Filmmaker and author Steve Balderson: "Find something to love in every person you meet".

In this engaging conversation, Wilkinson and Steve Balderson explore themes of personal growth, sexuality, and the journey of becoming a filmmaker. Steve shares his unique upbringing in Kansas, his awakening to his identity, and the pivotal experiences that shaped his life and career. The discussion delves into the importance of storytelling, the transformative power of love, and the lessons learned through art and self-discovery. Steve's insights on kindness, humor, and finding love in everyone he meets resonate throughout the conversation, making it a rich exploration of life as an artist and individual.

BIO

Roger Ebert gave Steve’s film FIRECRACKER, starring Karen Black and Mike Patton, a Special Jury Award on his annual Best Films of the Year list. The U.S. Library of Congress selected his film THE CASSEROLE CLUB, starring Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys, for its permanent collection. Steve ranks #47 on the IMDb's Top 100 Gay and Lesbian director's working today.

Film Threat magazine praises, “Balderson makes movies that are so gorgeous that it’s not unreasonable to say that, cinematographically at least; he’s the equal of an Argento or Kubrick in their prime. Some people have perfect vocal pitch,

Steve has perfect visual composition.”

Steve’s debut book, “Filmmaking Confidential,” debuted as an Amazon and Audible best-seller. He is a contributor to The Advocate and MovieMaker magazines and shares his extensive filmmaking knowledge as a guest lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

http://www.stevebalderson.com/

http://www.filmmakingconfidential.com/

http://www.dikenga.com/

Dikenga Films | WhatsApp +1 785 565 25 35

To contact Wilkinson- email him at BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

Transcript

WILKINSON (00:00)
Greetings, Wilkinson here. Today my guest is not in my house. Steve Balderson, how are ya?

STEVE BALDERSON (00:06)
doing fantastic.

WILKINSON (00:07)
Where are you? I see you're on like a phone. Spain. Wow. Yeah. We met, I'm trying to figure out where we met. When was Cinema Diverse in Pump Springs? Was it like the fall of 23?

STEVE BALDERSON (00:09)
Spain.

WILKINSON (00:18)
I think that was it? No, that wasn't, no, no, no, it wasn't just like four months ago we met. Was it? Or was it, is it in the spring?

STEVE BALDERSON (00:18)
No, 24. And it was s-

Yes it was.

No, it was in,

WILKINSON (00:27)
Okay, all right. Oh, then I wasn't too delinquent in reading your book. were... All right, all right. My timeline is like, I've had so much going on. Anyway, yeah, you were so generous with me. We met and like, I think within a minute you gave me one of your books. Thank you. It showed me how generous you were. And it was like, I liked you immediately. And I looked forward to this and finally we're doing it. Yay.

STEVE BALDERSON (00:31)
No, it was just a few months ago.

You're welcome.

Here we are.

WILKINSON (00:54)
So I think I wanna, so as of right now, so I've read three of your books, I've watched three of your films, your latest film, I've watched like six or eight times. Everyone that comes to my house, if they say, people staying here, I go, we gotta watch this. It's literally, I'm pretty sure you're my favorite film now. So that film is Sex, Love, Venice, right? So.

STEVE BALDERSON (01:12)
Thank you.

Yes.

WILKINSON (01:16)
And just before we go on, did you change the name of that? Because at Cinema Diverse, I don't think that was the name that was on it.

STEVE BALDERSON (01:21)
No, at Cinema Diverse it was called Love Venezia. And I knew from the beginning, just as a person who's familiar with marketing, that people in North America can't spell nor say Venezia. But there's also a different kind of power that comes with Sex Love Venice that the other title didn't have. And when we were kicking around all the possibilities, because there were a dozen.

WILKINSON (01:34)
Right.

Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (01:45)
That was the one that always just jumped out from the beginning.

WILKINSON (01:45)
Right. Right.

Well, I like it. I love it. So, but we're going to talk about that later, the specifics of that. But right now I'm intrigued to know more of your story and I want to know, I want to know more about you. So the purpose really is, I guess I should say this, purpose of my podcast is to reach the gay man in or LGBT, whatever, Q, whatever, but.

STEVE BALDERSON (01:57)
Mm-hmm.

WILKINSON (02:09)
mostly gay men in little towns that have no real gay experience. So it's like real life stories is really what we're sharing. And that's what I get the most feedback on. So you're gay guy. When did that happen? When did you figure that out?

STEVE BALDERSON (02:21)
Mm-hmm. That's right.

I don't, well, this is an interesting thing. I was never in the closet. So, but I was never necessarily out. I was always just me. And I didn't, I didn't know any better because growing up in Kansas, which is where I was from, there were no other gay people. So I didn't know you were supposed to be in the closet. I wasn't, I had a totally different set of circumstances. My parents were very supportive of just,

being a good person, you know, and there, my father's a serial entrepreneur and had business and work and work ethic, a healthy mindset about living were more important than some of these other sort of topics. We traveled a lot. So I was able at a very young age, my grandparents took me to Europe when I was 10 or 11. And I think the exposure to all of that and knowing that this big world was out there.

WILKINSON (02:59)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (03:12)
from a very young age, I never felt suffocated by growing up in Kansas. It was almost as if I was in a little bit of a bubble spiritually and psychologically on my own, you know? And I mean, I was teased and I was bullied, but I was bullied and teased because people thought we were rich. And...

WILKINSON (03:16)
Wow

Right

STEVE BALDERSON (03:36)
It was the stigma of, well, that must be nice. You know, that living in the house, I mean, it wasn't a big house and, you got a new car. Must be nice. You know?

Um, and I always wanted to say, you know what it is, but it, wasn't like, you know, it's just that the, the business that my family started, which was called Balderson Inc. In this little tiny town of Juanmigo, Kansas was an economic

WILKINSON (03:49)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (04:05)
provider to the community. So a percentage of the entire town, I don't know what percentage, worked there. So in their eyes, we were the, you know, the whatever. Yeah, and in reality, that's not true. But in the perception, I understand it. So those were the reasons why I was different, you know, and I didn't fit in because of those reasons. I was always really tall. I was not into sports. I was not into

WILKINSON (04:08)
Right. Yeah.

STEVE BALDERSON (04:31)
I wasn't even into theater. wasn't, I just didn't quite fit in. I was really in my own little place. I had some good quality friends and they accepted me for who I was. And, I don't know if I even questioned sexuality until. I mean, I was a fairly late bloomer. I can't remember what it was that I saw, you know, it would have been a movie probably, you know, probably something with Rob Lowe in it.

WILKINSON (04:37)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

STEVE BALDERSON (04:58)
or something with, like, I don't know, it would have been, and I was like, you know, these fluttering feelings,

you know, that one might get for the first time, but I don't think there was ever something that I felt needed to be kept secret. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't know, I didn't know how to tell anybody. You know, it's like, I don't know what that is. I mean, I still don't know what the protocol is. I've been to, you know,

WILKINSON (05:14)
Right Right

STEVE BALDERSON (05:21)
one or two gay bathhouses in my life and I'm like, what are you supposed to do? Like I'm a little slow when it comes to some things.

WILKINSON (05:30)
Why I've never been to a bath house that weird never

STEVE BALDERSON (05:33)
Well,

it wasn't actually a bathhouse. It was allegedly a normal spa, but it just happened to be activity. And I'm like, don't know. Anyway.

WILKINSON (05:42)
Did you have other friends that were boys?

STEVE BALDERSON (05:45)
I did, and from what all I could tell, I mean, they were artistic, they were interested in alternative music or watching crazy movies or foreign films, but they weren't necessarily gay. And I don't know if sexuality was a big topic among us.

WILKINSON (05:59)
Well, that

was, that was my real question. It was like, so you're with your male friends, these boys, and that's like, so that when did they get the fluttering you just talked about when they saw the girl with the boobs? I mean, did you know that it, did you know there was a difference there or not?

STEVE BALDERSON (06:14)
I did not know that, and in fact, I would almost categorize all of us as the nerdy, geeky subtype that were kind of not sexual, not sporty, not, you we were just nerds. And not book nerds, although I think most of them got really good grades. I didn't do well in school because I just didn't. But no, I don't think it ever came up.

WILKINSON (06:16)
Okay.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (06:41)
In the traditional way and it wasn't until.

think I was 17. I can't quite remember how old I was when I lost my virginity. And it was a hand job virginity. It wasn't even, you know, whatever. But it was with a hotel concierge in a different city. And afterward, I felt totally ashamed. And I had thought I had done something wrong. And I cried for like an hour because I didn't know how to process any of it.

WILKINSON (06:47)
Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (07:05)
How explicit can we be, or do you just bleep it later?

WILKINSON (07:08)
Right.

No, it's fine. I don't know where we are in here. Five minutes, we can't swear for the first five on YouTube. After that, we're good. And we can talk about, think we've been more than five minutes, I don't know. So.

STEVE BALDERSON (07:15)
okay.

Well,

I'll find a way to say it in an intelligent way. I'm not so articulate, but when I...

WILKINSON (07:25)
my gay friends want the dirt baby. Okay, all right. In a way, yeah, okay. All right. Okay. Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (07:27)
No, I'm going to tell you, just going to use a different word to describe the same activity. At the end of the activity, when I

presented my protein, exactly, now it was in an old elevator. So it was one of those old elevators that if you pulled the door open between floors, it would just stop. And then you could

WILKINSON (07:41)
Protein.

Wow.

Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (07:52)
push the door back and it would continue. So we were in the elevator stop between two floors and I provided my protein all over the elevator. And the first thing I said was, well no, that person said, wow, that's a lot of protein, I mean, in his own way. And I said, is that bad?

WILKINSON (08:00)
Really?

you

Now you had jerked off though, right? By yourself, right? So that, just doing it with someone was the new part, right? Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (08:09)
because I didn't know.

Sure, but I...

Correct. And

I mean, we were making out. I mean, it's so interesting because, I mean, that's a long last time ago. I can't quite remember, but I do remember the awkwardness of prior to that, we were in an apartment that I don't think belonged to this person. You know, if you work at a concierge as a concierge in this building or at this hotel, and this is your apartment, I knew already that it didn't add up. It was too nice. And I felt as though I was scared that someone was going to come back.

WILKINSON (08:41)
Okay.

and find you.

STEVE BALDERSON (08:47)
Yeah, and I don't know whether this person, who knows? Maybe it was theirs, I don't know. But that's when we went into the elevator, so I was already nervous. And I remember that, I remember the protein in the elevator and the comment, and I remember crying for an hour afterwards going back to where came from.

WILKINSON (09:04)
Did you leave the protein in the elevator? Yes. Very interesting.

STEVE BALDERSON (09:07)
Yes.

Yeah, that was so

bizarre. That was such a bizarre story. But I do remember then when I went back to school, because that was between my junior and senior year of high school. I remember when I walked into school that following autumn, I felt like a totally different person. And it gave me a little bit of a sense of it provided an edge that allowed me to do some things deliberately provocative. And

WILKINSON (09:14)
Wow.

Wow.

Really?

STEVE BALDERSON (09:34)
And I don't know what my motivation was, but I would literally be provocative just to provoke people. And I remember having a sense of, you know, all these things people shove under the rugs to hide them. And I think my purpose that year was to expose them. You know, and I mean, I was a bit of a jackass, but it was also a time when.

WILKINSON (09:46)
Right Right

STEVE BALDERSON (09:59)
I was learning, I didn't know who I was as an individual, but I think, you know, I bleached my hair, I shaved

my head, I wore, you know, crazy clothing. I did the typical stereotypical things one would do to deliberately be provocative. And it's odd because I don't like attention. So, but that's what I was doing was I was seeking attention, you know? And the...

WILKINSON (10:08)
Okay Right

STEVE BALDERSON (10:28)
principal of my high school pulled me aside one day and he said you know, why don't you quit all this art bullshit

and join the football team and you're if you did that your life would be so much easier and When I looked at him, I mean I literally told him to get out of my life and I was a bit of a

WILKINSON (10:48)
Did

you use the F word to tell him or no?

STEVE BALDERSON (10:51)
No, I did. was just

going to say, I mean, I was wondering if we were past five minutes. was, I just looked at it. I looked at him and his face. I was in his office and I was like, fuck you. And I literally just said it out loud and I got up and I never listened to authority again in that school. and I somehow, I think my grade point average was like 2.3. but I somehow managed to have had all my credits and

WILKINSON (10:55)
yeah, we're good.

Wow. Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (11:14)
I was able to graduate in December, a semester early of my senior year.

WILKINSON (11:17)
He probably wanted you gone. Yeah. Yeah.

STEVE BALDERSON (11:19)
Oh, they all did. No, they really, they all did. I mean, I

would go to lunch break and I would go to a restaurant and have like a nice lunch. I mean, it was a hamburger probably. And when I went back, I was probably 30 minutes late going into history class. And my history teacher would always look at me and say, where have you been? You know, I'm like, well, I was having lunch. You know, I mean, it was, I was a nightmare for the school staff. I mean, they were, some of them were really lovely people.

WILKINSON (11:28)
Right.

Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (11:47)
and others weren't so much, no, I was a rebel. was a little bit of a punk. I've always had a little bit of a rebellion in me. It's just differently presented today than it was back then.

WILKINSON (11:58)
Well when I hear that story of what he said to you, think, I mean I've talked to so many people on the podcast and I'm curious, I'm always talking to people anyway, but that moment could have been one where you went the other way. And it could have totally changed the trajectory of your life. Just somebody saying something to you can do that. But you escaped. Which is...

STEVE BALDERSON (12:02)
huh.

Yeah, I've always been

really strong-willed, but I think everyone in my family has, like, forever. Like, we're just... You get something in any of our heads, and there's not any budging it.

WILKINSON (12:24)
Right.

Right. Okay,

before we move on from the elevator story, how old was he, you think?

STEVE BALDERSON (12:36)
Yes.

You know, that's so funny.

WILKINSON (12:39)
You

were 17, was he like 30 or was he 21 or what do you think? Just a prop.

STEVE BALDERSON (12:44)
He was anywhere,

he was, he had to have been 20 because I remember, or 20s, because I remember thinking at the time that, you know, when you're 17 years old, somebody who's 35 seems like they're way old, you know, like an adult. And I don't think he was that, I think he had to have been a college kid. He had to have in like, to have that job, maybe not. I would guess 24, 25, I no idea. But 20s.

WILKINSON (12:50)
Okay.

All right, right.

Okay, and my last question is, were you the only one with your protein machine out or did he have his out too?

STEVE BALDERSON (13:14)
my god, I have no idea. It may have just been me.

WILKINSON (13:15)
Really?

Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (13:19)
I mean, we were primarily mostly clothed the entire time and I don't think he had. I mean, I can't remember. But I think I would remember, although it was such an self thing that even if he had, I don't know if I would have noticed because I was so internally like, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, you know?

WILKINSON (13:19)
Bye.

Right. Whoa.

Right. Well, that's the great thing about being a male. You know, I mean, as the little girl said to the little boy, well, that's a handy thing to bring to picnics. You don't have to get undressed. You know what I mean? All right, let's move on. Yeah. So, I, I neglected, you know, we talked a little about your movies and I mentioned your book, but tell everybody who are you? What have you done?

STEVE BALDERSON (13:46)
That's really funny.

Exactly. Alright.

WILKINSON (14:00)
Now, obviously you're a writer, you're a filmmaker, you're an author. What else?

STEVE BALDERSON (14:04)
I just say I'm an artist. And even more general than that is I'm a visual storyteller. Whether I use words to do that or images to do that, it's still a visual storyteller. It's still a visual story to me. you know, when I was, I don't know, four or five, six years old, my grandfather, who took pictures constantly, he had a camera around his neck every day.

WILKINSON (14:06)
Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (14:26)
would take hundreds of thousands of photos, I'm not joking. of just the sofa, I mean, it didn't matter what it was, he just took pictures all the time. He was also a gadget guy. So he had a big Betamax camcorder that was like the brand new thing. And he let me play with it. So at that age, I would take it home and film stuff and boss my brother and sister around, I was the oldest child.

WILKINSON (14:40)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (14:51)
and they were each three and four years younger than me. And they, along with the neighborhood children, were my guinea pigs for we need to do this and I'm just going to conduct and be the boss of the whole neighborhood. And I would film it and we made a movie called Kidnap. And I can't wait to find it and put it online because I'm sure it's just hilarious. in our household, it was a hit.

WILKINSON (15:03)
Right.

wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (15:14)
So then we made Kidnap 2 and I continued to do that and what I've learned in hindsight was when I first knew that it felt, I felt at home. It felt like my language and when anyone would discover any language that is theirs, it just fit the way that my mind worked. So

WILKINSON (15:17)
Wow.

Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (15:35)
I always did it. throughout high school, I would rope all my friends into making little movies. And we would have premiere showings at the local, you know, at first it was like the Holiday Inn Conference Center, we would, you know, project the VHS copy onto the side of the wall, and then we would all get dressed up. And then later on, it was at the Wareham Theater in downtown Manhattan, Kansas, where, you know, by then I was in film school.

And I had made a version of Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat, which was like three and a half hours long. And it was on two VHS tapes because it was too long for just one VHS tape. And we showed it in the big theater and people would go, you know, people would, it was interesting because Julie Haynes is a restaurateur in this town and she worked with the man who ran the theater and they were supportive. They like,

WILKINSON (16:11)
Right, right.

STEVE BALDERSON (16:27)
she convinced him to allow me to do this, you know, which is rare, you know, anywhere, but she was amazing and Jim McCullough who owned the theater was amazing and they allowed it, they welcomed it, they didn't really fight it. I don't know if I was aware at the time of how special that was because in the Midwestern, you know, small towns, any...

WILKINSON (16:33)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (16:48)
strange oddity or anything that's unusual and not typical is usually frowned upon or encouraged not to do. So for some reason it worked and I was able to do what I loved doing. then when I also in high school, I studied a little bit of architecture, which I fell in love with primarily because of the light and space.

WILKINSON (16:54)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (17:09)
So it's as a visual storyteller, a room can tell a story, you know, and provide these things. So the combination of the two are really the only places I felt at home. And when it was time to go to school, I don't even think I took the SAT or the ACT. And so I was fairly limited with where I could even apply. And at the time, I didn't even know that CalArts was a very important art school and that

WILKINSON (17:14)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (17:33)
It was very hard to get in, but I got in. And then when I went there and I was studying film, I learned very quickly it was almost the reverse situation from feeling different and out of the box in Kansas. When I went to art school, I was different and out of the box because I was so normal. And that was really strange because I was the most conservative.

of all the crazy people, right? So yes, yes. I mean, at this school at the time, it was still pretty wild. So clothing optional was one of the rules at the dormitory pools. On my very first, yes. And when I went to class during the first week, I was walking down the hallway and there were two people having sex in the hallway. There were professors walking by and I was just like, what is going on here?

WILKINSON (17:59)
Really? Really?

Were they co-ed? Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (18:24)
So I went into my dean's office, and I don't think I used these words, but I basically said, have I missed something here in the program? I'm like, what is going on? But his answer to me has always stuck with me. And he said, here we believe that as long as you aren't causing yourself or anybody else harm, you are free to do what you like. Because the truth is, if you don't like seeing something, you have the power.

WILKINSON (18:32)
Right, right.

STEVE BALDERSON (18:49)
to close your eyes, turn around and walk away. And when I heard that I was like, mind blown because that's just something that hadn't occurred to me before. You I was so used to this order and this sort of like rules that when there were none, essentially, I mean, of course there probably were, I didn't know how to exist in that environment. So.

WILKINSON (19:08)
So what you're saying is you said, I'm not in Kansas.

STEVE BALDERSON (19:11)
I'm not in Kansas anymore, and I feel like I'll never fit in here. So then I started doing more provocative things. Like there was this girl, Whitney, who had a motorcycle, and she put on this gown, and I put on this suit at like 8.30 in the morning, and we got a bottle of Godiva Liqueur and put it in our coffee, and she rode the motorcycle with me behind her on her back, like on the motorcycle, through the hallways of the school.

WILKINSON (19:12)
Right.

Really?

STEVE BALDERSON (19:36)
and this was allowed. I mean, it was just bananas. And and there was once, okay. So the art school, CalArts had art, film, theater, dance, music, and animation were the separate sections. And it was started by Walt Disney. So it's like the premier animation school in the world. Sophia Coppola was there when I was there, but she was in the art school. And if you're in the art school,

WILKINSON (19:49)
Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (19:59)
you have to, as part of the curriculum, do an art opening. And when you do an art opening, you have to provide wine, snacks, et cetera, even if you are only 19. Right? So you do, and people get, you know, we would have these art openings, and we're all like, you know, 18, 19, 20, and 21, we're all just like, pretending like we're adults, even though we're like these little people pretending dress up, right? And one of the art openings that really

WILKINSON (20:22)
Right, right.

STEVE BALDERSON (20:25)
was quite interesting, was this big, big gallery in the front of the school, and there was this circular, maybe a 15-foot diameter circle suspended from the ceiling, which was about three stories high. And it was encircled with black fabric from the ceiling of the room all the way down to the floor. And as you got closer to this cylindrical curtain thing,

you could see that there were little holes in the fabric. And if you went in and you looked through the hole, you would see an orgy taking place. A real one. A real one with actual people. This art show, I don't remember the name of, I don't remember what was the artist's purpose, what was the, you know, I don't know any of that, I just remember that.

WILKINSON (20:58)
A real one.

Hahaha

STEVE BALDERSON (21:13)
It was pretty remarkable. So to go from Kansas to this was, shocking.

WILKINSON (21:18)
All right, so I have a question for you. So here's the book, the first book you gave me. So it's on filmmaking, which is interesting you handed me that book because before I got into photography, I really wanted to do independent film, which I never did. I switched to photography. But as I read that, I mean, on your resume, I would tack on philosopher and life coach.

STEVE BALDERSON (21:20)
Yes.

Yes.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

WILKINSON (21:43)
from reading this book because

STEVE BALDERSON (21:44)
Yeah.

WILKINSON (21:45)
it's not just about this. It's not about all of it. It's not all about film. And so that's one of the things that just popped out at me. It's like, how did you become who you are today? And it doesn't matter which book I read, the same thing kept coming out in all of them. It's like, wow, this guy, he's really smart. He's really in touch. And I'm not just blowing smoke at you here. I really felt this.

And it was like, wow, how did he get to be who he is today? So what are like three things in your life that like totally changed who you are?

STEVE BALDERSON (22:18)
Well, being born in the family that I was born in. My father studied NLP in the eighties and, eryxonia hypnosis and, and from the direct people who created NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming, Leslie Cameron Bandler was one of the three individuals and he met her at someplace in California in the early to mid eighties and they became friends. So he studied from Leslie Cameron Bandler and.

WILKINSON (22:20)
Okay.

Wow. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (22:44)
Of course, at the time I'm just a young kid, so I'm raised by a person who already has mindsets of excellence and being an entrepreneur and without judgment and without these things, it's just a good work ethic and being positive. so that key, that was very key. The second thing I think is, you know, prior to it was in 20,

14 when I had been with someone for 12 years who had betrayed me and stole all my money and had taken everything from me and in that year after that

WILKINSON (23:18)
That sounds like a great plot for a movie.

STEVE BALDERSON (23:20)
You know,

it is. But in that year, I knew enough to know that I wanted to, and I don't know if my father suggested it to me or if I knew I needed to do it, but I was, I think I said, are there any of those original NLP people still around? I need to go for a week long intensive for self-help, basically. It wasn't, it wasn't.

WILKINSON (23:21)
Hahaha!

Wow

STEVE BALDERSON (23:42)
for other reasons. So I did. And I did the practitioner training and it really changed my life. And then since then, I learned more about Connie Ray Andreas, who also studied from Leslie Cameron Bandler and her husband, Steve Andreas and herself, co-wrote all of the basic NLP books. And Connie Ray's approach is blended with spirituality.

WILKINSON (24:00)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (24:05)
And what I loved about going to her workshops was that it was beyond your typical basic Tony Robbins style approach. the first thing that she, yes.

WILKINSON (24:18)
I just picked that up. I'm gonna read it. Anyway, you're talking about it.

STEVE BALDERSON (24:21)
Yes, it's so good.

So I read that book and then I'm like, I've got to go meet Connie Ray. So I went to her, she had a workshop called Core Transformation. And you know what, I'll be damned. It transformed my core. It really did. And then over time she developed a process called coming to wholeness, which is where you have things, for instance, good, bad, right, wrong, better, worse.

WILKINSON (24:27)
Right?

Okay.

Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (24:45)
different same. And in it, she describes that neither of these parts are. Are they're both equal traps. You know, to be happy all the time is just as bad as being depressed all the time. There's, there's no good thing about either one of them. So the, process is, you know, how to combine them so that there is oneness and that there just is.

WILKINSON (24:51)
you know, to be happy all the time is just as bad as being depressed all the time. There's no good thing about it. So the process is, you know, how to...

so that there is one of us and that there just is,

STEVE BALDERSON (25:09)
it is as it is, you know, and that also then informed a lot of just my outlook on life. So I think that there's, you know, the first part of it is being raised.

WILKINSON (25:09)
it is as it is. And that also then informed a lot of just my album alive. I think that there's, the first part of it is being raised.

STEVE BALDERSON (25:23)
in the family that I was raised, my father's influence in just how to see the world and then interact in it. And then also, I'm very stubborn, you know? And I think that over the course of time, I was stubborn then without knowing how to communicate. And once I knew how to communicate, then I wasn't, I was able to be stubborn, but in a more polite way. I don't know how to put it.

in a different way, but...

I'm very excited because there's some big march happening. I live on the most famous street in Barcelona, Spain. And if it gets too loud, or I'll have to go and shut my door a little bit, but there's some march happening. That's like a celebration of some kind. I can't quite tell what's going on. I'm very curious. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, totally. So I don't know if there was a third one particular.

WILKINSON (26:02)
It adds a little color, leave it.

So your latest movie is based loosely based on your experience, right? So I know I'm going to talk about your books and your movies in another episode, but so your mother actually sent you to Venice? Was that true or not?

STEVE BALDERSON (26:13)
Yes.

No, OK, so what

No, so what happened to me was, I would say 92 % of that movie is fact. So I had this relationship for 12 years, it ended badly, I was betrayed, he stole my money, I was broke, all this stuff. And then I spent a year of healing. Now, when I went to Venice, I was further along my healing journey because I'd already studied NLP, I'd already studied meditation, I'd learned things about life that were

WILKINSON (26:32)
Okay.

Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (26:50)
different than the character in the film. But I went with two friends and I was there for the whole month of January for my birthday month and it was off season and it was very inexpensive and it was great. And I got on the, I don't remember which app it was, I mean, I'm assuming it was Grindr and I met this guy and we decided to meet for coffee and we met for coffee and he was dashing and charming and I had two friends sitting nearby as backup and so I.

WILKINSON (27:00)
Wow.

you

STEVE BALDERSON (27:14)
I went and introduced them afterwards. And then he went and took us all around town. And I thought, this is not exactly what I had in mind, but I was really excited to see parts of the city that I otherwise would never have seen. You know, you know, the places where the locals go that were literally just around the corner off the block from the tourists, you know, streets. And it was literally about, you know, we would have lunch and we would flirt and we would do all these things. then.

WILKINSON (27:33)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (27:40)
like two weeks into it, we hadn't even made out yet. And I said, I don't live here. I am leaving the country next week, you know? And if we're going to do something about this, we need to get the show on the road, you know? Because there's not a lot of time left. And he literally looked at me and said, I think you're ready. And I rolled my eyes and I was like, my God, whatever, you know, this Italian machismo thing. And I show up at his place the next day.

WILKINSON (27:51)
Wow

STEVE BALDERSON (28:07)
And he literally says, all right, we'll have sex.

But what I'd like you to do is focus on each of the senses one at a time. And he starts going through it. And everything that you see in the film is exactly what happened. And then afterwards, he said, good job. And then, yes, yes. And then I went back the next day and...

WILKINSON (28:14)
Wow. real? What happened? Wow.

Meet me tomorrow? Did he say that in real life? Okay, well...

STEVE BALDERSON (28:34)
That was when he said, okay, well, today we'll have sex, but what I'd like you to do is focus on what you're doing and how it might affect my senses. So that was really fun because I could do things that I enjoyed, but I learned, you sometimes you might get a response from the other person and sometimes you might not. So, you know, some people have sensitive nipples and some people don't, you know? And so I would try to explore and find out

WILKINSON (28:41)
Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (29:00)
what were the things and what weren't, you know? And that was really fun, you know, to just sort of like find out about the other person. And I learned I was quite good at a couple of things that day. And that was exciting. And...

WILKINSON (29:06)
Right? Right.

Wait, you just blushed a little bit. My God.

STEVE BALDERSON (29:15)
No, whatever. And

then after that, I went back and he was like, all right, maybe tomorrow. So I go back the third day and he said, all right, we'll have sex. What I'd like you to do is focus on, take your five senses and my five senses and combine them. And so there's no barrier to where I end and you begin or the other way around. And that was when

I swear to God, it had to have been, because I had never had one and I've had similar feelings since, a full body orgasm. And by that I mean, parts of my body, my arms or my legs were involuntarily shaking and I didn't know, there was no controlling any of it. And the feeling, I mean, it was almost electric in the sense that

the nervous system. I mean, in the movie, I use the words and it's in the book also, I felt like a supernova and I don't know how to otherwise articulate it. It's like, literally at that moment, I understood the universe and it was beyond just, it wasn't sex. I mean, it was, but it was so much bigger than that. And after that, was like, I mean, I literally,

WILKINSON (30:11)
Wow.

Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (30:19)
I'd never had experienced anything in my life. And I had just turned 40. So it was like, you know, this whole new everything. And I was like, wow, okay, now the rest of my life begins. You know, it's like, now life really begins, you know? And it was a beautiful coming home. I mean, I did at the end of it, we kept in touch. you know, later that October, I think it was,

I had a film called Algonzo that was in a film festival in the south of Italy. So I stopped in Venice on the way, just because I love the city, and we met him for happy hour. And my dads were with me, my best friend, Jennifer, who had been there, you know, in the previous January was there. And he came to meet us for a drink at this Chiketibar. And what was so remarkable was when I saw him again, there was zero.

WILKINSON (30:44)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (31:08)
sexual chemistry, but an overwhelming sense

of love and

Love and wow. Love and wow. And it was, I just sat there and I thought, what a beautiful person. It was like seeing an old mentor. Are you like, you know, I mean, but bigger. It was so interesting. And over the years we've kept in touch, and by that I mean maybe once a year, maybe once every year and a half or whatever. And when it was come, it came time to come film this movie, you know, jump ahead 10 years.

WILKINSON (31:18)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (31:43)
I

remembered in my mind that he had managed, owned or managed different Airbnb's. So I reached out about renting some of them to house the cast and crew during the movie. And I only got to see him for about 10 minutes because my schedule was so grueling filming that, and so was his with his work. I didn't even get to say hi really until we were basically leaving town. But very cool, like totally cool.

WILKINSON (31:49)
Right

STEVE BALDERSON (32:06)
This was the most amazing thing. So I reached out when I first moved here

and I'm gonna try to remember exactly, my God, it was just so beautiful. I mean, I almost wept when I read it. The text read, how beautiful have you found love there?

WILKINSON (32:20)
Wow.

STEVE BALDERSON (32:22)
And I said, yes. But what he meant was lesson number four, which is in the film. You know, when I showed up and he said, find love in

everyone you meet, you know, and it doesn't have to be big, just find something to love about them. And it could be a neighbor, a passerby, a person on the street, a lover, doesn't matter. But try to find something genuinely to love about them. And because then whatever you create will come from that place.

WILKINSON (32:40)
Right.

Bye.

STEVE BALDERSON (32:49)
And so that's where I left Venice and that also changed my life, my mindset. Maybe that's number three out of the things that

WILKINSON (32:49)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (32:58)
made me who I am because when I approach any situation, any person, there is no judgment. They are as they are. And I didn't get into this in the movie, but in my book, Accessing Creativity, I mentioned it, which is preference. So if, yes.

Judgment doesn't exist, but preference does. And I might prefer to hang out with someone who's honest than someone who's dishonest, but that doesn't mean that this dishonest person is a bad person. It's just not what I'm into. I'm not into that. So that's the thing. But...

WILKINSON (33:17)
Right.

Right. Right. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (33:29)
Yeah, so that's essentially my story. Now, I decided to send myself to Venice myself. And I've always collected airline miles at hotel points and looked for off season travel and all this stuff. it was my idea. Now, for the sake of, I mean, I have very supportive parents and they're not rich, but that's a big, that's a bit of a sort of.

WILKINSON (33:36)
Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (33:50)
paying homage to how the world thinks we are, you know what I mean? But for cinematic purposes, she had to be, you know, and she had to send it because that character, the character of Michael who's based off of this experience that I had, he's not as far along on his healing journey as I was. So somebody had to say, you've got to go do this for yourself. Because he probably would never have done that himself, that character.

WILKINSON (33:53)
Right, right, right.

Right.

Right, right. Right,

right. One little thing I gotta ask you this. So your grandfather who loaned you the camp quarter, did he live long enough to see what you've done?

STEVE BALDERSON (34:18)
yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

He watched Pep Squad, which was my first movie that was the satire on American school violence. He saw that. I can't remember if he died before Firecracker came out, before it was made, or during. I can't quite remember. Probably before.

I really, can't remember. But he at least saw the first one, if not the second one, all the others he had not. And my grandmother had passed away before him. So I can't remember if she saw the first one, would have mortified her if she would have seen the first one. Because it was a bit of a mashup between Serial Mom and like a John Waters movie and like Nine to Five with Dolly Parton and like Heathers, you that movie from the 80s. It was like a mash of all of those films.

WILKINSON (34:45)
Okay.

Okay.

Thank

my god. Right. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (35:11)
deliberately offensive, like from the page one to the page end, and it was very campy at the same time. You know, it's sort of like a B movie sort of style. So if she would have seen that, would have mortified her. And I don't remember if she did or not. But again, it's like they're all entrepreneurial. I mean, there's also this town, this section of Kansas, I don't know what it is, but the man who owns the bank

WILKINSON (35:16)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (35:34)
in this town was one of our investors. And when he saw the movie, his only comment, like it's completely offensive, don't remember, he said,

WILKINSON (35:43)
Right, right.

STEVE BALDERSON (35:44)
there aren't enough tits.

And I was like, but there are, you you want more? what is, and I'm like, my God, this is crazy. I, of course, yeah, exactly. A third one. mean, so, I mean, who knows? Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

WILKINSON (35:47)
Yeah. How many is enough, right? Right. Wow.

Huh. What made you, well maybe that's in the next episode, I don't know. But I mean, what I mentioned earlier about all the little gems that you stick into your books and your movies. It's like.

What caused you to do that? Was it purposeful or did it just happen because of who you are?

STEVE BALDERSON (36:16)
Which, putting the stories?

WILKINSON (36:17)
Just,

just, no, the knowledge that's kinda in here. It's like all the little tidbits you, I mean, I've read through your books. They're just there. It's like, wow. I mean, you sit there, not necessarily thinking about the topic that's on the cover of the book, but it's like, wow, yeah, that's true. You know, I kept, yeah.

STEVE BALDERSON (36:27)
Well...

Well, yes, I

mean, I think all of them, I mean, I'm writing about a way of being and a life mindset, you know, and because my experience is in film, that's the example that I'm using, you know, but I really think that if I had been a restaurateur, the books would have been exactly the same. It would have just been about the restaurant business, you know.

WILKINSON (36:47)
Okay. Right. Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (37:04)
And so part of it is

I learned sometime, I don't remember when, that I really love sharing and I love, and I use the word sharing. The word teaching is different to me.

WILKINSON (37:13)
And it's

not preaching.

STEVE BALDERSON (37:20)
Exactly, and it's sharing a way of being that has worked for me and that maybe can be useful to someone else. On top of that, it's also saving me a lot of time. So people would always ask me, how do you find money to make a movie? And it takes about five and a half hours to adequately answer that question. So then I began doing workshops where people could come and

WILKINSON (37:25)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (37:45)
listen to me talk for five and a half hours and I can do it to all 20 people at the same time, you know? And then I was like, I don't have time to do this, you know? I love doing it. But I

WILKINSON (37:51)
Right. Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (37:57)
thought, oh, I should put that in a book, you know? And then I put it in a book. And now when someone asks me that question, I can say, here's the book, go read it. And go along my business. But I also, a lot of the messages

WILKINSON (37:59)
Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (38:11)
are contrarian by nature. If the world says you have to do blue, you have to. That's how you're supposed to do it. You know, this is how you do whatever it is, making movies, start a business, get married, have kids, blah, blah, blah, go down the list. You have to do blue.

WILKINSON (38:25)
And then and

you and you go now red or orange come on Yeah

STEVE BALDERSON (38:29)
Completely, I deliberately do

read, even if I don't want to. You know, that's just my nature. And I've also learned it's a little bit helpful, especially if you're an artist or you're creating something that needs a consumer in order to sustain itself. So, you know, if everyone out there is making this kind of movie and you make the total opposite and make some noise,

WILKINSON (38:34)
Bye.

Okay.

STEVE BALDERSON (38:54)
everybody's gonna know about yours. And the others may not. If you made the same movie that everybody else was making, it might not get seen by anybody. And I learned that when I did this film called Watch Out, which came out, I think in 20, oh God, oh eight or nine. Okay, yes.

WILKINSON (38:56)
Right.

Right.

Well, we're going to talk about that in the next segment. However, I watched that

last night and my god.

STEVE BALDERSON (39:17)
Right?

No, I know. There's a whole story about that one.

WILKINSON (39:19)
All right,

we're going to talk about that one next time but yeah that so anyway not to interrupt you so anyway that came out on what happened.

STEVE BALDERSON (39:24)
All right. Yes.

Well,

yeah, and just, just...

Sharing things, sometimes I think they're funny and maybe nobody else does, you know, but it's still, it's, I love doing it and I have seen it help people, like some of the stuff that I've shared with them. So, I don't know, it feels good. There's also something I think, I've seen a lot of people keep success stories or things that inspire them secret, like maybe they're afraid.

that if they told someone they would either not be able to do what they do or they would maybe feel like they were giving away their success and giving it to somebody else. I don't know why they withhold it, whether it's a success or failure. You know, when we were taken advantage of by some production companies or some distribution companies, it's embarrassing. But other people now know to...

at least be looking out for the things that we didn't know to look out for. You know, and that makes me feel good as a person. There's nothing too precious to not share. Especially if there's somebody interested in it, you know, that's why a book is handy because if you know, it's a subject matter that you're interested in, you know, it's it's there, you know, I'm not standing on the corner with a microphone telling everybody who passes by.

WILKINSON (40:23)
Right

Right Right Right

Right Okay, before we close one more thing. So let's let's swing back to the gay thing. So my god, you're in Barcelona. Come on. And now you're single now

STEVE BALDERSON (40:47)
Yes.

Yes.

No, I have a partner, but we're open and he lives in Madrid and we go back and forth and it's.

WILKINSON (40:56)
Okay.

Is

he Spanish?

STEVE BALDERSON (41:00)
No. Yes, because he has a Spanish passport now.

WILKINSON (41:04)
Yeah, yeah, but

you know what I mean. Come on. I mean, I mean the men there, my God.

STEVE BALDERSON (41:07)
I know what you mean.

No,

but what's fascinating is it's really a tourist destination for the world, right? So when I walk down the street just to go to the grocery store, I am hearing every language you can imagine. And half of them are fleeting people who are only here for a few days, you know, or for a week. And it's funny because it's a mix of cultures and races and peoples and...

WILKINSON (41:13)
you

Right.

STEVE BALDERSON (41:35)
and voices and sounds that it's, there's, I haven't distinctly seen what I have seen in smaller places, like in the north part of Spain, there's, you know, towns like Gijon and San Sebastian and places like that that are a little smaller where you say, this is what Spain looks like. These are the people of Spain. And here it's, haven't quite noticed that yet. But I know exactly what you mean, but I would also just add to the list. I mean, Jesus, it's not just,

WILKINSON (41:41)
Right, Okay

STEVE BALDERSON (42:01)
guys from Spain, it's guys from hit every name of whatever country is within an eight hour flight.

WILKINSON (42:06)
So it's this mortise board. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yikes.

STEVE BALDERSON (42:08)
It is a smorgasbord. It is an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord.

And a lot of them are

heterosexual, traveling with their wives and whatnot.

WILKINSON (42:22)
Are

they really? Or are they really are?

STEVE BALDERSON (42:25)
You can tell just walking down the street, even if I'm not going to meet that person or talk to him, I see the what he's I see where he's looking. And I also see like what he looks like. I mean, sometimes it's like, this is really funny, because there was an actor who was from Europe, or maybe he was actually from Spain in one of my movies. And a friend of mine who's a sort of somewhat well known gay photographer asked me he was like, is he gay? And I said, no, he's just European.

WILKINSON (42:32)
Right.

And I said, no, he's just European.

STEVE BALDERSON (42:50)
was my answer because it's like you can't really tell but at the same time you kind of can. Yeah.

WILKINSON (42:58)
Now when you were in Palm Springs, did you go to the street arenas that has all the gay bars and all that stuff on it? Okay, no, I'm not either. my point was, and I don't really go there, but once I go to lunch or something, and it's always a kick, especially on the touristy type weekends. So you're sitting there at Black Book, having your chicken sandwich, whatever. And the straight guy with his wife,

STEVE BALDERSON (43:05)
Yeah, but I have never been a gay bar person. Like, I think I went—

WILKINSON (43:25)
you know, we'll be walking down on the other side of street. And I'm just watching the guy. And he's like, my God. And I remember that feeling because when I was married to the woman, was a miserable marriage for most of the part time. We always used to fight. We couldn't have dinner without fighting, seriously. But I would be at on Capitol Hill in Seattle, you know, the gay ghetto. And I'd be at this, it was called the Broadway Grill. And I would be sitting there fighting at the...

STEVE BALDERSON (43:29)
YES!

WILKINSON (43:51)
you know, two person table fighting with her. And I'd be looking over at the table with six or eight gay guys having so much fun. And it'd be just like, ah. You know, and I didn't, I was attracted to that, but I hadn't come out to myself. really, I knew I was attracted to men, but I didn't know I was gay, if that makes any sense, until later. So, but yeah, I get it. It's like, but I still had my own little fantasy about living where you are and uh huh.

STEVE BALDERSON (44:11)
Yeah, sure.

WILKINSON (44:19)
Because I was a super host for couchsurfing and Airbnb, and I'd have people from all over the world. And in Palm Springs, always guys. And I can remember these two Spanish guys that were staying with me. my God.

STEVE BALDERSON (44:28)
course.

Yeah. No, I know.

WILKINSON (44:35)
I gotta tell you this quick story. So I'm really big on air and like being outside. And so I slept outside for nine months, every night for nine months in Palm Springs, including through the winter. The only time I went in the house is if it was raining and the rain was blowing sideways, then I'd went in. But otherwise I'm out there. So we're all in the hot tub. Everybody's kind of getting frisky.

STEVE BALDERSON (44:41)
Yes.

cool.

WILKINSON (45:00)
I'm really tired, I'm sleeping outside and the Spanish guy, one of them, the really, really hot one, I'm like, just like one in the morning, I'm almost asleep and he comes up to me and I wake up and he's buck naked standing right there in front of me. It's like, and I go, I'm so tired. My friends couldn't believe it. And he went in the house and met with two other guys that were in the house staying in there and.

Off he went, but wow, he was so hot. So that's my fantasy. So, anywho, I think we're done for this episode. One more question. How do you live your life? What do you live by? What's the main thing you live by?

STEVE BALDERSON (45:28)
Yes. Amazing. Amazing.

Yes. Yes.

finding love in everyone I meet, and expressing kindness whenever possible, and humor.

WILKINSON (45:47)
Right?

Kindness and humor, I like it. thank you so much for being on here. This is great. We're gonna do the next episode very shortly. So thanks for coming on.

STEVE BALDERSON (45:51)
Thank you for having me.

Yes.

Sure thing. Cheers.

WILKINSON (45:59)
Cheers.