Simo Makela. Slept on
January 11, 2008 @ 2:15 PM
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Simo Mäkelä is still relatively unknown outside of his native Finland. But that’s all about to change pretty soon. Unlike many other talented skateboarders from those latitudes, who keep to themselves and never meet anyone new on their travels, Simo doesn’t just let his skating do the talking. He actually does some talking. With his mouth. And although it might well be the skating rather than the talking that captures people’s attention in the first place, it’s the words that are said and experiences shared that keep friendships going in the long run. And Simo’s in it for the whole journey, pretty much ready to see where it all takes him, be that beyond oceans and across continents or just over the road to the next pub. And possibly to the gutter after that. You can’t predict your future, but what you can do is concentrate on here and now and that’s very much what Simo’s doing. And it’s working.
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Two years ago Simo Mäkelä was fresh back from Malaga after a three month trip. He’d quit high school, moved out of his parent’s place in the small town where he grew up and ended up in Helsinki, unemployed and homeless. The summer was just about to kick in and Simo didn’t have a problem with relying on the good will and couches of the more fortunate skaters in town with a roof over their heads. For a while he shared a bit of floor with another skater Sami Miettinen at a large-hearted girl Ansku’s place, but then Ansku and her heart moved to Barcelona and the two were out on the street. “You just have to know how to lurk. For a while I didn’t have anywhere to go though, really. That sucked.” Tramp. “But that was sort of just a few nights here and there when I was stuck. Usually I could always find somewhere.” He did odd jobs briefly, filling boxes at a Volcom warehouse, helping out at Pirkka Pollari’s dad’s workshop making props for TV shows. Then Pirkka got his own place and offered a helping hand.
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Last spring the government intervened and took Simo off of Pirkka’s sofa, gave him a flat and a job in the kitchen of a rehab centre stroke shelter for those who need to take a break from life on the streets. It was Simo’s turn to do his national service and you don’t get to say no to it, but in his case the timing was pretty good. There’s even a bum called Sami Miettinen in the shelter—not the same skater, just some dude with the same name and a different story. The job’s pretty mellow he says and the rehab people he cooks for are cool. “They’ve got a lot of stories, that’s for sure.” He gets to run errands on his bike when it gets stuffy in the kitchen. Last time I phoned, Simo was on his way to the lab with someone’s shit sample in his pocket. On the way he checked out who’s about at Janne’s Micropolis skate park, got a coffee at the petrol station and generally loitered around to make the shit run last. “In general I’m in charge of the salad side of things, filling up the dishwasher and picking up the food stuff from somewhere. I get to eat a lot too, it’s good.” Pirkka’s wondering how they feel about Simo’s travelling, which goes hand in hand with sponsored skateboarding. “They’ve been really cool, but last time I went to Barcelona they were a bit upset, cause I’d marked my shifts wrong and they’d been calling me all morning cause I was meant to be there making salad. When I got up around one I saw the number on my phone. I didn’t know it was them, so I called it back to see what’s going on and they started asking me where I was, telling me I should be there chopping vegetables.” Instead, Simo was in Spain with Pirkka, filming a joint part for an upcoming 411 with filmer Anthony Claraval, serving hammers instead of lettuce no doubt. The junkies had to do without salad that day. And they’ll be saladless again when the two travel to China in November to hopefully finish what they started with Anthony.
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Apart from 411, Simo is constantly filming with Pirkka’s Perus crew for their next video. There’s always a next Perus video. “The last premier we had was right before Midsummer. It was sponsored by Red Bull and Lucky strike. They gave us so many fags. People were chain-smoking Lucky Strikes the whole Midsummer week after that.” Pirkka wants to know how come Simo’s feet smell so bad. They do stink. When we shared a hotel room in Vienna, he had to hide his shoes (chopped down Nike Blazers—last time I saw people cutting down mid tops must have been in -91 when Simo was about 4.) in the closet and scrub his feet with soap the first thing in the evening when we got back. And it still wouldn’t help. It also didn’t help that he’d lost all his socks and most of his boxers in London right before going to Vienna. Plus he’d snapped his ATM card in half, gotten asked for his phone number by girls on the street, twice, and offered a modelling gig for a fashion mag, all in the space of 3 days that he spent in London around the time of the Go Skateboarding Day. In Bratislava, girls were taking photos of him when we got off the train. While we were shooting for this Slept On in Helsinki, I caught him waking up in different girls’ beds twice in about as many days. Good things happen to people like Simo because they let them happen. They’re lucky because they deserve to be, because they don’t sit around complaining and getting mouldy. Here’s to all of them; here’s to Simo.
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Simo rides for Nike SB Europe, Volcom Europe and Ponke’s skateshop.
