Alden Olmsted | Filmmaker & Illustrator

Zen and The Art of Restoring a '76 BMW While Caregiving

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 05:14:17 -0700

poseur: noun

Merriam-Webster: a person who pretends to be what they are not : an affected or insincere person.

Growing up Gen-X

the derogative term poseur was like, the lowest of the low. It was one word you never wanted to be on the receiving end of. A poseur was, well, a poser. A fraud. A pretender. In Christian-ese it was the opposite of the Jesus movement classic “walk your talk.”

Whether it was displaying a surfboard that never touched water, wearing a ‘Thrasher’ t-shirt but never actually skateboarding, riding a cool bmx bike but never hitting a jump, or the most common - wearing a concert shirt of a band you never saw live - nobody in my small Northern California town ever wanted to be known as a poseur.

In other words, I wore Vans, never Keds.

Looking back I realize we applied the term quite liberally, merging it with other social habits we deemed as posturing or fake - being a bandwagon fan, a conformist, or a late adapter, and yes we even let it affect...Read More

No Revival, No Rebirth, President's F-Bomb

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:28:29 -0700

Clear bad guys.

Clear good guys.

Clear fear.

A shared goal.

We’ve all seen the clips:

But even these now seem so tame.

Checking an email, reading a text, sharing a meme.

Bless your hearts you 2010 humans!

According to Pew Research in 2025, half of U.S. teenagers use the internet “almost constantly.”

But wait there’s more!

Just in time for the positive news that many Gen Z kids are putting down their phones, joining luddite clubs, and playing board games, seniors are picking them u p.

In other words show me a No Kings rally that didn’t start on Facebook and I’ve got some prime Rio Rancho property to sell you.

It’s not the information overload.

It’s not even the doom news, the rage-bait politics, the gambling, or the p*rn.

It’s far worse than all that.

Nobody cares.

Of 2023-2026 Non-Revivals and Non-Rebirths

In February of 2023, as the U.S. and the world were barely recovering from the fog of...Read More

I'm Not Steve Anymore

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 07:49:13 -0800

For the last 15 years I’ve been Steve.

I kinda liked being Steve.

I respect Steve Jobs, while not in step with of all of his eccentricities.

Obviously.

Steves are instantly understood.

Steve carries near zero presuppositions.

Steve might be cool, he might be amazing, or he might be a goober.. but most likely he’s right in the middle.

Average.

And average is easy for people.

Easy to manage.

Easy to talk to, maybe easy to forget.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For my purposes Steve is easy to spell.

I Started

being Steve when I moved to LA to become a screenwriter at age 36.

Thought.

Steve did not.

Steve never got misspelled. Mispronounced. Butchered.

Never once.

Alden?

At least a 50% butcher rate. 75% misspell rate.

Maybe 80%.

Looking back now I see I didn’t want to stand out all the time. I didn’t want to feel different - or maybe just not different enough so as to be presumptuous in a town full of so many already presumptuous.

But that’s another story.

So Why

Be me again - why now? The short answer is- I don’t know.

ONSCREEN: Northern California, Late October 2025

The truck was idling as I left mom in the passenger seat, grabbing our breakfast items on the way to church, when the barister said the familiar “can I get a name for the order?”

"Um.." I answered hesistantly.

And of course my dad’s passing, the thing that really removed any semblance of roots - tenuous even before he died, all the more so since.

“Alden” I answered.

Confidently.

I took a deep breath and looked out the window. A beautiful autumn morning.
I saw my truck, I saw my 84 year old mom safe and cared for inside.

Fitting since she gave me the name in the first place.

She wrote it down on baby...Read More

Buy an old car, save the world

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 05:38:43 -0700

Look

I know you’re a little skeptical after such a headline of hubris — but I had to electro-shock you into stopping by somehow right?

Of course the car likely did it too if you’re honest.

How do I know?

Because I just bought it and already it’s a magnet of conversation - as if a visitor stopped by from a lost time.

Driving it north from San Jose two weeks ago, with no license plates but plenty of grins and thumbs ups - through San Francisco and across the mighty Golden Gate Bridge - I’ve already experienced too many lessons not to share.

I Wanted

a fun, easy to work on old car for Saturday drives, and I got that to be sure, but I simply had not counted on the joy.

The joy it would bring other people.

I also just recently stumbled onto Robert Putnam’s data-heavy social capital book ‘Bowling Alone,’ so I’m attuned to the instant community I’ve just joined — even if the car’s tuning still needs some work (pause to respect the loud backfire I hear after turning off the engine).

BOOM

The car of note is a 1976 BMW model 2002 and is my sixteenth, but in an extremely small time frame is turning out to be the most socially connecting - before it’s even registered.

Or smogged.

Or has working brake lights.

Or bumpers.

Oh and I need to fix the odometer.

Like I REALLY need to fix the odometer - especially since a big part of the draw of the car was the low miles, so if the miles aren’t accurate.. oh boy.

And I gotta fix the stereo. Because I caved and already bought a couple cassettes to play in the old deck.

It's gonna be a regular time machine baby!

And I’m not...Read More

A new path

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 08:42:18 -0700

I am.

Everybody’s talking about it
(at least you think they are but you haven’t really talked to anybody deeply in months. Maybe years).

Everybody’s ready
(but nobody seems willing to actually jump to that next stone. Are they frozen by fear or in time?).

Everybody needs it
(but few will actually admit it).

If you’re honest you’ve felt a lot or a little off since:

The pandemic
The last election
The one before that
Buying your smartphone (c’mon you even remember the day)
Your divorce
Your wedding
Your dad’s death
Your mom’s death
Your kid’s death
You moved out of California / NY / Portland
Your friends moved out of California/ NY / Portland
You stopped driving
You got your car fixed
You found the right meds
You got off meds
You stopped drinking
You started feeling it was ok to have a drink
You left church
You returned to church
I feel like I just channeled George Carlin for five minutes.

How many did you check off?

I got four.

Maybe five.

I'd like to offer a qualifier since the above rant-lite might describe a person who could be categorized as depressed.

I am not.

In fact I’m doing great.

At least on paper.

I’m helping an elderly parent have a better life — ie. community, connection, laughter, new experiences - than she’s had in maybe 30 years.

And it’s more rewarding - far more in fact than I had planned for.

As far as goals I’ve achieved many - albeit in smaller ways than planned but achieved nonetheless. Making four movies and tRead More

Hollywood isn't dead because of woke

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 05:00:06 -0700

We used to need movies to escape.

Now we simply turn on the Washington channel.

Think about it - we’ve got the director, the cast, the plot, the twists, all the elements we loved and expected in motion pictures are found instead in today’s media and politics.

Is this why movies are dying — because our current reality is just more engaging?

I made a quick list to test my theory:

Let’s start with ACTION movies.

Escapism is what action movies are all about right? Tom cruise, Jason Statham, Liam Neeson, we love em!

Move over Tom cruise we’ve got Tom Homan and the ICE raids. Goodbye Jason Statham we’ve got gritty battles at the border with cartels and cinematic R-rated violence.

And replace Liam with Daniel Penny - the quiet everyman-hero story we used to get from the studios.

What about Courtroom Dramas

We loved em in the 90’s (and 50’s) — loved to watch insurance companies sweat or big tobacco pay up or yes even government finally forced to admit their sins.

Movies like —

The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury, A Few Good Men

Now we have the left vs Trump.

It’s constant drama, it’s gotcha moments galore, and yes Aaron Sorkin, sometimes the dialogue even matches your best work.

What about comedies?

Please!

We’ve got Gavin Newsom’s podcast, AOC’s staged stunts, Bill Maher’s weekly red pill sessions, Scott Jennings’ takedowns on CNN, and casting straight out of Charlie’s Angels evident in the current press core.

To be blunt, we’re titillated.

Speaking of titillated, what about Rom-Coms?

Don’t need em cause We’ve got Taylor and Travis, Meghan Markle whining about the...Read More

It's Stream of Consciousness Tuesday

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 04:00:42 -0800

I haven’t been writing.

Yep I admit it.

This morning I woke up thinking on this problem, this avoidance. Then I thought about what ‘they’ would say - my fore bearing forefathers of fawning phrases and philosophy. Of course I’m talking about the greats — Twain, Hemingway, and Jeff Lebowski.

You know what they’d say —

emphatically

of course:

“Just write, man.”

Which is another way of admitting what those greats knew all too well: writer’s block doesn’t exist.

Fine.

I’ve been radio-silent as of late for MANY reasons, but not for lack of content or mental activity.

You could say I fell into a Deep Spring.

I had heard

vaguely about the college my Grandfather went to before graduating from Cal (that’s Cal-Berkeley for the newbies) but had never looked into it until now.

For anyone who knows me or knew my dad, it won’t come as a shock to learn that Grandfather Jack Olmsted attended a secretive two-year prep school somewhere north of Death Valley that was created in 1917 as an ‘unorthodox’ learning experience for the most elite Ivy-league-bound students and future leaders, requiring them to ranch and farm their own food and even elect their own college government, and it’s still going strong at over 100 years old.

It’s called Deep...Read More

It was the summer of 2016 when I took my life -

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 08:19:03 -0700

I like thinking about Tom in the fall
After all, his birthday is every October 20th (1950), and October 2nd (2017) is the day we lost him.
I was thinking about Tom a lot during the summer of 2016 — Warren Zanes’ really great biography had come out the previous year, and his book turned out to be a great companion on my epic road trip around the United States that summer.
It’s not hyperbole — I was 45 and flailing — and flailing isn’t even a strong enough word.
I was dying.
After my dad’s death in 2011, I had become a State Park crusader (the last thing I ever wanted to be), raising money to help out California’s ill-managed latest budget failures - and I succeeded.
Then I cleaned out dad’s house and sold it (per the demands of the will and dad’s many creditors), put everything in storage, and realized I was 40 and had no idea what was next.
First I tried honesty
I tried the new Kickstarter fad and attempted to create a series where I’d travel and talk to others who’d found themselves purpose-less in midlife — finding that lots of people deal with a midlife-ish crisis, but when one is single that midlife crisis can spin you right round, like a record baby, and spit you out to God-knows-where.
To rough places like Nevada City, Santa Monica, Sonoma, Piedmont.
Hey I’m no slouch when it comes to locations from which to ponder.
It wasn’t that the series failed so much as it just became my life. Traveling up and down the state, talking to people but with no clear goal. A few positives like a 2nd documentary film produced for PBS, but mostly just killing time.
Second I tried...Read More

Episode 6 | Sasha stone

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 21:45:31 -0700

Episode 6 | Sasha Stone

Born in Southern California towards the end of the hippy era, Sasha had a bit of a cliched life growing up in Topanga Canyon in the 1970's. Free sex, free drugs, and a single mother with a revolving door of boyfriends.

Sasha found her salvation in movies, eventually leading to a self-started career begun in the early days of the internet, with the popular Academy Award prediction site 'Oscar Watch' (now Awards Daily), a successful site valued by Hollywood studios and publicists.

A lifelong liberal, Sasha grew up like so many children of baby boomers, assuming and KNOWING that the Republicans were the bad guys. Full of bad people and bad policies. All bad.

Until the summer of 2020.

The hypocrisy of the covid panic - so strangely discarded when the George Floyd protest riots were deemed more important than safety during a global pandemic - was her Red-Pill moment. You can hear the full story in many of her great podcasts (link below).

Sasha and I both found solace during the pandemic via the 1997 prophetic book The Fourth Turning by Strauss & Howe. Although I'm a lifetime center-right independent I soon found that neither political party could be counted on for the truth, a very unsettling realization.

Our shared California backgrounds and love of movies led to many online conversations and we decided it was finally time to meet, if only by...Read More

Episode 5 is up

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 17:45:48 -0700

Welcome Wade Baynham to the "5 Great Questions" Podcast.
Wade Baynham was a founding member of the 90's coffee house band the Basics. Together with his wife Kelly and a revolving door of drummers and sound men, the Basics toured constantly between 1991 and 2005, from San Diego to Seattle and back, mostly playing at small venues in Palo Alto and Santa Cruz, summer camps like Mt. Hermon, and Coffee Houses like Mountain Roaster's in Felton, where I first saw them.
Wade and the Basics never acheived the success they sought, and attempts to measure that success would bring much pain - even causing Wade and Kelly to split. However the hundreds and thousands of fans who came to see them over the years will always cherish their music and the memories, the magic of discovering a new band at a little, often funky coffeehouse.

For fans of the Basics, the wandering souls that followed their journey, they will always be part of the singer - songwriter 90's, and those great songs still resonate today.

Follow Wade at https://wadebaynham.bandcamp.com/

Basics albums are on Spotify and iTunes.
Podcast is up on Apple / 5 Great Questions and iHeart Radio...Read More