Arto Saari

“Did they name the Sorry video after him. After all he did have the last part. Not to mention he almost died twice filiming it.”

I thought the video Sorry was named after Arto Saari (because he had the last part). But then they made Really Sorry and are suppose to be making Extremely Sorry. So I figure that they didn’t name the video after him after all.

Now if you haven’t see Sorry, it’s probably one of the best skateboard videos of the early 2000s. When it came out, it’s the only thing people were talking about. Flip Skateboards had a strong three year run after that video was released.

Back to Arto. He is still on Flip and is one of the key members of the team. It seems that most established skateboard companies develop “families”. These families consist of key members of professional skateboarders that set the tone, image and style of the skateboard company. Flip is definitely Gnarly and European if there was a way to describe it. Oh yeah, Arto Saari is from Finland.

Being from Finland, makes you wonder how the hell Arto got so good at skating. It’s one of those far North places like Alaska where it’s either raining or snowing a lot and it’s dark half the year. Not the perfect location or proving grounds to become of the world’s top skateboarders.

This leads me to my “natural” spiel. Becoming a professional skater to the point where you can make a lifetime living off it, really only happens to skateboarders that are “naturals”. These are skaters where skateboarding just comes easy to them. Ronnie Creager is the best example. That guy never skates and can be called up to film a part and bust out tricks no one has ever done before. Anyway, Arto is a natural. Anyone who learned how to skate in the wet, dark and cold and gets the last part in a Flip video has some unique mitochondria.

Now the whole Flip teams has been kind of quiet as of late. I think they are up to something. I’m expecting Extremely Sorry to knock our socks off. Also I have heard a lot of secret underground hype about David Gonzales. I really want to see his part.