Inside Folsom Prison: The Hardest Men, The Deepest Work (with Gethin Aldous)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everyone. Today I am pumped to be talking with Gethin Aldous, who is a man of many talents. So just to start here, he's a film and video game maker who believes in the power of story to transform lives. He co-directed and executive produced The Work, a documentary filmed inside Folsom Prison that won the UK Grierson Award for Best International Documentary and Best Cinema Documentary.

Jason Lange: And it continues. He has also been honored with the Ron Herring Award by the Mankind Project USA, and has been involved in men's work for nearly two decades, staffing group therapy retreats at Folsom Prison with Inside Circle, and at Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Norfolk, with the Jericho Circle Project. And he is the founder of the organization All Kings, which is a community of men dedicated to justice and freedom.

Jason Lange: That works to heal the wounds of isolation and oppression by bringing formerly incarcerate incarcerated men into diverse intergenerational community with other men for mutual growth and healing. Amazing stuff. And I had the pleasure of meeting Gethin about a year ago at a men's conference. And just as soon as I kind of heard his story, I had seen his film and immediately found my way to him to introduce myself. And we got to do a little partner practice, which was really sweet back in the day. And

Jason Lange: It's taken me this long to get you on here, but I'm finally, finally stoked to have you here. Welcome.

Gethin Aldous: It's really good to be here. I'm excited. I'm excited.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I was I I just I rewatched the film last night with my wife who had never seen it before and she was just essentially in tears for the entire duration. And you know, I've been doing my own version of men's work for two or three decades and I'm really into shadow work and I don't think I've seen another film that actually captures the essence of the inner work that can happen better than this. And something I really want to talk to you quite a bit about amongst

Jason Lange: everything else here. But so I want to start, you know, for people who haven't seen the work, what is it in your own words?

Gethin Aldous: I I sort of take a little bit of a step back because it to I had this I I first did like my own kind of men's weekend maybe twice 20 years ago now. And I was a filmmaker at the time, and immediately I was like, there's a language in this that could sort of change the world, and how do we how do we get that language into popular consciousness? And so I was directing reality TV shows at the time, and I was just like, I'm gonna bring it, I'd like wife swap, I'm gonna bring it into wife swap, but I'm gonna get it. I ended up getting fired.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Gethin Aldous: so that that didn't work out. and then I just sort of was you know, and I I I I'd never seen it the the problem is with men's workers it can look kind of goofy. Especially if you sort of see it from the outside and I've never been able to find a way to show in a way that I thought would sort of cut through that the the the the judgments that people had about that. about you know, and there's there's a sort of there's a judgment about men being vulnerable and men being weak and men crying and you know, even even men who don't think they have those judgments.

Gethin Aldous: and sort of men all standing around in the circle with each other, especially sort of a group of white guys sort of crying, it's just sort of little bit dismissed. and so I was always like, Like, how do we do this? How do we get it out there in a way that really and then I didn't shoot the footage for the work. some other guys shoot it, Jaris McCleary and and his brother and and a team sort of shot it. And then it kind of they sort of got stuck and it sat in a cupboard for six or seven years. And then I found out about it.

Jason Lange: Yep.

Gethin Aldous: and I I said, look, can I help? I heard about and they if you want to help, you need to come and see what we do. And so I got invited into Folsom prison to do this four day retreat, which is effectively a a third formerly incarcerated guys, a third sort of skill no, sorry, a third incarcerated guys who are in a level four prison, which is one of the you know just shy of a supermax. a third sort of skill facilitators coming in from the outside, and the intention was sort of to teach the guys on the inside some of the techniques.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And the third, just like regular folk, which they realised was an amazing gift to the guys inside, because the regular folk would come in saying, I'm gonna I'm gonna come in and help the guys inside, not really knowing what they were walking into. I was one of the regular folk. I certainly didn't think I was going to help them inside, I had a much better sense of what was actually going on. and then when they get inside, they're like, shoot, I've gotta now they're gonna make me look at myself and what I no I you know.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Gethin Aldous: and and if guys are like unwilling to do that, because they check at the beginning, if you're here to look at the and they say if you're here to look at the monkeys in the zoo, uh-uh, they send the place to be, and we kick them out. And if you are here, then you're gonna be doing your work too. And so basically the work, the film is about those three regul three regular guys walking in to do this thing. and they have a f four days inside there. And w when we first started editing the thing.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: The film, I was like completely disinterested in those three guys. All I cared about was the dudes inside. And I'm like, Well, we're gonna make a film about them because they're way more interested in these two regular these three regular dudes, and why would we? and then you know, we did one of the screenings, and and and someone said, No, you've got follow those three guys, they're the story. I was like, we know. And then I realized, of course, they're us, they're me, they're you, they're you know, they're the three regular folk.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Who think they're fine and don't need to you know, I'm I'm good, I'm I'm I'm I'm out, I'm free, I've got a job, I got a wife, I kids, you I don't need to look at myself. and then going inside and it's like now we all got something we've got something we could take a look at. There's all there's always something behind the mask that and I think so that's what the film's about and I I really tried to make it in a way and structure it in a way that it it it it felt like it felt like for me during the weekend.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: And there's a and it and it really is a sort of archetypal journey because you know when you w when we do this sort of men's weekend, there's the there's the descent, and in Folsom, the descent is just walking in. By the time by the time you've gone through all those gates and the barbare and the concrete and the and the and the and the you know and the silence, you have to walk in single file, and then you have to th walk through the main prison yard, you know, which sometimes there are guys out in the yard, sometimes there aren't. I've been like I've done like five of those weekends now.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And then you walk into the chapel. And what was amazing about it is they were like, they did this big speech before you go in, like the the prison dude, like don't touch them, duh dah all these things. And and then the the even the guys who facilitate had their own sort of rules. It's like, you know, don't shake hands with someone until they shake hands with you. If you hug someone one day, don't assume you can hug them the next day. You know, this kind of all this. And so, you know, building up this sense of nervousness going in. And then when I walked with the the the chapel, this this guy

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: This sort of Mexican guy with the sort of pants kinda low just went, Welcome to my house, man, welcome to my house. And I was just like, wow, well this is wild. And it changed my life.

Jason Lange: Yeah. man, I can only imagine just having seen the experience of the the three men you followed. and you're definitely curious about some of the the movements you you had. And I you know, I was definitely noticing that last night. There's a really profound, you know, this thing I sometimes have to try to explain to people who've never been in circle in the ways we're talking about here of how one man's work will often start to

Jason Lange: Move and activate another man's work, and something starts to move through the circle as the weekend or week progresses. And there's just some incredible moments of kind of resonance and refraction, I would say, in that documentary you captured of a man's deepest fears kind of being embodied by someone in the prison, another man who

Jason Lange: Has so much judgment about what his wounding is in some sense, and receives. I mean, the closest thing I could name it is is like a blessing at the very end of the film from another man who really affirms that, hey, your pain matters, and I see what you just moved through. And it like just, I mean, it wrecks me because it's so pro-human. You know, something you captured there that

Jason Lange: you were able to pull out of, I imagine, quite a bit of footage that that really landed, certainly for me. And, you know, again is like what I just want to hand to people to say, hey, like just watch this. If something moves in you, okay, there's a thread for you to follow, whether, you know, you go that route exactly or many of the other routes we'll talk about. But what yeah, what yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And just just just just to finish real quick and one thing I didn't say. And so and so when that footage came to me, I realized this was a way to to talk about men's work, which was actually accessible. Because if they can do it.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yes.

Gethin Aldous: They can do it, if they can be vulnerable, if they the bloods, the Crips, the Mexican mafia, these rival gangs who are enemies like sworn enemies out on the yard, if they can come together and be vulnerable, like what's your excuse?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: that's yeah, it's brilliant. I mean, and it it deflates so much of the, I don't know, I guess, instantaneous reaction people have to vulnerability of like, no, that you know, these guys, they're they're as tough as you can get, right? And they have walked through a level of pain most men can't even fathom, and they're still willing to step in to this vulnerable place. So you can't, you know, that whole like, well, they're dude, you can't it it doesn't work. It just does not work. And this is, you know.

Jason Lange: Probably the only other example I've seen of of that in a w way that I'm just thinking of right now that was more in the fictional, but the movie Moonlight that came out, you know, I don't know, six or seven years ago. The the end of that is so beautiful where it shows, wait, the stereotype and then what's inside, and it just deflates so much of the argument. and I you know, I'm curious as much as you're you're willing to, what what kind of work came up for you as as you actually entered the circle?

Gethin Aldous: you would ask that loud. Yeah. I mean it like my

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's right.

Gethin Aldous: My sort of journey of my own kind of healing journey has been a a long

Gethin Aldous: found one. And there was some there were some deep sort of wounds I picked up as a child. you know

Gethin Aldous: that I have an amazing relationship with my mother now. but she left when I was two and I didn't meet it 'til I was ten. So I had that and then my father remarried and I and he remarried a woman who came with her own wounds. And she I think she saw my mum as a threat. And so she was just trying to convince me that my mother didn't love me and she was the only one that ever did. And

Gethin Aldous: I think it really messed up my young, vulnerable three, four, five, six, seven year old self, in a major way. And there's been lots of different pieces of work I've done over the years and and it it's funny because some of them some of them I have to revisit over and over again. That's the point where I'm just irritated. It's like I've d I've done that one. Like really? That one's still but at least I can sort of I you know, it doesn't it doesn't consume me as much as it used to and I can see that you know the ones that were really hard. I was like, Okay, I recognise what that is.

Jason Lange: Sure.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Gethin Aldous: You know, I'm learning to sort of live with it a lot better. But this particular wound around around my stepmum, I those guys took me on the first weekend in Folsom, they took me so so deeply into that. And I remember standing on the edge, not wanting to go. And it's in and the container in Folsom, like the contain people haven't done men's work, there's this most men's weekends and there's a container that's being built, and some, you know, my experience.

Gethin Aldous: are more powerful than others and some you can just like you could almost touch it in the air. So the one in False and people told going there's like you've done men's work for but you're what you're seeing here is is like nothing else. And it's just it was it was like it was electric. And I think everyone in the room could feel it. And it was just this sense of like because everyone was doing things were going places that could actually get them killed. And they were making a choice that they'd rather not live with the pain. If even if men dying

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Like make that choice that like I'm gonna risk my life to heal. and to see and to be in that kind of environment, to see that, it's just like and so I remember sort of standing on the edge of this the the the pain of this sort of wound from my stepmom and and and I I remember the guy, it was a guy he he died now, but he was a guy from the outside called the man of many coats. That was his his his his sort of dream name, spirit name you want to call it. And it's because the prison administration thought he was one of them.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: And the people in the and the prisoners thought he was one of them. And it was just like he had this way of of of and he just I can't really what he said. He whispered something in my ear and that was it. And I just went all the way down into the wound and I was raging. I had like four inmates sort of holding me down, but I was screaming and raging and just letting this this sort of pain out that I didn't even I didn't realise how much it was affecting my life. And the sort of miracle of that one, I felt like I'd carried her around.

Jason Lange: Wow.

Gethin Aldous: And this message, this sort of negative message you put on my cat around my whole life. And the miracle of this one is I put her down. It was like it was like one of these few times she's like, it's gone. And I walked out of there just like a new man with this thing, just like not in me anymore. So it was completely so my first weekend was completely transformational. So is my second one for different reasons. and just more that I witnessed something and then a whole

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Someone told just real quick, like someone told me, watch out for the synchronicity that happens after one of these weekends. And so after my second one, which I saw something which I can't talk about was so profound and so brave and so transformational. And then for like 36 hours, the most insane synchronicity, almost like I was challenging the universe, go and prove it to me. Prove that this thing is real and that it is outside of the normal, that we you know.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And the universe was like, okay, got it yet. Got it yet. And kept going a little bit deeper to the last one. I was like, I surrender. I got it.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Jason Lange: Wow. Yeah, I can just feel the transformation even in your recounting of it. And you know, I think this is the thing that I so appreciate. I think the film really captures, your story captures, and that I love about the work, that as we step into it, we realize the gift of what it means to witness another man in particular, step into that place and

Jason Lange: You know, so many men I work with, part of their struggle is the judgment they have of, my God, I don't want to burden you, Gethin, with my my grief or my pain or so I'm just gonna write, hold it here. And then you do a piece of work and they're like, my God, thank you. That was so brave. Like, thank you for thank you for doing that. And then it's the moment of you realize that same thing you're feeling, that's what they feel when you do it. And as a room starts to sink into that, it's just incredible the the mechanism.

Jason Lange: the healing that that that can happen. And, you know, what would you say in in that work? And I know you've participated in different ways, as you've seen, you know, the so-called hardest men in the system weeping, holding each other, releasing. what does that tell us about, you know, what tends to be underneath for so many men?

Gethin Aldous: mean I I think if we went around the two million men incarcerated in America and asked them about their childhood, pretty much every single one of them. I mean I think there's a f there's a few outliers for sure, 'cause I've met a few, but on the whole come from an incredibly traumatic and there's a woo there's a moment. There's a moment where your innocence is shattered. And it might be even pre verbal. It might be when you just arrived in the world, like immediately.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: and some it's just like ha you know, the stories I've heard, it's like, yeah, how did you not kill somebody? Of course you did. Of course you did, you know. And so I think, you know, that you know, and I I I you know, at the same time I think there's some people just born with you know, wirings messed up in their brain and they were just sort of destined to be that you know that. and and then sort of environment can help or it can make it worse. But I think a lot of the guys that I work with just suffered

Gethin Aldous: Unspeakable traumas when they were younger, and so that a decision was made inside themselves to never be the victim again, you know. And then before we know it, I saw this amazing piece of art the other day at the Whitney, and this woman had written five lines on her hand on her left and on her right, and the guy said, What's that? She said, the ones on the left are all the times today that I've been the victim.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: And he said, What's on the right? So that's all the times today I've been the perpetrator. And it just landed with me and it's just like, Yeah, people who were victims become perpetrators to make sure they're never victims again. And these trauma and this trauma lays on top of each other. And we never look at it. look at what you've done. Right, go inside and now we're gonna we're gonna break you. We're gonna break you. We're gonna over you know, we're gonna break you down and we're gonna you know and in in some ways maybe that works and eventually you just sort of crush the demon by just, you know. But

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Imagine if we turn prisons into a place of healing. Like the way I see the the criminal justice system is if someone is a danger to society, remove them from society to no longer a danger. And there's it's sort of like the punishment and all that kind of thing. I I'm not sure where I stand on that, but like, all right, can we protect society and what's the best way of doing that? Well, imagine if we took people out of society, gave them this kind of program, like the guys that I and some of the guys in that film who are now out in the world.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: Some of the most extraordinary men I've ever met in my life. Because they've gone there. They've gone into the the depths of their pain and their trauma. Not just a trauma on themselves, but the pain that they caused others. And now they're out in the world making amends by helping young men in the incastled system, by going back into prisons and doing circles in there and going you know, and they to you know it's just like so imagine if someone went to prison and then came out to become one of the most productive members of society because we gave them the tools to heal.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And we gave them the tool the tools of transformation. And and and and in order to heal those level of wounds, you've got to go so deep. And the deep you know, it's it's down like right down where you next to where you hurt the most is where your greatest gift is. So they go down into that well and they bring back the gold. And

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah, was that it's been a year, but I feel like you shared a story with me about one of the moments you had to fight for in the film. Was it the poem?

Gethin Aldous: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm connecting the dots because that I I heard that again when I watched it last night and it's absolutely essential for that story and you know yeah that that

Gethin Aldous: Well of Grief is the poem. Yeah. Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the Well of Grief and the idea that you you've got to go down there into that into that well and find the gold.

Jason Lange: And it because it contextualizes everything that comes after and it gives a language that even the people in the work refer back to, right? That I think really helps translate what exactly is happening to the wider audience that's not in the room. And yeah, I was watching that last night and I was like, my God, I remember we were talking and he did I was like, I think that's the moment. And yeah, so beautiful you just tied that in because you you're right. And you know, I'm curious w

Jason Lange: With the men you've gotten to know who have entered that experience from the outside, you know, obviously it's different per man, but what do you find like what drives a man to say, Hey, I'm gonna do this thing?

Gethin Aldous: I'm w I'm gonna go into Folsom and staff one of these weeks.

Jason Lange: Yeah, like w yeah, like right. It it's it's some kind of call or pain or I'm just curious if you've noticed anything about that over the years.

Gethin Aldous: about the men who've been called from the outside to go in and support them on the inside, is that the question? Yeah. I I I I Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I d you know, I I a f I have a few friend

Jason Lange: Yeah. Or like the part the those that third wave, those participants, like the guys you followed.

Gethin Aldous: Because they just hear about it. And if you're you know, if you're a little bit of an adventurer and if you're interested in men's work and you're interested in healing,

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: Yeah. It's just like, well that's where the deepest work's happening. For me, that's where the deepest work's happening. That's the place to go. So I mean I remember they i they invited me and I was just like, hell yes. Like yeah, straight away. I was like, my god, really? I can come? You know. because I'm deeply committed to my own healing. Like I I believe you know, like I believe every single person has this this purpose burning in them.

Jason Lange: In. Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: This thing that they're, you their their sort of role in the cosmic drama, their hero's journey, their cool, their whatever you want to call it, their note they're supposed to sing, you know. and our job is to do whatever we can to get out of the way of ourselves and get rid of all the sort of programming that stops that. At least mine, for me. Like my job is to get out of anything that's stopping me from being on mission and being on purpose. I have this thing that's screaming through me. It's like, come on, this is what we gotta in it. And I

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And all of these my stories and my trauma were getting in way of it. And I was like, Well, I I've tried to ignore it, and as I told you earlier, I get fired and I got my own job's dad and there's this army that just sabotages me 'cause you're like you're not on mission. No, and it was just like I didn't have a choice, man. I didn't have a choice. Like and I think I think it's the same with a lot of people, they're just like cool to the healing, cool to the transformation.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Lange: That's a beautiful, I think, way to put it. The the yeah, there's there's like that it's a literal call. and I can see it in some of those guys, they don't know where else to go, but there's an impulse that something could happen here that I know I yearn for, but I don't know how to get there. And that's certainly something as I've you know continued in this work, is I think one of the major problems I certainly see is both as a society and as individuals.

Jason Lange: Men do not know what to do with their pain. Like literally, what do I do with it? And our culture, by default, doesn't really help too much. And if anything, just says, well, drink it away, smoke it away, fuck it away, Instagram it away. And, you know, part of what's so beautifully captured, I think, in that work, and I know the work you do elsewhere is it's a place to bring your pain and to be with it and to metabolize it. And you know, I was.

Jason Lange: I went back to the conference we were at this year, and I had known about his work a little bit, but somebody referenced Father Richard Rohr, and he's just this beautiful, like one-line sentence of, you know, pain we don't transform, we transmit. And so our work, our responsibility as men is to take responsibility for my pain. What does it mean for me to step into it? I didn't ask for it, right? So, what's so beautiful and moving about the film is.

Jason Lange: You know, you hear some of the stories, those those moments where the flame went out on the innocent little boy, and you can feel, of course his life went a certain direction. and that their willingness in the midst of you know, pretty bleak situation oftentimes to take responsibility and step into it. I mean, I I still feel inspired now, right? Just talking about I'm like, my God, I want to go do some more work, get in deep.

Jason Lange: Support other men. and I think it's just again something you you captured so beautifully in that you know, I was doing some work recently with a partner of mine, and just for whatever reason, I'm now seeing it in the film of, you know, kind of three steps to loose framework restorative justice. Of but first for us men, we have to release the pain. Like we actually have to be in and start to release and move the pain.

Jason Lange: And only then, I think, does it even become possible to start to take responsibility for ourselves and what we've done? And then only then can we ever even begin to repair, to come back to the people we hurt or harmed. And that first piece, I think, is part of what what I see just a, you know, in the documentary, I haven't done the program, but what I imagine you're capturing in a lot of that work.

Jason Lange: Because men are able to release and start to take responsibility. And then, you know, the rest flows from there. Like you said, some of these guys come out and they're the paragons of what redemption can look like and what, okay, because I've walked in the fire, you know, I've walked through that pain. And to some extent, they're more capable than anyone else to then shepherd other people through that pain because it's like, hey, I went from A to B.

Jason Lange: I'm not here just sitting on my, you know, therapist chair like I did it. So come, let's let's get in there. and again, just something so beautiful that comes through so powerfully in such a potent documentary.

Gethin Aldous: Thank you. it's something you said earlier, I just wanna I just wanna jump on it, that's okay. So I actually th

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Like I think there is a fundamental physiological knee in all people and certainly in men, because women go through a different sort of physical transformation and this sort of the theories around this but I'm not entirely convinced. But anyway, certainly in men, for an initiatory experience, for that initiation, we're all gonna pick up wounds in our childhood. Coming into life is often wounding in itself, you know.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: And we're all, you know, how wonderful parents we all think we are, you know, I think we're wonderful parents, I'm sure. You know, there are there there are gonna be wounds of childhood. And this idea of an initiation has existed for thousands and thousands of years in every single indigenous culture culture across the globe, certainly every healthy culture, that there's a point where you have to s step into being a man. Like you have to give up you let go of the wounds of your childhood.

Gethin Aldous: And step into who you're supposed to be. And this this thing, like this cosmic drama thing, like I talked about, this this idea, there's this thing that you're supposed to be. And then you know, people have known about this and they've created ritual around it. Some of it was violent and scarring and this, and and it was always pull the boys away from the women in the village, and the men would take them out and they would do this thing, or nature, or whatever it was, to to to help you find that that purpose. And like I I I I remember like

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: My first men's group was was Mankind Project. It's like the sort of OG of men's work in America. and I you know, i i it took a friend seven years to convince me to get. Every time I saw he's like, Have you done it yet? Have you done it yet? My friend Adrian. I didn't name check him in something I did recently, so I'm gonna name check my a composer friend of mine, Adrian Miller, calling you out. it took my friend Adrian seven years to convince me to do my first men's weekend.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: And he was telling me and he would tell me this story about initiation. He's like, You need you know, you're a child, and the world's been run by children because they've never been initiated into healthy manhood. And I I and for years he told me that. And I remember one day I just sat up upright in my bed. And I was like it was like at three in the morning, and I was like, Whatever he's been telling me, I need it, and I need it now. And I just had a ch my first child, and there were just things like, my god, I'm a child, I'm about to raise another child, I'm a thirty-two-year-old child, and I'm about to raise

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Another child. And and it turned out there was a a Mankind Project Weekend nine days later, just up the road, to like I think you know, they build a container. I think the energy hit me. It's like it's there, let me go get it. Barataji, who's in the film, was one of the co-leaders of it. He's one of the guys, he's the guy that does a speech at the end. So it's the work y'all, he's one that says the last line. the second time I met him was in Folsom Prison. Remember my first weekend, I sat down like fifteen years later. They're like, Whoa, ten years later.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Aha.

Gethin Aldous: But I remember the feeling of walking down that pathway. My whole body, like to start the weekend, my whole body was vibrating. Like in this I'd never felt anything like it in my life. And I was like, I need something, and I need it desperately, and if this isn't it, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And it was like this. And I, you know, I'm one of the lucky ones because I found it. And I think I think there's so many men out there vibrating like that.

Jason Lange: Amazing.

Gethin Aldous: And they don't know what to do and they don't know where to put it. And they don't know where the community is that can hold them through it and through their transformation and through their grief and through their trauma and through their pain. And like, how do we normalize that? How do we well I love that in the film when a guy says, that's when I learned to cry like a man with my chin up.

Jason Lange: I was just thinking of that line. I was just like, boom. What a model. Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: How do we teach that masculinity? Yeah, yeah. Like Wemby, the the the the I think the really tall basketball player who was just against a nick, he cried after a game, and someone, you know, someone asked him about it, and almost the interview almost shamed him. And he said there's nothing wrong with vulnerability. I said, Go on. It's coming. Yeah, it's coming. Like we can change, we can change, we need to change the story around it, which is why I'm obsessed with storytelling. Like, how do we change the story?

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's it's coming. Yeah, there's a wave.

Jason Lange: Exactly. Yeah. And the, you know, I think the the beauty of the film and the work itself is, you know, certainly what I've experienced in the room. what I hear you speaking to is so many men that they don't have a a model. There's no pathway. There's no our culture doesn't say, here's what it looks like, right? What many men experience is, well, I don't want to be that because yeah, I was bullied or abused or hurt or have seen the damage, you know, the masculine can do.

Jason Lange: and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. And then they kind of go to the other side, and there's, you know, collapse. I work with a lot of guys like that, but there's no model for what does it mean to just be fully in yourself without, you know, shame about it. And the work itself, I think, models that, right? There's something, there's you know, I I like to say it's a transmission when you're standing there and you see another man fully touch his grief. But shoulders up, face up.

Jason Lange: You know, or he or he starts down, but then he finds that like unbelievable power to just come up back into connection and be seen.

Jason Lange: It immediately transmits something. fuck, that's what it is. I didn't know that that was possible. Or when a man moves his anger and it's safe, right? In a way where he's like, Yeah, I'm contained. I brought it here, so I don't bring it out there. It it it teaches something to us really fast. And the film itself, you know, certainly I would argue, does that because you capture some moments like that where it's like, wow, okay, I had my judgments, right, about what that would look like, but

Jason Lange: That guy's incredible, right? I would never shame him for his tears or whatever. And I I th I think the film is such a gift that you've created in that. And I imagine something you're you're passionate about doing in other ways as well. so speaking of which, you know, one of the unique things is I mean, you kind of got to fill me in here because I know a little bit, but not a ton, but like it didn't just stop with the film. And you created this organization, All Kings.

Jason Lange: D tell me a little bit about what inspired that and what you've been up to with it.

Gethin Aldous: Here's the funny thing about that is I I you know what I found in Folsom was there was a kind of there was a sort of a realness and a rawness, the guys that have done time and a and a and and a and a and accountability and you know something quite extraordinary that I experienced that room and I and I so I flew over like five times to do these weekends over there and then one time I was and then one of the guys on the inside was like

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: Wait a minute, you fly all the way from New York City to California to do this shit with us, why don't you just do it in New York? And it just landed. And I was like, why don't I do it in New York? Why don't I bring this to New York? And I had a friend who had done this program called a Band of Brothers in New Gates, a guy called Michael Barr, done a thing called a Band of Brothers, which was a program for formerly incarcerated young men, like 18 to 26. and this idea, which I sort of extrapolated on like, well, if you bring in sort of older guys,

Gethin Aldous: Who'd done time and and and done their healing and then the young guys would see them and maybe we can get the young guys before they do the big crime and before they do the twenty years and before they you know, maybe we can catch them on and that was kind of the the the the sort of so I'd been to see I discovered that weekend because a friend said he used story as part of the weekend. So I went to see it in my quest to sort of find, you know, how he could use story to kind of you know, to bring this stuff into public consciousness. And then and so then

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: I sort walked around with this idea and then we made the film and then and then there was this guy called Kevin Wall who was doing he was doing screenings of the work. He ran this space in New York. we saw this tech company, but they would like do they want to do sort of, you know, things in their space in the evenings. and so he was doing screenings of it, inviting me to come and speak there. And the way he sort of hold held the space afterwards, and each time we did a few of them and each time he held it in a deeper way, and I was just like, this guy's amazing.

Gethin Aldous: So he went down the pub one night and I just like, okay, I've got this idea. what do you think? Do you think we can do it here? And he was like, okay, if you can get me like a tiny amount of money, coming up with like 25 grand a year or something. You can get me that, I'll quit my job, do this, you know, fift 20 hours a week, and we'll do this thing. and yeah, one of the guys who invested in the in the work, I got him his money back and he just said, What do you want to do now? And he just sort of held the check, kind of thing. And I was like, Well, I've got this idea for a men's group.

Jason Lange: Mm.

Jason Lange: Mm.

Gethin Aldous: So he gave like 70,000 bucks. guy called Sam Hauser. And and and off we went. And then Kevin brought this guy called Ishin, who just got out of prison after 30 years. He'd done like 35 years in total, but he just got out. And we sort of got to work. And and it this was in it was like seven years ago. And now we're like, we're a proper organization. We have a full-time executive director called Raul, who's ex just an extraordinary human being. We have

Jason Lange: huh.

Gethin Aldous: Three other full time guys, we have about eight part time. I'd say around five hundred people. And what we do is we we do weekends, but it's sort of half formally incarcerated or at risk youth and half not. So you sort of bring you know, th th that that's part of the magic is like this idea that you're you're formerly carcerated, so you just heal with other formerly incarcerated people. Or that like there's this sort of trust. I've got a few guys, I'm the first white guy they ever trusted. You know. So there's you're we're bringing

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: People of different colours, different races, and we're coming together in this they just did a weekend just now. I w I wasn't there because I I had tickets to England at the World Cup. But I took my son. But but you know I can feel the energy of it. Like I'm just we just had a meeting today, we're talking about it. It's it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary and and like like the the the lives that we've we've

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: touched and changed. I I think I said 500 people have gone through this program at this point. and there's leadership development and with with sort of finally cracking the sort of facilitation training model. And we and we and it's all free. We get grants. We give it to all the guys for free. In fact you're forming classroom we'll pay you a hundred bucks to come on a weekend. So normally this stuff is completely out of reach of people without resources. You know, eight hundred bucks a weekend like no or even like or two hundred like

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: We're talking guys who are like, I don't when I'm gonna eat next, you know, living in a shelter. And I said, We'll come up here, we'll feed you, we'll do some deep emotional work, and we'll give you a hundred bucks on the way home to buy yourself some dinner and we'll worry. and it that the the the impact it has had on the men that have been a part of it and the lives that I've seen changed, and the lives that it is saved. Like I I I don't think I can count on two hands the amount of guys that have told me they were gonna kill themselves and then me.

Gethin Aldous: They discovered this and it saved their lives.

Gethin Aldous: I can think of seven without trying.

Gethin Aldous: You know, so it's yeah, and it's just it's what it's one of the sort of proudest. I mean it it it's not my full time job. My my mission is to you know it it

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: Is is to use the virtual world as a vessel for global transformation. So I'm video games and and film and TV. That is and and as much as All Kings is is what one of my proudest things, it's not my full time job. Like I've made that choice. Like I staff the weekends, I run circles, I do the you know, but I can't hold the organization. thank God better men than me can. but it's yeah, it's it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Totally.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Jason Lange: Well, I think it's yeah. I mean

Gethin Aldous: And and and we start and last year we started a female version as well. So there's no queens. Yeah.

Jason Lange: incredible. Yeah. Amazing. I didn't know that. That's that's profound. and yeah, I mean b just talking about that, it's not my full time thing, you know, I I think one of the things I I just enjoyed in our connection last year and feel like I'm getting even more from you is

Jason Lange: You know, certainly as someone who's had the privilege of being in the transformational world, because I could pay for those things and do those things and, you know, go down deep and and come back and see, my God, everybody needs to be able to go here. Right. And one of the pain points is always, well, what if someone doesn't want to go there yet? Right? What how do they even know? If they don't even know it's possible, like how do you start the process to let human beings know something else is possible? And, you know.

Jason Lange: I when I first got into this work, I I came in through this philosopher who'd write these, you know, 600 page books and my God, I gotta read this thing. And nobody reads it, right? It's like, no, it's not gonna happen. But one of the things, you know, I think I agree with with I'm imagining I'm projecting here, but you can let me know that's so amazing about something like video games or movies is you're meeting people where they're at. So if I'm like, hey man, you should just watch this, watch this film sometime. Really impacted me.

Jason Lange: People don't like think twice about it, right? They're just gonna put it on, they're gonna watch it. It's not like some da-da-da-da thing. And it, it's like a gateway in that I imagine helps get the people to your kind of weekends in some sense. And, you know, I'm curious, like what are you finding is working or what's got you lit up about that process right now, or what the challenges are in this, you know, in some sense, media saturated environment.

Gethin Aldous: It's funny as you started asking the question, I thought you were going in a different direction. So I kinda wanna just quickly answer that one first. Like the way you get a lot of guys these days is our guys will show up in re-entry programs and just talk and they just see They just see the way they're holding themselves and the way they drop into their vulnerability, and they're just like, I want that. But these dudes are yeah, these dudes are amazing, and they just yeah, so they they go out with that and and people see it in them. in terms of

Jason Lange: Sure, yeah.

Jason Lange: Mm.

Jason Lange: That's that transmission. Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: like how do we bring I mean the th the work is an interesting one because you know it's a documentary. A documentaries aren't particularly mainstream and we didn't win an Oscar and we didn't do that sort of run and the the the the the publisher that sort of bought the rights didn't really put the money behind you. You need to put behind it and we were like six months before the Me Too movement. I think if we'd sit hit a year later we would have come as the antidote to that and we would have probably gone to Sundance and done the the much, much bigger and got a lot more publicity around it.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Gethin Aldous: but it's you know it's got a long tail, as they say. Like it's I I I constantly I hear it doing it's been screened here, it's been shown here, someone's doing a conversation. Yeah, I it's you know some university course, they they you know, you teach a course around it, which is like it's crazy. but it's still so it's this amazing men's work tool out there, which I'm immensely, immensely proud of my my my role in getting that into the world. and yeah, now my challenge.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Wow.

Gethin Aldous: Alright, so that's going to the people who are looking for it. How do I get the people who aren't looking for it? And how do I open them up in a way that they didn't expect it? I used to work at Rockstar Games, we make the biggest video games in the world, and I was like, could I bring it into Grand Theft Auto? Like turns out I couldn't. But anyway, it was it was a nice thought. and And so now I've I've sort of got, you know, I've got this.

Jason Lange: Ha ha.

Gethin Aldous: We've got a pilot script for a prison drama which basically tells the origin story of how that circling falsome came about. And we thought it wanted to tell it as a multi-part C you know, multi-part prison like drama, T V drama. Because it's one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard of a guy called Pat Nolan who's dying of hepatitis C, who's in prison for life, he's gonna die in that yard.

Jason Lange: cool.

Gethin Aldous: There's a there was a prison riot over, you know, the smallest thing is like a couple of hairs on a deodorant bottle, which someone had paid across gang lines, and they'd use the be deodorant bottle, which is the ultimate sort of disrespect. I don't know if that's exactly the true story, but that's what that's our fictionalized version it. But and what did happen was it caused a riot of a thousand people, a hundred people plus were stabbed, two or three people were killed, and this guy Pat Nolan woke up in the aftermath of this riot and was like, there has to be another way. And so this one guy,

Gethin Aldous: And in this sort of timer we like to tell ourselves a story about how powerless we are. What's more powerless of dying in prison? And yet still this guy changed the world. I his I can I can plot the path from his direct lineage to saving lives in New York City as a part of all kings. That's Pat's that's Pat's lineage. Like that's how he changed the world. And I just want to tell this story of like how d how do we come together? How do we come together? But you know, to tell a story like that, I've got to get past T V executives.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: And they, you know, and I don't know if you watch much TV, but there's not a lot of risk taken out there and there's not a lot of you know, just like this word and with the same filmmakers and same thing, and so and so I'm like fully in my magician now, trying to work like how do I how can I ch ch ch ch ch ch ch And I made another little pilot for a show the other day which was which we just screwed screened at Film Festival LA. And it's a great little pilot, but again, and I can make it for next to nothing. But it's it's like how do I get it past the gatekeepers?

Jason Lange: Ha ha.

Gethin Aldous: And so and I've also made developing a video game which I wanted to make this wildly ambitious one. Raised lots of money, built a sort of demo, and needed a bunch more money to make this thing. And again, it was sort of one up and I I have to say in video games they were much more open to it. they just didn't they just didn't quite trust my I mean it's you know, I'm I'm curting the broccoli and chocolate. Like I'm not like it's a transformational video game, like games games for change, which is a whole thing, which is like play my game and you'll understand how bad rape is. It's like

Jason Lange: Interesting.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Gethin Aldous: No one's playing that game. Sorry. A few people to play it, but th that's you know, not people who knee who don't know the message. Yeah, so it's like, how do I? And you know, I I learnt a lot in the last sort of three or four years about what it takes to build trust to give me a load of money. And I don't think we had a good enough studio and a good enough team to do it. And so now I'm making like a super, super low budget game that does it. So I've got this sort of low budget game. I've also been hired by another gaming company to help sculpt their story. So now I'm just like

Jason Lange: Mm mm.

Gethin Aldous: Well in what ways can I just drop stories into the popular consciousness, which, you know, for the player are just a deep they want a deep story. These are all universal truths. And how can I how can I, you know, give people these universal truths which just start to, you know, make the ground just a little bit more fertile. That when you hear about a men's weekend up the road, you're like, you know what? I'm sort of open to that. Or when you hear someone talking about trauma, it's like, I learned little bit about that in the last game. I've touched something in the last game I played.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Mm-hmm.

Gethin Aldous: So that's that's my mission. That's what I'm working on at the moment. And it's it's it's been really hard. It's been really hard. I've I had a lot of no's, a lot of rejections, and a lot of and the beauty is there's this thing inside me that's just like, nope, nope, keep going. Keep going. You'll find a way, you'll find a way, you'll find a way. And I think it's I think you know if you talked to me a month ago, I'd be like, but I actually feel like I'm starting to find a way.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Jason Lange: You're fine in a way. Yeah. Well it's a testament, man, to your devotion. Is is what I really hear. Devotion to to to healing and making, you know, the experience you got to experience, the experience you captured in the story so beautifully of the work and the experience you're giving people in all kings and all queens, you know, is available to as many people as possible. So consider me an acolyte, any way I can support and get the word out or it like legit, man. Like this is

Jason Lange: To me, this is how things move. And you know, I've been kind of crafting this narrative in my own head this this rec recent years of like I'm all in on men's groups, right? Getting guys into men's groups. Every man should be in a men's group. And as I kind of sat with why, I I think you you named it in a lot of ways, right? I'm gonna be 46 this year. I tend to work with a lot of men, you know, 35 up to 70 or so, oftentimes. And in the healing world, you know, for those of us privileged.

Jason Lange: We spend tens of thousands of dollars on retreats and therapies and sound healings and work to often try to unwind wounds that are created in those first 10 years. Right. And so what would it mean for a generation to come in without those? Right? Without those, and to just, okay, like I'm good. And

Jason Lange: You then I was like, well, what's the pathway to that? Well, healthy men create healthy relationships, whether they father children or part of communities, they help bring in safe spaces for kids to flourish. And you know, it's it's just you named it so well in in in one of the shadow groups I work on. We call it the the boyful flame. It's this like such a precious, tender thing in boys, I think in particular. Just like unbridled.

Jason Lange: Love, joy, enthusiasm, curiosity. And you know, the men I work with haven't been through some of the depths some of the men you work with, but most men can often name the moment. Their flame was snuffed. Just like yeah, I was I was asking Dad a question, he said, just shut up. Stop asking so many questions. And their life just goes from there. And to to be able to rig

Gethin Aldous: And I and I think I just want to say I think it's really important not to compare. That's something we talk about a lot in old things. Your pain is your pain and it's just as valid as someone who you're gonna project has had way more pain than me, so I don't need no no no. Your pain is as valid as anybody else.

Jason Lange: Yes, ranking pain.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Jason Lange: Your f the the film captures that so beautifully and it is red. I think it is one of that is one of the big tensions in our culture right now is everybody loses when we try to rank pain. And even in men's work, sometimes there's like, well, do men really need circles to themselves? Yes. Men's work is human work, right? Just like women's work, just like trans work. Like we all need these spaces because when we rank pain, everyone loses. And you you've

Jason Lange: Transmitted that, I think, in a beautiful way in the stories you captured in that and in that in the movie in particular, and just the way you just s so said that so clearly. And I think it's one of the important parts of initiation, like you talked about, when our pain is honored, whatever it is, right? When someone looks us in the eye, looks in, you know, man to man looks you in the eye and says, Your pain matters. That that can change a man's life. Just someone saying, Your pain matters.

Jason Lange: Matters. I see it. I see you. And man, thank you so much for donating your time here and spending some time with me. It was so so delightful to get a little bit more of your story and really want to stay connected and support everything you're up to and maybe come do a weekend sometime. Would love that. and what's the best way for for for listeners to support you or follow you or keep up with the things you want them to keep up with?

Gethin Aldous: my company name, which where we're developing the TV shows and games is Mythoworks. MythoWorks.com. check out what we're doing there. I do have an Instagram page, which I haven't been doing a very good job of creating any content for, but I'm gonna start working out a bit more. All Kings, all Kings.org. if you're in the New York area and you want to support, please, please reach out, come and do one of our weekends. As I say, it's free. We get we get great, we have some great.

Gethin Aldous: supporters who give us grants to kind of pay for this stuff. and yeah, go do a men's weekend, find you Go do your initiation and you know, and model it for the men in your community.

Jason Lange: Ha ha ha.

Jason Lange: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much once again, Gethin. Look forward to staying in touch. And for everyone listening, till next time.

Gethin Aldous: Thank you.