Danny Supa Interview - chrisnieratko.com

Danny Supa Interview

[ photos by dimitry ]

Word on the street is you're moving to L.A.?

That's right. Probably in the next couple of months.

Is that allowed, to ride for Zoo York and live in LA?

It's more coverage for me. It's fine. It'll be dope.

How come you don't want to dress up in a Superman outfit?

Oh, fuck. It's just like it sounds kind of funny, like me in a baggy Superman outfit running around and shit, but just not for my first interview.

Will you do it for your second one?

Maybe.

If we give you another interview, you promise to wear a Superman outfit?

Can't answer that right now. Sorry.

Are you going to get into acting?

Not at all.

What about Scientology?

Not over here.

It's going to be hard to get used to winter with no snow.

No, it won't be.

Yeah, it will. I'm fucking still not used to it.

I lived in San Diego for almost a year so I'm used to it. I'm kind of tired of snow. Instead of sitting on my couch doing nothing in the winter time, I could be getting shit done out there. Plus, my girl surfs so it's better for her too.

You want to talk about the weed in Colombia?

Yeah, like I'd be at demos and shit and kids would be like, "Hey, do you smoke?" and I'd just be like, "Yeah," and they'd come up to me and be like, "I got some of this for you," and take their hand out of their pocket and have a fistful of weed and just be like, "Here, for you. Take it." It was like ten dollars a pound and shit. Colombia was nuts.

What'd you do to celebrate your 21st birthday?

Just threw up a lot. Fucking got drunk as fuck.

You been keeping it real since 21 then?

Yeah, definitely.

A lot kids have a weird way of looking at New York. A lot of them are afraid of it.

I mean, Cali is pretty gnarly in some parts. I don't know how they're afraid of it, like, if they're afraid of skaters or if they're afraid of the area. It's just creepy sometimes in New York. The weather's not so good sometimes and you've just got ghettos and shit. Same thing as Cali. Cali just looks nicer.

Have you ever gotten stuck up out there?

Not really. Like these guys tried to rob me one time on the train when I was by myself. I was coming back from skating with Maurice Key and Mike Hernandez and Javier, and they all broke out to Mike's house and I was just by myself. I had like a new Guess watch on or whatever. These two guys, they were like in their 20s or something— I was like 16—and they were just fucking with me. They came and sat by me and they were like, "Yo. Let me see that watch. Is that a real Guess watch?" I took it off and I fucking let him see it and then he throws it to his friend that's sitting across. He throws the watch back at me and then they're like about to get off the train and he tries to grab my bag. I get up and he's about to take off with everything and I'm like about to hit him, and he's like, "Don't do it", 'cause he was all bigger than me and everything. I was just like, "Fuck you." I grabbed my bag and I kicked him and the train door closed. They would have killed me. Seriously. I was like real small and shit. Nobody on the train even did anything. They just watched the whole thing go down.

You're not originally from there are you?

Yeah, I actually was born in the Bronx. My mom, she had to work so she sent me to live with my aunt in Thailand for three years when I was seven or eight. And then I came back to New York after that.

Do you have any memories of Thailand when you were young?

Just like my grandmother's house and stuff. It was kind of shiesty out there, like people would steal a lot. It was super long ago so I can't remember a lot of stuff, but I remember seeing in newspapers a lot, like people would get their heads bashed in with stones for their wallets and shit. So it's crazy. My mom's about to move back out there to retire. So I'm going to go visit her and then I'll be there for skating too. Get the kids psyched.

When you go to other places do you find it harder to trust people?

Definitely, 'cause you just go into their territory and you don't know what's going on over there. You don't know exactly who to trust. I lived in Cali for a little while and I was really used to nice people and stuff. And then I fucking come back here and I'm like, "Oh, great, back in New York." So that's why I'm about to break out to Cali again. I'm just tired of the snow and shit.

What do you think's the first thing you're going to be missing when you get out here?

I don't think I'm going to be missing anything except for my mom and the nightlife sometimes.

I'm warning you now. It's the little things that are going to get you. Like pizza.

Oh, yeah? I have too much pizza anyway.

When you get out here, you'll be dying for it. Pizza and seeing a cab when you need one.

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

What's your real last name?

It's eleven letters. Actually it used to be even longer than eleven letters. Before it got changed it was Supasiriratana. When my mom came here she thought it was too long so she changed it to Supasirirat. And then I got the name Supa. That was my mom's nickname 'cause she was a nurse and they just called her Supa. I love my name; it's just that it's hard for people to pronounce the first time.

What was the worst attempt at saying your name?

I don't know, like, Super Sewer Rat, Super Silly Rat. Like, just dumb shit. I would just get pissed. It was funny, but it just got old.

How do you think New York has changed over the past four or five years?

It's just gotten harder to skate spots. A lot of the old skaters stopped skating, you know? Lot of new, new heads are coming out now. They're really busting out, like some of the East Coast heads, like Anthony Pappalardo, Todd Jordan, just like new heads are coming out and they're just killing it like crazy.

Do you miss the old days of having all that smut in Times Square?

Yeah, I guess.

Did you used to hit it up?

I actually did once. It was pretty funny. With these little booths you go into and you can pick whatever movies you want and shit. You can change the channels like while you watch them.

Are you the oldest guy on the team?

On Zoo? I think Anthony might be a little older than me, just like a month or two. Actually, we got this am, Burton Smith, that's older than all of us. He's like an old Newberg head. I always used to go see him during the Newberg sleepovers.

Were you there for any of the craziness there? When dudes got stabbed and they used to OD and shit.

Oh, no. Well, whenever you'd go up to the parking lot you'd see crack pipes and shit. It'd be right across the street from projects and stuff.

Tell everybody what Newberg is in case they don't know.

It's an old skatepark. It's in the middle of these projects in Newberg and it's pretty fucking dangerous over there. A lot of drugs and stuff and they used to hold sleep-overs all the time. And like one time, this kid fell asleep, on his pillow or whatever, and everybody started pissing on him. Shit like that. One time my friend was like, "You know I just got jumped outside," and you couldn't really do nothing about it 'cause it was their area and you couldn't fuck with anybody around there. It's pretty dangerous over there.

Growing up skating is dangerous on the East Coast.

Yeah. People in the city would just laugh at you if you fall and shit. This one time, we were in Bellevue, Florida—I actually started skating in Florida, but that's still like on the East—we were in back of the supermarket and these two Puerto Rican kids came up to me and my friend. I had this white kid with me. His name was Adam. They came up to us and started fucking with us and shit and I actually knew one of the Puerto Rican kids and he was kind of cool, like a mellow dude, but his friend was a total dick. He was going to my friend, "What are you looking at? What are you looking at?" And my friend was just laughing, thought he was playing around, and I was just like, "Yo, chill, don't laugh. Just like chill out for a minute." He just kept laughing. So, he's like, "Yo, I'm going to sock you," and then he socked him in the eye, his fucking eye got all big and shit and then he just took off after he socked him and the other kid was just like, "Yo, I'm sorry, yo." He had a big shiner. This Spanish kid just liked to fuck with skaters, I guess. And actually, remember that Banks contest, where that black kid got jumped? That was my friend. He was from upstate and I used to chill upstate a little bit. This kid Joe and that black kid, they both had beef over this one girl. And so he told this kid Kyle James when they fucking get to the Banks, fuck with them or vibe them, whatever. The kid wasn't really having it when they got there, so he fucked Kyle up and then everybody got mad 'cause they didn't know who he was and they started throwing boards at him and shit, chasing him down the street, and they fucked up his friend's car like while they were taking off.

Was that the same day that Raffa popped Benji?

I think so. Yeah, he bought 40s for everyone. Raffa is the best. That was my first actual skateboard sponsor, Dead End: me, Vinnie Ponte, Javier, Frank Gerwer. We always used to skate together.

Then what happened, you went to Tree Fort?

Actually, Dead End went straight to Zoo 'cause Mike Hernandez and Ryan Hickey would always be like, "Yo, whenever you need a board, I'll hit you off and shit." Then I got on Zoo for a little while and they weren't really paying me at first 'cause I was like an am and I guess I didn't deserve to get paid and I was just kind of broke at the time, so I was like, "I gotta be out." Vinnie was talking to me from Gali and he was telling me about this guy, Troy, that used to work at H-Street—he put Koston on H-Street a while ago—he was like, "He'll fly you out to check you out." So I just went out there and they liked the way I skated, so he gave me $250 right on the spot. I just started getting paid from them. I was 16 and I was just like, "Fuck, it's dope out here," so I stayed in San Diego and got a place.

What happened with that shit? That shit went down in a ball of flames, huh?

Yeah, it was kind of fucked up. The guy Troy that owned Tree Fort, he had his friend Marcus do all the accounting and stuff. They were all surfers and shit and fucking Marcus was stealing money behind Troy's back. So Troy got pissed, but before he could call the cops on Marcus, Marcus called the cops on him and made false statements about drugs and got Troy arrested before he could do something to Marcus. I don't think Marcus is allowed back in San Diego now. It was just crazy. He tried to get him arrested first so he wouldn't get fucked with, you know? 'Cause everybody just wanted to kill that dude. He totally fucked shit up, stole mad money and shit, like writing checks out to himself.

After that shit went down, you went back to Zoo?

Yeah. Actually, I went straight back to Zoo. I was just like, "Yo, is there still a place for me?" I asked Rodney and he was just like, "Yeah, come through, we'll talk," and everything's been chilling since.

Why were you in boarding school?

I just used to get in trouble all the time. I just rolled with the wrong crowd. They used to rob people. I never did any of that stuff. I was just along for the ride and just hanging out late, shit like that, not going to school, cutting classes to go skate, stuff like that. My mom just got tired of it and, Boom! sent me straight to an all-boys boarding school. It was crazy.

What was it called?

St. Thomas Moore in Connecticut. It was weird. I used to sell weed up there and shit 'cause it was super hard to get weed and shit. There used to be these smoke pits and people would just go there, smoke out or whatever, and you bring a Chinese nickel bag and sell it for $15. People were just thirsty for shit over there.

You were coming home to visit mom and picking up weed and taking it back?

Yeah, it was funny. It was crazy over there but they were super strict. There'd be study hall hours and there'd be a building with like 10 rooms and two people to a room. From like four to six you'd have to study and people would just walk down the halls and make sure you were studying. One kid got alcohol poisoning 'cause he was drinking tequila during study hours and had to get his stomach pumped. It was just crazy shit.

They don't tolerate that shit up there, huh?

Definitely not. Had to wear suits every day, shirt pressed, all that shit. I got As and Bs, though, so it was kind of worth it.

Was it any good for skating?

It was by Hartford. Hartford was seriously like real dangerous, like Newberg and shit. There used to be places around there to skate but we never got to skate them 'cause we were always there and if you were good, you got to go home on the weekend for a little bit. I used to just go home every weekend. I used to just skate a tennis court and the fucking ping pong table on the floor. I learned manual tricks on them. All I got to skate was tennis courts and logs and shit.

Logs?

Yeah.

What'd you do on a log?

Just do shit over it.

You got sent to a boarding school for all of high school. Do you feel like you missed out on anything?

A little bit, but I didn't like high school anyway. I never really talked to anybody except for my friends and stuff. I was a part of the punk skater crew or whatever.

If you would have stayed in the city and went to high school, would you have finished?

Probably not. I went to school out in the Bronx for a little while and it was super dangerous, like thirty kids to a classroom, couldn't even learn. The school that I used to go to is right down the block from our house. I heard this one kid got stabbed in his neck on the second floor. It was crazy. They have a metal detector, but sometimes people slip a gun past that shit. It was a mess.

Did it seem like teachers were afraid to be teaching there?

Kind of. Some of them were really tough 'cause they'd been there for a little while you know. They don't take any shit. They just send your ass right out.

So you're excited to move out to Cali huh?

Yeah, definitely.

I'm going to talk to you in a couple of months after you've moved here. I'll see if you still feel the same way.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I got a couple of friends out there.

We'll see.

Can I like give thanks and shit?

Go ahead.

I want to thank Troy Morgan, from Tree Fort, for looking out for me way, way back. I'd like to thank Vinnie Ponte, Vinnie Raffa, Alphonso Rawls, Mike Hernandez, Ryan Hickey, Robbie Gangemi, Rodney, Eli and Adam at Zoo. I'd like to thank my girl Erica for staying with me through all the hard times. I'd like to thank my two dogs. I'd like to thank my mom for buying me skateboards when I needed them. I'd like to thank my sister for being there and I just want to say rest in peace to my dad and thanks to Converse for looking out for me.

Comments

dylan
20 Oct 2009, 07:56

Good read. I think you should make the line-height of your copy font a little bigger, but you probably don't care anyways..

Thomas
04 Dec 2009, 14:39

Word up, Hartford represent.