Nell us some stuff about
the tour you just went on.
This one night we were in the
hotel room, and we had these
watercolors, and we started paint-
ing. At first it was just a little line
on the wall, and we didn't think to
check if it would come off. So
within an hour we had half the
room covered in watercolors. Just
all these different pictures.
Did it look sick?
Yeah, it was crazy. If you opened
the hotel room door, the first
thing you saw was colors every-
where. We got the photos of it. It
was so funny.
So what happened?
They just made us pay like 150
bucks or something. It was no big
deal. It'll come off. We tried to
get it off with washcloths and
detergent and it just wouldn't
come off. We skated a bunch of
parks, too. A lot of parks. It was
fun. You get to know your skate-
board a lot better, I think. Like
when you're a little kid, you skate
every single day. When I was
young, I skated every single day,
and a lot.
What happened to Silverstar?
I don't know. Well, I guess I do
know. They went out of business
is what happened. But actually,
nobody's even called me yet. The
team manager or the owner. So I
don't even know. You think they'd
call me and tell me. But I found
out through rumors through other
people who don't even have any-
thing to do with it.
Did you call over there?
I tried to, but I couldn't get
through.
Who do you usually hang out
and skate with?
My brother and some kids I went
to high school with.
Do you have any other hobbies
now besides skateboarding?
Crayfishing. What you do is you
get this net, and you have two
pieces of wood going down the
side. You hold on to the wooden
handles and the net goes between
them, so you just poke the sticks
into the ground so the net lies flat
on the ground. And then you get
another person to walk down the
stream and turn up rocks. You
stand downstream with the net,
and the other person turns up
rocks, and all the crayfish come
right into the net. Lift up the net and
you have a bounty full of crayfish.
Do you put food or bait out?
No. You just catch 'em with
the net.
So you cause a ruckus and they
just naturally come?
They just get scared and run into
the net. They're timid creatures.
Can you eat crayfish?
Yeah. They're really good. I don't
eat 'em anymore, but I used to.
So what do you do once you
catch them if you don't eat
them? Let them go?
I just check 'em out. Then put 'em
back. Check out their body struc-
ture. One time we caught a crayfish
that was nine inches long in my
pond.
What do you plan on doing this
upcoming fall?
I'm going to go to school at this
college by my house.
Is that a long-term thing?
I just want to go right now to
learn. Increase my knowledge to
better myself.
Do you plan on going there
after this first semester?
I'll go for a semester and see
what happens. I want to travel
out of the country and see what's
out there.
Do you have any places you
want to go in particular?
I want to go to Australia.
Do you know people out there?
Yeah. I've never been there
but I know some people who
I live there. Go there, stay with
them, check out the scene.
Surf maybe.
Have you ever surfed before?
Yeah, once, but I couldn't
stand up. I got onto my knees
and fell over.
Where did you surf?
Ocean City, Maryland. My
hands and feet were blue, and
I couldn't even feel my toes. I
was only out there for like
five minutes.
You didn't have a wetsuit on
or anything?
No. It was really cold. I'll try it
again though. It's kind of cool.
Surfing on a wave.
You seem to have a natu-
ral obsession with hang-
ing out in the grass and
Clockwise from bottom left: Rupp posts up on a tall nosestall revert.
You don't stand this comfortably in a 50-50 on a rail this high with-
out some serious snap control. His legs might be skinny, but they
got power enough to launch out to this rail and land with finesse.