Welcome back to horizontal, the podcast that makes private conversations public, or, in the words of listener ghostheart, “takes you into my bed and lets your ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations.”

In this episode, I lie down with my closest friend from high school, Joe McCue. I have a couple of guys who went to other high schools that I considered my “older brothers,” whom I'm still in contact with, but you might say that people from that time in my life are few and far between. Which makes my friendship with Joe all the more precious to me. Joe and I went to an arts magnet school at Gibbs, called Pinellas County Center for the Arts, or PCCA for short. His major was Visual Art; mine was Performance Theatre. He was one year ahead of me in school.

Joe is now an osteopath. He spent eight years in undergrad, because he just adored the act of study, and kept starting majors and nearly finishing them, only to become swept away by another major and course of study (or at least, that’s how it seemed to me). Eventually, he decided to become a doctor, and went to school for, I don’t know, 9 more years or so. He’s now finishing out his fellowship in Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine in Bangor, Maine.

This episode was recorded in Joe's sweet old house in Bangor, where he lives with two cats, a wife, a child, and the occasional miscellaneous borrowed pet.

Joe's house was the second stop on my 10,000 mile cross-country road trip, and this episode marks the first release from the series of recordings I made on my “horizontal does america” tour. In October and November of 2017, I, a couple of suitcases, and my recording equipment circumnavigated the United States in a Honda Civic - in order to lie down with people in their homes, in their cities.

Joe and I got horizontal in his guest room — his wife next door making phone calls from their bedroom, baby asleep, cats locked out, dog-sitting dog downstairs, cars going by on the sleepy country street. The next morning we went to Treworgy farm and did a photo shoot among the pumpkins. (For visual aids, such as photos of my Vargas girl-style pinup among the pumpkins, head to horizontalwithlila.com and sign up for the mailing list. You'll get behind the scenes images, special stories, and discounts on live shows delivered directly to your inbox!)

If you enjoy lying down with Joe and I, become a patron of the horizontal arts! Patreon is an innovation in the life of the artist. It’s a website that crowdsources income on a monthly basis. It can make it possible for me to continue creating independent, uncensored, ad-free, homemade radio. There are lovely perks when you become my patron. For instance, for $25 a month you’ll recorded love poems (the upcoming poem will be “She Walks in Beauty”). You’ll also get two tickets to a live recording of horizontal, quarterly lullabies, an invitation to my secret FB group, and a post of what I call GPG: Genuine Public Gratitude (or not! If you want to remain a private patron, I will honor you privately!) There’s loads of other perks on patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

Because I cannot bear to see them go to waste, here are some other titles I considered for this episode:

the paper anniversary

the nose couple

And

the vanilla episode

So you know what you should do, right? You should come lie down with us.

***

Credit where credit is due:

Here’s the moment where I give credit where credit is due: This episode was edited by Chad Michael Snavely! Peruse Chad’s other podcasts on chadmichael.com. My sinuous cover art is by the illustrator Shana Shay, whom you can hire through 99designs - she’s a pleasure to work with. Horizontal’s theme music is by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.

Welcome in to horizontal with lila, the podcast that makes private conversations public. We discuss the details of intimacy while the opposite of vertical, wearing robes.

In this episode, I lie down with my dear friend of 11 years, Matthew Stillman. Matthew Stillman is a genius. Matt’s friendship, ingenuity, sheer breadth of knowledge and depth of compassion, keen interest, curiosity, and the ability to forge connections between seemingly unrelated subjects illuminates exactly what you were trying to unearth in essence but perhaps didn't have the cultural or historical vocabulary for ... He's changed my life. He's made my world bigger many, many times over. I owe my life at the Villa (and thus, this podcast) to his curiosity and insatiable desire to share.

In 2012, Matt loaned me a series of books to read (sometimes I think of it as my independent study / book club of one in human sexuality) and made himself available for all sorts of conversations surrounding those books. Each one vastly expanded my perceptions of what is true and possible. First came Arousal: the secret logic of sexual fantasies. Then Sex at Dawn. Then Esther Perel’s mating in captivity.

For years, Matthew enacted a beautiful social experiment slash performance art piece. He sat in Union Square with a table and two folding jars, and a jar with a sign on it that read, “CREATIVE SOLUTIONS TO WHAT YOU’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT: PAY WHAT YOU LIKE OR TAKE WHAT YOU NEED.” He used his astonishing breadth of knowledge and ludicrous reserves of memory to offer people an expansion around their problems. My book club of one was not the most out-of-the-box creative approach Matthew has ever offered me in my life (that probably had something to do with “sacred rage”), but I didn't know about those books before then, who knows if and when I would have found my way to them if it wasn't for Matthew. They form the beginnings of how I started to live into my purpose.

As a person who knows a little bit about a few things, I had never personally known anyone who knows so much about so many things. Perhaps you are seeking a creative approach to something you’ve been thinking about. If so, get yourself over to stillmansays.com - The reason you should have a creative approach session with Matt, more than anything, more than the knowledge, more than the widsom, is his cavernous capacity for empathy. It is from a landscape of empathy that he will draw on all the reading and all the study and all the discourse that lives within him. Without his empathy, this wouldn't strike the chord that translates through you into action. But with his empathy, the springing forward, the impetus, the desire to shift, is the real gift of this work.

If you enjoy lying down with Matthew and I, become a patron of the horizontal arts! Patreon is a great advancement in the life of the artist, a website that crowdsources income. It can make it possible for me to continue creating independent, uncensored, ad-free, homemade radio. For $25 a month you’ll get a monthly recorded love poem, two tickets to a live recording, quarterly lullabies, an invitation to a secret FB group that I curate, and a post of what I call GPG: Genuine Public Gratitude (or not! If you want to remain a private patron, that’s ok too!) There’s loads of other perks on patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

And if you want to lie down with us in person, the next horizontal storytelling pajama party will be held in Brooklyn on Sunday, April 29th. Details when you sign up for my lovely mailing list at horizontalwithlila.com

In the first half of this episode with Matthew, we speak of villagemindedness, our elders, orphan wisdom school, Matt’s first great love, his wife, and proceeding as if you are needed.

Come, dear one. Come lie down with us.

***

This episode was edited by Chad Michael Snavely! Listen to the rest of the podcasts in his catalogue through chadmichael.com. My sumptuous cover art is by the illustrator Shana Shay, whom you can hire through 99designs. The theme music is by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.

In order to hire Matthew’s brain to help you creatively approach your challenges, find him through stillmansays.com