by David Gladfelter
David Radio is a live ‘pirate’ ‘radio’ ‘broadcast’. This is a script from 10/3/2026’s show. Link to recording of the show below. For L & H and R & H.
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Suffer Horse : Infinite Freedom
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Goodbye. I died young. – Radium Girls Ultra – unknown
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This show is dedicated to Judy. Rest in peace.
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- Horseboys
A horse is a car. Its all metaphorical. This horse stuff. There is rarely an actual horse. But with me, there is – several horses or ponys. I am a horseboy for real, unfortunately. Ive only ridden a horse once and Ive ridden an elephant once, both as a child, and the elephant is a more impressive memory – but of course, an elephant is just a horse from another culture I do not understand. Now, I dont like horses or really any animal but I have many memories of feeling very bad and looking out at tiny miniature horses staring back at me and so for this reason I am not a ponyboy, and others, but I am a horseboy.
Now, what does that mean. You know what it means.
It takes a pinch of the ‘tism to ride the horse. But only a pinch. It just takes a pinch. Its supposedly a spectrum, much like a rainbow. And rainbows, ive been made to understand, are also gay. And that is also supposedly a spectrum, being gay – that is ponyboy, not horseboy territory and I wont speak on those pastures. But so, all of this, this is all autistic, and gay and of course cringe. Cringe is also a spectrum and you must also be cringe to ride the horse. What this means is we are, all of us, supposedly, cringe gay autistic horseboys. How is this possible? How can this possibly be, you may ask yourself if youve not felt seen. I myself have roiled with these questions. Im a faggot but Im not a faggot. Im not cringe unless its ironic, right? Im gay but Im not gay. And no no no no no, I am NOT autistic, not in the least. But I know, not supposedly, not in abstract, I KNOW that I am a horseboy. A gay cringe horseboy (not autistic). And my answer to this – I choose where and when I ride the horse. More often than not, say 90% of the time, you should ride the horse to ride it, and you ride the horse in private. Until you are ready. Now you may feel the horse leads you, that you cannot choose such things, but of course this is not true. The horse is only yours.
Now, my horse – well, I have many horses because as you get older, you gather many more horses, but one of my horses is history. And war. See, we, the boys, we understand the horse, like we understand all things, as a weapon of war. Wherever there were wild horses, they popped the fuck off. Genghis Khan, he did terrible things with his bands of horses. The Japanese, Nipon, when they got their horses they just killed each other on their tiny little islands, and speaking of islands, the Limeys. Even the weak and lowly Limey used horses to great effect, conquered most of the world with horses. And boats, a lot of boats, boats carrying horses. And a boat is, of course, a horse. The Commache were a tiny brutal little people who nobody liked and were driven up into the mountains until horses came and they learned to ride horses better than anyone and then they fucking made everyone pay – to great consequence. Even through World War Two horses were used to travel places vehicles could not go. During the Afgan War, all of them, all the desert wars, horses were still being ridden to navigate all the way up and through the Khyber Pass. Horses.
A horse, besides being a real horse, is the beauty – for a horseboy – of being a soldier. The incredible beauty of soldiering. Boy, I got fired up when they extended the service age. There is still time to die out there. To kill out there. To fucking RIDE BROTHER, semper fi, bushido, to just be the demon Ive been trained or at least conditioned to be. Northman shit. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. shit. BOYS ON THE FLOOR. Carving a path and dying in the mutha fucking mud, bleedin out in the fields or the streets. If you could somehow construct a location of every bad ass place to die, and bad ass way – a field and a gutter and a volcano and on a dirt bike, in submarine inside of a cave and you are being exploded and shot thousands of times all over your body ripping all your organs and brains and skull and like kneecaps and eye sockets bursting into tiny pieces, into tiny fucking little bits, all over everything and, most importantly, over everyone, while somehow being slowly stabbed into the heart or maybe even the neck – thats the dream. Imagine cutting off a guy head with a longsword, one swipe and you see the head roll around. Spraying brains across….everywhere. Its a rush to even think about, brothers. Destiny in your hands and also not – cast to an unseen ultimate. But this is dream and it is fine for a horseboy to dream of such things. It is fine for horseboys to dream of becoming horsemen because within a dream and as a boy on the horse, it is all abstraction and far off and – this is most important with horseboys and of course horsegirls – a subject sole to longing. Longing and becoming. All things in moderation, they say.
If I can tell you one secret about a horse, some inside baseball about all horses, except I guess really fucked up horses, its this : Horses are fast as fuck. A horse is so fast bro. We race horses because they are so fast. And…. we race cars. Remember, a horse is a car.
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Dont need a big flash fancy car. Just need a 6Ltr GTR. – The Chats – 6Ltr GTR
White shining silver steps with the nose in flames. – Broken Social Scene – horses
Well, I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war. I wanna good steed under me like my forefathers before. – Corb Lund – I wanna be in the cavalry
You’re a pony no more. – Father Ted – my lovely horse
A heavy horse and a tumbling sky. Brewing heavy weather. – Jethro Tull – heavy horses
Fuck your Honda Civic, Ive a horse outside. – The Rubberbandits – horse outside
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- Horsegirls
Being a rapper is a horse.
Astrology is, and I know contains, at least one horse. It could contain many horses. Who knows. Its a bunch of stars. The Chinese have entire years of horses, years entire devoted to horses, and studying the meaning of the years and the other years of animals is a horse. Legos is a horse. Lotions and soaps are a horse. Yankee candles and other scent based objects – sage, incenses, sprays and oils – these are a horse. Being an egirl and egirls themselves, strangely or maybe not, are also horses. Stardew Valley is a horse. Terraria is a horse. Final fantasys Lightning was, for a time there, a very popular horse. Trains are a horse. Being into, performatively or not, canned fish and exotic cheeses is a horse. Communism and being catholic and being art-right are all horses. Hazbin Hotel is a horrifying but alluring horse. Being trans and gay and doing crime, imagined or parasocial and mercenary or sincere, is a horse. A scene, online or not, for fans or for just the creators themselves in endless jack off rituals with elaborate handshakes of decorum and clout and, but, ultimately tolerance, whether participant or just observer, is a horse. Rudeness and unpleasantness, it seems, is a horse. Disney is a horse. Disney is an entire foreign enemy nation of banded horses. The marvel cinematic universe, Ive been told but do not know for sure, is horses within horses beside horses within horses. Anime is, of course, a big big big horse. Everything that I hate and am disgusted by and think is mercilessly cringe to the point of cosmic cruelty and perhaps hostility from god himself is a horse. That is not my horse but I must of course, or should as much as I can, I must put hatred and disgust aside enough to nod at another rider and admire their horse. And sometimes I look out there at all these other horses and cant help but see a wave of only enemies charging. But that is not fair, just gut reaction, perhaps a base call and evil. It is forgetting the central conceit – there is nothing wrong with a horseboy or horsegirl or their horses as they trot them. They must be allowed to trot. They must be allowed safe passage because a horse is, of course, transport. A gentle and mindful and careful courier of an unusual and unique and precious parcel.
Imagining one day being married is a horse. Falling in love is a horse. Having many babies and dreaming of many babies is a horse. To dream of having and then needing nice things or, just the opposite, of having nice things and not needing to use them. To dream of home somewhere built in the future. To dream of family and loved ones and friends. To dream of a future, however impossible, intricate entire cities within cities of beautiful dreams of impossible futures – delicate as china, fine as trinkets carved of ivory, smooth as the faces of many many porcelain dolls dressed in complicated pretty garments, outfits flowing freely. Perhaps you think these too fragile of things for a horse and it is true these horses are often broken but a horse is strong. Thats the whole thing. Strength is a horse. And strength is freedom. And a horse, though it can be taken to danger and the rider be at hazard, more often a horse is freedom or at the least the capacity for freedom. The pessimistic among you will at least agree a horse is also the possibility to flea, cowardly or not, deserved or not, whether acted on or not, whether needed or not.
Another horse : obtaining swag and then so being swag – or maybe just finally having the tools of swag to show the whole world the swag that has been building inside, express the swag that has always been there, that is ready to burst forth, your swag billowing like bridal trains and horses manes, the swag that drips like honey could only drip from infinite gardens kept and tended and trimmed and pruned and cared for and loved after within and so so beautiful, a prism finally hit with light to throw out absolute rainbows, ready to be revealed, this swag blowing from you in bars upon bars. Bars of absolute fire. A wildfire.
Remember, being a rapper is a horse.
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Evil come not near. Rainbow love awaits us. With hearts of love and tears. – Cocorosie –rainbowarriors
Bending through the city with the gold on my teeth. Swagged out though, car low at my feet. – Lil Debbie –two cups
I count how many freckles I have. Holding my dirty stuffed animals to my chest. – Judy and Mary – sobakasu
Do you remember when we met. – Cat Power – sea of love
I turned 19 on the sixth of April. I am all alone when the party is over. – Solya – 19
Run until I fall. How I wish the trees would swallow me. Make me a forest. – The Last Dinner Party – the feminine urge
The pony she called wildfire busted down his stall. – Michael Martin Murphey – wildfire
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- Horsewomen
When a horse dies, though sad, there is always another horse. There is a cost always though, with a dead horse, because now the options for another include countless things that appear as horse and act as horses – and so are of course horses – but are horses best left unbred and unrode.
As a horsegirl rides she will of course encounter horsewomen.
We need not address the maurading girlbosses who are in all their capacity wretched and always cutting their ways making every pasture battlefield astride their horrid steads deformed now more into unrecognizable creature, for they are the most common and to their cores, every single one, horsewomen. Traitors of gender perhaps, if gender is a thing you ascribe to, nevertheless its crushing hand.
A horsewoman, though it may seem not able to be, often horsewomen ride no horse. She, of course, has a horse, as we all have a horse, but she no longer rides the horse. She keeps the horse.
when you did not ride a horse, when you just keep the horse, when you keep the horse and many many other horses locked into the stable, the horses may – not always but almost always – the horses may develop stable vices.
Wikipedia, itself a vast livery, says
Stable vices are bad habits of horses and other equines. They often develop as a result of being confined in a stable with boredom, hunger, isolation, excess energy, or insufficient exercise. Vices are a management issue, not only leading to facility damage from chewing, kicking, and repetitive motion, but can also lead to health consequences for the animal.
Common stable vices classified as stereotypies include:
Wood chewing or Gnawing on wood out of hunger or boredom. This is not to be confused with the more serious vice, cribbing.
Cribbing, also called windsucking, is when a horse grabs a board or other surface with its teeth, arches its neck, and sucks in air. This can wear down the teeth and can lead to colic – a syndrome, a colic is, not a diagnosis – it is an abdominal pain, a pain inside. Cribbing can be caused either by nervousness or boredom. It was previously thought to release endorphins in the horse, but recent research suggests this is a fallacy. Additional research suggests that cribbing increases salivation and may reduce stomach discomfort. There is a direct correlation between diet and cribbing; increasing hay in the ration or feeding more frequent meals appears to help.
Weaving is rocking back and forth in a repetitive fashion that is correlated to isolation or stall confinement, usually alleviated by pasture turnout. Possibly a self-stimulating behavior. Problems with weaving can include weight loss and uneven hoof wear, unnatural stress on the legs and lameness.
Stall-walking or fence-walking is, like weaving, a repetitive movement, only the individual paces compulsively. It is usually correlated with isolation or anxiety while awaiting feed. This habit can also lead to weight loss and lameness.
Pawing or digging. The horse may paw with its front feet. This can lead to abnormal hoof wear and lameness, and may also damage the flooring of the stall. A horse that paws can dig a noticeable hole in a dirt-floored barn in a very short time.
Wall kicking. Kicking the walls of its stall with hind legs. This raises the potential of injury to the horse and damage to the barn. Usually this is caused by a lack of exercise and boredom. Wall-kicking is one habit that is often acquired by others in the barn once an individual starts doing it.
Vices not classed as stereotypies include:
Biting. A nervous or anxious horse may reach out of its stall to bite at passersby, humans or animals. Box stall designs that keep the horse from reaching its head out prevent harm to other animals, but some horses may attempt to bite a handler when the person enters the stall.
Bolting food. Eating food too fast without adequate chewing.
Masturbation: A male horse, either a stallion or a gelding, will use his abdominal muscles to rhythmically bounce his penis against his belly.
Horses may engage in a number of undesirable behaviors when being ridden or driven. These are not “stable” vices, but are often classified as “vices” in terms of being behavior that poses a danger to the animal or its handler. These include:
Head-shaking: Where a horse shakes its head repeatedly for no obvious reason, a condition with many possible causes, but usually insect annoyance now made nervous tick, the horse biting at nothing.
Bucking may be misbehavior or a result of discomfort.
Rearing is a normal behavior at play, but dangerous around humans, when it is often triggered by fear or pain.
Bolting or running away. When a horse runs away, panicked, out of control, and usually very fast. The cause is usually a sudden fright. This can be very dangerous if a rider or carriage is involved.
Other equine behaviors that may arise from boredom or frustration, but still present management challenges include destruction of buckets, mangers, and feed tubs; defecation in the manger or water bucket; dumping water buckets; sloshing feed in water and then scattering it on the ground, and so on. There is little that can be done to stop these and they present few health or safety concerns, other than hygienic considerations.
Modern Husbandry and Its Effects :
Horses are extremely social creatures, and the process of domestication has not altered their need for social interactions. Also, in the wild, horses are constantly grazing; they are called trickle feeders because they continuously eat small amounts of forage throughout the day, except the approximately 2 hours that they spend sleeping. Modern equine husbandry sometimes creates conflicts with the horse’s natural behaviors; some owners keep their horses confined to a stall with minimal turnout time, little to no social interactions, and sometimes inadequate amounts of roughage. This can be problematic as this system of equine husbandry completely ignores certain basic needs, such as social interactions, foraging, and locomotion. Studies have shown that horses that are offered low quantities of forage and minimal social contact have a higher reported level of stereotypic behaviors such as cribbing, wind sucking, weaving, and other stereotypic behaviors. Social interactions are important to horses; mutual grooming has been shown to reduce heart rate and cortisol levels, therefore reducing stress. Play behavior between two horses aids in the development of the musculo-skeletal system and cardiovascular fitness; play allows practice of reproductive and survival skills. Living in a group also has an adaptive significance, as younger animals living within the herd will learn from the other members of the group.
Solutions :
In most cases, reducing confinement and providing the animal a more natural setting reduces the incidence of stable vices. There are stopgap “cures” that can be provided in the stall to keep a horse busy or out of trouble, including increased exercise, feeding of larger quantities of lower-quality food (so the animal spends more time eating and less time being bored), feeding more frequently, or cutting back on grain or other high-energy concentrates. Toys such as a ball or empty one-gallon plastic milk jug can be hung in the stall. Sometimes simply giving the animal a companion in the next stall, or even a smaller animal placed in the same stall, also helps a bored or nervous horse.
In extreme cases, a short term fix may include various forms of restraint. However, none of these practices solve the underlying problem, some may raise animal welfare concerns, and the animal will resume its behavior as soon as the restraint is removed. The long-term solution that has the most success is to give the horse less time in the stall and more free turnout time.
Stereotypical behaviors in animals are generally thought to be caused by artificial environments that do not allow animals to satisfy their normal behavioral needs. Rather than refer to these behaviors as abnormal, it has been suggested that they be described as ‘behavior indicative of an abnormal environment’. It was once thought that stable vices may be learned by observing other horses already performing the behaviors, but studies on the topic have failed to establish this as a cause. Although a more enriched environment may help minimize or eliminate some stereotypical behavior, once established, it is impossible to eliminate them due to alterations within the brain itself.
Now, you, you little small listener, you little loyalist, you may feel seen, you may ask yourself if I have been tricking you yet again, if YOU are the horse. Rick and Morty, if I understand it correctly, would conclude yes. I, again, am unsure but also very sure the Marvel Cinematic Universe would also conclude yes. Are u the horse? Are you the suffer horse? Well, the horse is yours and whatever is yours is you. You choose no matter where you parade your horse. It canot not be so. And though there are endless reasons why horsewomen no longer ride their horses, it does not mean that, for at least a short while, that a dream of horses cannot also be a horse.
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No one likes to take a test. – Feist – I feel it all
And I want it. I want my life so bad. – Sia – elastic heart
We were swallowing panic in the face of its force. – Joanna Newsom – peach plum pear
She listens in on other peoples joys. And looks longingly at all the passing young boys. – Dory Previns – her mothers daughter
We can kiss and do whatever you want but you will be disappointed. – Belle & Sebastian – Judy and the dream of horses
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- Horses
At this point in the show, if youve taken the path all this way, and you still dont know what a horse is, I will set aside my dismay – for I do value, even with all the obfuscation and performance, I deeply value clarity – and so I will offer this : a horse is what carries a horsegirl to womanhood.
Across great distances and time and class, horses have found their ways into the slight hands and sharp minds of horsegirls. Pockets of history and circumstance aligning to give a girl, sometimes, an actual horse.
What is a real horse. Why is it the symbol. What is a horse. A horse is a wild thing outside of you that you tame to allow it to carry you. A horse trusts you if you care for it. It is like a lover in how it cares for you and watches over you and also like a child as it needs you to care for it and you to watch over it, but it is neither of these things, though containing both. The horse is the promise of those two things and all other things you could ride to.
The body is, for better or worse, a horse. And the body will take the horsegirl, no matter, into womanhood.
There are endless reasons why horsewomen no longer ride their horses.
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I hold my own but you with your hunger, you and the other hand make yourself known. – Joanna Newsom – you and me, Bess
You will never see what is hiding out deep down. – Sia – unstoppable
If you ride over there theyll put bows in your hair, they will stand back and stare at you with Spain in their eyes– Sunset Rubdown – the men are called horsemen there
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- Horsemen
When a horsegirl goes looking for horseboys, what they will often find instead are horsemen. Horsemen know intricately and have all the tools and tack and trinkets to care for a horse, for all horses. They seem to know so deeply about your horse. Not only your horse but all horses. You are wowed by this knowledge of your horse. Horsemen know all the different kinds of horses and know all the best ways to care for all the different kinds of horses because horsemen kill horses and their riders to continue being horsemen. Raiders of all castes. Raiders across all creeds – perhaps even a hidden and evil and unified creed. A horrible snarling and consuming creed. The process of Capture, then to tame or to break or to do both on a whim. To horsemen, harm is at once the purpose and also without note. The purpose without the meaning. Without ritual even. Destiny without fate.
There are endless reasons why horsewomen do not ride their horses.
This show was dedicated to Judy. Who is Judy. My cat is named Judy, she is not dead, the ‘rest in peace’ was not for her. When I named her I mistook her for a boy and I named her Rick Grimes but now she is Judy. When we were listening back to the audio for this show, for levels and whatever else, there was a specific point in this last block in which Judy went crazy and yelping. There wasnt a clear reason for it. It was strange. She had yelped that way only when she think her baby Hen is hurt or missing or when her child Abe died. And it was weird, it felt like an … exorcism or a seance or something and I do not believe in these things.
So, who is Judy.
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This is the beginning of forever and ever. – Portishead – glory box
Blacks and bays, dapples and grays. – Calexico – all the pretty horses
What did I say. – Scratch Acid – she said
Courtship. – HEALTH – courtship
Go on home. Go home to your kids. Im not gonna be quiet and Im gonna tell the whole block. – Xiu Xiu – sad pony guerilla girl
Zoothorns. – HEALTH – zoothorns
… – Fear and Hunger – eastern wind
But I kept running for a soft place to fall. And I kept running for a soft place to fall. – Aurora – runaway
Wild white horses. They will take me away. And the tenderness I feel will send the dark underneath. – Portishead – the rip
We will meet again. I dont know where. I dont know when. But I know we will meet again. – Vera Lynn – we will meet again
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- Judy
In the US, every year 3,500 women are murdered. Each year 2000 children are murdered. And, roughly 200, in the US, 200 women and children disappear a year, to later appear or not, as dead bodies.
Who is Judy? There are many Judys, it turns out. Many many many Judys. Here are a few :
Judith Eva Barsi, age 10
Judith Hand, age 15
Judith ‘Cricket’ Zagara, age 12
Judith Cadorette, age 19
Judy Geraldine Parks, age 14
Judy Cajuste, age 14
Judith Mae Anderson, age 15
Judy Lynn Ferro, Age 16
Judy Gifford, age 14
Judith Eileen File, age 19
Judith Roberts, age 14
Judith Belfry, age 17
Judith Brown, age 19
Judy Chartier, age 17
Judith ‘Judy’ Olenchuk, age 13
Judith Ramona Veloz, age 19
Judith O’donnell, age 19
Judith Gary, age 19
Judy Davis, age 16
These are nineteen Judys for nineteen songs in this show that are clearly for them. I wonder often if things leave this world. If one can escape this world, if we go elsewhere from this horrible world. Do not become horsewomen or horsemen. Become a person. You say but where do I ride my horse then. There is a pasture for your child things. A person can be a horseboy and a horsegirl but horsemen and horsewomen can barely be a person.
Sometimes when my temper flares and my patience lets way, I think I hear the distinct rattle of the tack of horsemen. But thats just the ‘burden’ of being horseboys, that you could become horsemen. Though it is a simple burden, a light load, to not become horsemen. We have it much easier, I think. If there is one thing we can agree on is that its hard for a horsegirl.
In general, its hard to be a girl.
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Hard to be a girl. Thats what the oracle told me. – Adam Green – hard to be a girl
Bet my money on a stupid horse. I lost that. – 100 gecs – stupid horse
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David Gladfelter was born in Gettysburg, PA and now lives with his husband in Detroit. His writing has been published by Bruiser, Apocalypse Confidential, Spectra, Eulogy, The Pixelated Shroud, Michigan City Review, Ex-Pat and Back Patio Press. He and his husband host a weekly radio show called David Radio. He is working on a long thing. He is 35 years old. He has a high school diploma. His work can be found here : linktr.ee/daviddaviddaviddaviddavid