn't have uh you
know these two countries fighting we
wouldn't have this hatred we wouldn't
have all people getting beat up on the
streets you know i mean it's like crazy
it's like me and we got about four
friends that we walk around at night on
at korea town just to make sure that
people don't you know just just don't
let us catch somebody beating up an old
person you know because i'm old i'm 77
[ __ ]
[Laughter]
start smacking me see what happens you
know and so we just try to do whatever
we can and it's like i honestly believe
that's the way god wants us to live my
life is like a dream you know like my
assistant mario castillo i met him in
san quentin and we talked about
about i was doing blood and blood out he
was a resident he refuses to be called
an inmate
[Laughter]
i was a resident and so
so uh uh
we talked about staying clean staying
sober eight years later i i run into him
in a narcotics anonymous meeting and we
become friends and then he got sick and
couldn't work so i think you know what
come on work for me so he started being
my assistant right and driving me around
and stuff and we've been for 22 years
yeah no man that that really is
incredible and the idea of serving other
people as a way to find sort of a whole
new life to redefine yourself to stay in
the straight narrow makes a lot of sense
to me i'm always talking to people about
there's just certain things hardwired in
our brains as humans and one of them is
you're a social animal and so you want
to fit in you want to
impress other people but you also want
to do something that is of service to
the group and that man if you feel like
[ __ ] if you are thinking ill of yourself
the fastest way to begin to turn that
around is to do something for somebody
else you got it you got it man be of
service that's it man yeah danny it your
life is really uh such an extraordinary
like you've met
president barack obama you've been in
350 films or some crazy [ __ ] like that
you've been in
just absolute legendary films like heat
and conair i mean it's it's really
really pretty extraordinary and you
didn't start acting i think until you're
what late 30s early 40s so
you know the fact that you've been able
to turn it around that's like the thing
that i really want people to take away
from your story and i hope that they
read the book the takeaway for me on the
way that you move in the world and the
way that you help people like you're
talking about now comes back to the idea
that you were mentioning early er which
is you know you said look i think part
of why i've had the redemption cycle
that i've had is because i was a
sociopath now i'll frame it a little bit
differently and say
you have so much credibility this idea
you outlined in the book about being a
padrino and i had to look it up uh and
in spanish it's like
a godfather or somebody that looks after
you a protector and
part of what gives you the credibility
though is
that you came up so hard
that you earned so much credibility and
then
turned it around and started helping
other people and
it's what you do is give people hope
that they really can change they really
can become
something new
and that to me is breathtaking man
i went into the pin last time i went to
the pen i wasn't quitting you know
one of the guys says uh the one that's
with one of the guys the most beautiful
thing they ever said to me hey
trejo yeah what's up
you're the hope giver oh and i
what's that dude
yeah you know guys doing life you know
and
and we've really helped like a lot of
lifers come out of the pen
a lot of kids that committed crimes when
they were
15 16 17
you're a different man when you're 35
and 40. giving hope man is is absolutely
[ __ ] legendary it is so incredible
how committed you've remained to
reaching back and helping other people
come out of that um one thing i want to
talk about because this is
this is very interesting to me so
there's a goldilocks zone in like
everything right so there's the the
pathological version of you know being
tough and being a man and [ __ ] um you
know being willing to stab somebody or
whatever but then there's also like just
not taking a step backwards you talk a
lot about how part of how you earned
your reputation was like i'm not gonna
[ __ ] with you but if you [ __ ] with me
then i'm not gonna back down from that
do you think that there is value in
being tough or do you think that
that just it's always gonna go to a
toxic place i'm gonna say this and a lot
of people always think you're crazy when
you say it but
the bottom line to an argument is a
murder okay and uh
i've watched i've watched
dirty looks turned into a murderer
all right and so
uh
it's a it's a real thin line
it's like just turned into something
that nobody wants any part of
you know and
the way i was brought up was
i don't argue with anybody you know
to this day
you know uh
i'll see people arguing i'll back away
and i i see you start arguing with me
i'll back away because you're not gonna
change my mind if i
if i really believe in something you're
not gonna change my mind i'm not gonna
i'm gonna i'm not gonna fight
over politics or over religion or over
because
my politics my religion my sport that's
my business that's here i don't care
what yours is you know what i mean it's
like oh so you like the jets okay cool
you know
all right this yeah you go around
doesn't matter
you know but yet i've seen
people beat up other people because they
got on a
san francisco hat or a ryan's hat or he
was like wait a minute man that's like
you know that's again you know again
that's that stupidity that's that
borderline psychotic
you know and
like remember i told you i got away from
that i don't like that guy
that guy's dangerous that guy's bad and
you won't catch me with that guy you
know and there's been a couple of times
that that i've chased people off the
freeway and then whoo i stopped you and
said wait a minute what am i doing
you know it's like trejo what the [ __ ]
wrong with you
you know and it's i've always been
i've always been able to put myself in
front of a judge
and and and
danny why did you beat that man to death
sir he gave me the finger you know what
the [ __ ] you know it's like so you're
saying you run that in your head it just
sounds stupid oh yeah
yeah when you have somebody first coming
out of jail or getting off of drugs
what is like the first thing that you
tell them is it step one of the 12-step
program or
something else
how do you help them establish like a
new way of thinking and in fact what is
the first uh the first step
stay close you know what i mean you've
got to stay close first stay close to
people that are on the street they're
getting clean and straight and then you
gotta admit that you're powerless over
drugs and alcohol you know what i mean
and only a power greater than yourself
can and it doesn't it's like immediately
oh you mean god no i don't mean anything
the ocean is more powerful than you you
know i mean and i remember when people
have trouble with the power greater than
i said okay well come on let's go to the
beach stop that wave just stop that one
wave and um you you know and i had a
sponsor that has actually had me out
there trying to
stop waves you know what i mean
and here comes what you do it doesn't
work you know what i mean and so it's
like you understand that there are
things on this earth more powerful than
you your body of work is crazy big
you've been in
so many films it's crazy so many
legendary films across from legendary
actors you've been number one on the
call sheet
you know worked with extraordinary
directors it's crazy but what do you
want your legacy to be do you want it to
be being the first mexican superhero do
you want it to be
something else
now god i just want to be a great dad i
want to be great dad my kids love me and
i'm i'm i'm so proud of that i'm so
proud of what they're doing you know i
mean and i know that sounds hokey
because i you know i don't give a [ __ ] i
just want to die with dignity and you
know my kids love me you know i mean
that's it it's there's what else is
there it's like i got a beautiful home i
got a nice yard i got carbs
everything i want you know i mean but uh
the most important thing to me is the
the the look i got in my daughter's eyes
when when i said please move back from
ohio she's coming back and and i got it
okay we would rent an apartment this is
and uh to be able to do all that and and
uh
and my son directed me and david
hasselhoff in a music video and uh and
my
my son danny boy went in some kind of
gaming content you know i'm so
that's
what they do you know they love they
love what they do and they get to do
what they love and what more can you ask
for that's me that's my life i love what
i do and i get to do what i love
it's awesome man you really do bring a
lot of hope to people it is so
extraordinary the life you've lived the
book is amazing um i really was blown
away it is such a powerful story you
drag people through the mud you show
them what it was really like
and then show them what that path to
redemption looks like i i definitely
hope people check that out it is not
easy to
help somebody in the best of
circumstances but being able to help
people that have spent that much time in
prison or been on drugs it's you know
it's a pretty crazy ride man but you
know somebody like you that's had such
an extraordinary career that you've
spent so much time helping other people
is is amazing and i'm so
happy to see the kind of success you've
had so
thank you man for coming on the show and
everybody watching speaking of things
that are incredible if you haven't
already be sure to subscribe and until
next time my friends be legendary take
care
i needed these little these restrictions
to give me some form or give me some
sense of structure where i can just feel
my feet on the ground and go i'm holding
my head above water going through this
time but at least i know what rope to
hold on to and it's these disciplines
that i put in front of myself
you