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When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2022 I thought about creating a whole bunch of memes. I ended up creating just two so far. One was this meme of Vladimir Putin that I made last year when the Wagner Group started this civil war in Russia that ultimately lasted just a few hours. The other I created just last month.
It turned out that so many other people have created incredibly awesome memes that I just don’t feel the need to create them myself. But then it turned out that there was an incident that led me to create this meme.
Here’s some background. I first heard about Russell “Texas” Bentley when he appeared in this video that went viral just days after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Here was this guy in the Russian-occupied region of Ukraine who was making pro-Russian propaganda speaking English with a Texas accent. He originally recorded his video for his own YouTube channel. Once it went viral YouTube closed down his channel and banned him. However his viral video has been preserved on Reddit and Twitter/X.
I looked this guy up online and found that a few years earlier he did this interview for Texas Monthly where I learned that he was born into a wealthy family. He became interested in communism at 12 when he read a book on Che Guevara, he was a pothead as a teen, he dropped out of high school, worked a variety of jobs, joined the U.S. army for a few years, worked a variety of jobs, moved to Minnesota, ran for the Senate as a third party candidate and lost, sold marijuana, was arrested, was convicted, was sent to jail, broke out of jail, spent the next few years as a fugitive on the lam, was caught and sent back to prison, was released, moved back to Texas, became an arborist, traveled to Cuba where he was impressed by the communism there, and listened to Russian propaganda through RT America (back when it used to broadcast in America–RT America got shut down when several cable providers dropped the channel from their lineups soon after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine). He became convinced that Ukraine was run by Nazis so he decided to travel to the Donbass region to fight for Russia in order to help “denazify” Ukraine. He appeared in this Vice News story about his fight with a Russian unit in Donetsk.
He subsequently settled in Donetsk, and married a local Donetsk woman. He also switched from fighting in a military unit to making English-language propaganda on behalf of Russia, which led to his viral video. That video led to more profiles in Western publications like Newsweek and Rolling Stone. After his video went viral he lost his YouTube channel and a few other Western social media accounts and he seemed to fade from the Western media.
But he kept up with his propaganda work. There’s his Instagram account where he had posted pictures of his life in Donetsk but he hadn’t posted there since 2019. There’s his blog, which he hadn’t updated since 2020, where you get to read about things like his belief that the COVID-19 pandemic was a manufactured crisis. There’s also his Telegram channel, which contains his more recent writings until the day before he disappeared and was announced to be dead eleven days later.
The biggest irony is that he was thrown off of Twitter nine years ago, which was long before Elon Musk purchased that platform and began to reinstate previously banned accounts. For some reason Bentley’s account wasn’t reinstated but he was allowed to create a new account just a few weeks before he was killed.
There’s even a book that Bentley wrote called The Donbass Cowboy, which was based on his own experiences fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
He went on to work for the Russian state media outlet Sputnik. It was through his propaganda work that he became a local celebrity in Donetsk where the locals called him “Texas.” Most of the Russell Bentley videos that are still up on YouTube are ones where he made guest appearances on other people’s channels. One such video was where he gave a guided tour of his new hometown of Donetsk. It was the least political of the videos that he appeared in and it showed the tragedy that such a lovely city had to be caught in such a violent war.
After that video he made went viral I remember the outcry on social media from people—especially Americans—calling him a traitor and demanding that he should be hauled back to the U.S. to be tried for treason. My attitude at the time was that while I probably disagreed with about 80% (and maybe higher) of his political beliefs, I could at least respect him because he actually put his money where his mouth was and moved to Eastern Europe and he even obtained Russian citizenship.
My opinion of Russell “Texas” Bentley grew lower the following year when two Westerners who had been fighting for Ukraine when they were captured and imprisoned by Russia, Shaun Pinner and Cossack Gundi, alleged on Twitter/X that their captors had forced them to participate in propaganda videos that Bentley was making. Which meant that Bentley was a war criminal.
Bentley was last seen in Donetsk on April 8 after an attack on the city by Kyiv forces. Bentley and his wife, Lyudmila, had gone to an office in downtown Donetsk to deal with some administrative documents. At the same time there was a Ukrainian strike in that area. Bentley decided to go in the direction of the smoke looking for anyone who needed help. When Bentley didn’t return, his wife had gone looking for him. She found his car, which had his baseball cap, his glasses, and a broken phone. Lyudmila later posted on her husband’s Telegram channel that her husband had been abducted by the 5th Brigade of the Russian Federation Armed Forces. When people suggested that Bentley was kidnapped because he was filming something that he shouldn’t be filming, Lyudmila clarified that she had experts check his broken phone and there were no photos or videos that were recently shot.
Soon messages began to surface on other Telegram channels about Bentley was taken by this Russian brigade because they thought that he was a NATO spy. Then the story of his demise at the hands of this Russian brigade began to change. At first the reports said that he was beheaded. Then the reports claimed that he had been shot in the head eight times. Then the reports said that the Russians initially gang-raped him before someone discovered that he had a Russian passport and other official documents indicating that he really wasn’t a NATO spy and one of the officers said that it was no longer possible to let Bentley go so they killed him either by being tortured to death or he was shot (depending on which report you read).
The only thing all these reports have in common is that Russell “Texas” Bentley was killed at the hands of the same Russian forces that he had fought with and actively supported with making his pro-Russian propaganda. His body has yet to be found as of this writing. It’s highly unlikely that he’s still alive because he disappeared in an active war zone. He’s been gone since April 8 and this post has gone live on May 16 so he’s been gone for over a month.
Why would the Russians turn on him? I’ve read some posts on Twitter/X claiming that he was too much of an alcoholic to be much use as a propagandist, he’s a scammer, he’s a bullshit artist. It’s possible that he may have somehow pissed the wrong person off and he paid the ultimate price for it. I’ve also read posts saying that the two breakaway republics in the Donbass region have apparently been dominated by gangsters and thugs since Russia encouraged the Donbass region to breakaway from Ukraine. It’s probable that Bentley was murdered by them because they wanted a pack of cigarettes or the cash in his wallet or something else. But right now it’s all rumor and speculation so it’s hard to know what is true and what isn’t.
There’s another possible reason. The Daily Mail has a story about him that mentions one thing about his death that I didn’t know about before. Quoting another story in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail claims that Bentley had been involved with Russian ultranationalist circles and his death has made him the latest in a number of leaders of the annexation of eastern Ukraine to show up dead. The ultranationalists had felt that Russia was not moving aggressively enough in its invasion of Ukraine.
This group also included the late Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had a falling out with Vladimir Putin after he had the Wagner Group organize an attempted coup against Moscow last year that ultimately failed. Prigozhin died in a plane crash one month later. Since then a number of ultranationalists have fallen out of favor with Putin and many of them have turned up dead. Bentley was the latest ultranationalist to meet his demise.
He had indicated in interviews that he intended to spend the rest of his life in Donetsk. It looks like he got his wish.
The moral of the story of Russell “Texas” Bentley is if you’re an American or a Westerner, don’t ever fight on behalf of Russia because the Russians will turn on you for whatever reason and you could end up dead. I’ll end this post with this song that he “wrote” and performed called “Sweet Home Novorossiya,” where he basically ripped off the melody from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”
UPDATE (May 18, 2024): When I first became aware of Russell “Texas” Bentley after his one video went viral in 2022, I did a Google search on the guy and I found this 2017 interview he did with Texas Monthly. That article was probably the most in-depth story I read about the guy because it went into details about his family background (mainly that his family was wealthy) and his life in the US before he moved to Donetsk. Recently the same writer, Sonia Smith, wrote a sequel that is in the most recent issue of Texas Monthly. The only thing about Bentley that’s really new is the report that in late April a white Niva was found near an abandoned brick factory close to the front line. Inside of the car was a burned body. That body is supposedly undergoing a forensic medical examination but nothing further had been released.
Even if that body belonged to someone else, the chances of Bentley still being alive are practically nil at this point. He disappeared from an active war zone a month-and-a-half ago without a trace. If he was simply being kidnapped and held hostage his captors would’ve released a photo or video of Bentley along with a list of demands a long time ago. The fact that it didn’t happen only further proves that Bentley is dead.
The only other new fact about Bentley that was in that article is that he was the subject of this new documentary that was completed shortly before he died. It will air on Al Jazeera in a few months.
I went to The New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, Maryland because a couple of my musician friends were playing that night. I took some photos as a way of practicing my concert photography skills. I took a picture of the first act, Jay Bellamy, who was playing his guitar.
Then I took photos of the next act, The Bachelor and the Bad Actress.
The Bachelor and the Bad Actress then did a jam session with Kill Saw Ruby, who were the next act on stage.
The evening ended with Kill Saw Ruby, who performed their brand of bluegrass music.
Way back in January I had attended the first monthly Campfire Sessions at The New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt Maryland and I even took photos of the performers. But then my photos got buried under other photos, videos, and screenshots and it was only when I was clearing out my phone that I stumbled upon them again. So here they are.
The Campfire Sessions started with this interesting art lecture by an artist and art historian about the life and work of Salvator Rosa. But at various parts of the lecture the person would sing a song that was amazingly relevant to her lecture. I’m almost sorry that I didn’t capture this on video because it was a neat presentation.
There are other acts who performed music. They were all very good.
I attended a Winter Solstice Celebration that was held at Roosevelt Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There were people wearing Christmas-themed costumes and outfits. The Greenbelt Honk Situation provided some marching band renditions of classic Christmas music.
At one point a group of people were marching around with a Chinese dragon, which was pretty fun. I shot a short video of the dragon dance, which I uploaded on to TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot another short video of the festivities, which I uploaded on to TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot another short video of the Greenbelt Honk Situation doing a very unique version of the classic Christmas song “Up on the Housetop.” I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Thanksgiving Day came and went last week. I thought I was done with Halloween 2023 but then I saw that I still have a few photos left that are worth sharing here. I had gone to a free Halloween party that was held at Roosevelt Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Costumes were encouraged but I ended up not wearing one. (Yeah, I can be lame at times. LOL!) I brought my new Groove ‘N Grow Groot along for the hell of it. (That’s the same one that I wrote about recently.)
I ran into a few of my friends, which was all good. I also took a few still pictures, which was fun. And my Groove ‘N Grow Groot were in a few of them, which was cool.
The local marching band known as the Greenbelt Honk Situation provided the music. I made a few videos that show their unique repertoire, starting with this one song that I don’t know the title of. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
There is this video of my new Groove ‘N Grow Groot who’s dancing while the Greenbelt Honk Situation can be heard playing The Buggles’ 1980s hit “Video Killed the Radio Star.” I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube
I filmed this video of a person in a dinosaur costume who was walking and dancing around. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Then I filmed the Greenbelt Honk Situation doing their version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” while people were dancing around. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Finally I shot this video of a short parade that happened as the Greenbelt Honk Situation performed their version of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
That’s it for Halloween 2023 for me. Thanksgiving Day has passed so now the December winter holidays are next.
I recently checked out my friend Dar Stellabotta playing her cigar box guitar at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, Maryland. I played around with some of the settings on my relatively new smartphone and I managed to capture Dar playing her guitar in action.
I shot this short video footage that I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube. I also shot some longer video footage of Dar playing a different song that I also uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
After Dar Stellabotta’s set ended there was another set that was played by Tossing and Turning, a band who basically played covers of early rock and roll hits. One of the band members is Dar Stellabotta’s cousin so you could say that this whole evening was a family affair. I took a still photo of the band.
I shot some video footage of the band playing a cover of “Rocket 88,” which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube. By the way, here’s a fun fact about “Rocket 88”: It is generally credited as being the first rock and roll song recorded and released before the term “rock and roll” was even invented. What’s more, Ike Turner was behind the making of that song (and this was before he hooked up with his future ex-wife Tina Turner).
Last month I attended a Native American Powwow for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. The last time I attended a powwow was in the same location back in 2019. Unlike the last time, I took fewer pictures and shot more video.
There were plenty of Native American arts and crafts for sale but they were similar to what I saw back in 2019 so I didn’t bother with taking any pictures this time. I only purchased one thing this year and it was lunch.
I ate what is known as an Indian taco. It’s similar to a Mexican taco except that Indian fried bread is used instead of tortillas. It tasted very delicious! I would definitely eat it again if I ever have the chance.
I took two other pictures and they were of the dancers who performed at various competitions that were held during the powwow.
It was so interesting to see the dancers performing their routines wearing elaborate regalia. Those dancers were better shown in videos than still photos, which was why I shot more video footage than photos. I uploaded the first video, which shows a male Native American dancer, on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I uploaded a second video, which shows a female Native American dancer, on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I uploaded a third video, which shows a group of Native American women dancing on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I uploaded a fourth video, which shows a group of Native American men dancing on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Last but not least, I uploaded a fifth video, which also shows a group of Native American dancers. This video shows a small boy who was walking among the dancers while they performed, which was pretty cute. You can view it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I decided to attend the German Festival one more year even though that festival has fewer vendors than in years past and this year was no different. (For comparison, here are the photos I took at the same event in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022.) Last year I ended up driving to the festival due to the Baltimore Light Rail system being unreliable. A few weeks earlier I drove to the Maryland Toy Expo at the same location and the parking lot was crowded because the toy expo was one of three simultaneous events that were happening at the same time.
So this year I decided to take a chance on driving to the North Linthicum Light Rail stop then taking the light rail train to Timonium. The train arrived on schedule and I was able to go to and from the festival via light rail with no problem at all.
I arrived at the festival on a very hot day. It was the usual summer day with high heat and high humidity so walking from the light rail stop to the building where the festival was held felt like an eternity.
This year’s festival was around the same size as last year’s festival with fewer vendors than when I began going to this event ten years earlier. I ended up taking far fewer pictures than previous years.
I saw one vendor selling a line of German-imported beer steins. It brought back memories of when my late father used to collect them. (I think he either had ordered them from a catalogue or maybe he bought them from some local store that sold them.) I got sticker shock with these beer steins because their prices started at $125. I really now regret not taking one or two of my late father’s beer steins when my mother decided to put the house up for sale and I had the opportunity to take whatever I wanted from that house since my mother couldn’t take everything with her.
The traditional German lederhosen looked nice but they were also expensive as well.
They had other stuff (such as stuffed teddy bears dressed in traditional German clothes) but they weren’t all that different from what I saw on sale last year so I didn’t bother with taking photos of them this time around.
Here are a few photos I shot of men dressed as circa-1700s or 1800s German soldiers.
There was one new thing that I don’t recall seeing before at previous festivals. There was this large beer barrel.
There was an option to actually ride on a beer barrel. No, I didn’t do it myself (mainly because I think I’m way too big for that ride) but I was lucky enough to see a boy who took such a ride. First he was strapped on the beer barrel so he wouldn’t slip off.
Then a bunch of men lifted the contraption that the beer barrel was on and gave the boy a ride throughout the festival.
If you think the photos of that ride looked cool, you should check out the video that I shot. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I only shot one other video during my time there. I briefly went outside to shoot some footage of a band playing polka music. I didn’t stay outside too long because it was very hot and humid. (The temperature was in the mid-90s.) I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Ever since I started going to these festivals I’ve always noticed that there were elderly people who played with these wooden percussion instruments that looked like three crab mallets nailed together. This year I finally decided to ask these people what those instruments were. It turns out that they call them klackers. They don’t know how the term came about, they’ve simply always called them klackers.
These people are from a group known as the Baltimore Klacker Klub.
Now here’s the weird part. When I did a Google search on klackers after I returned home, most of the searches pointed towards clackers, a type of toy that was around for a brief moment when I was a kid (I still recall kids taking their clackers to school and showing them off) until they were banned after too many kids were injured as a result of playing with them. There were literally no percussion instruments known as klackers that were in the above photos.
So I wonder what the real name of these instruments are. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out because I don’t even know what to do first to find the answer.
The festival was okay but it was still a bit of a letdown compared to ten years ago. The only thing I managed to accomplish was something that I had been meaning to do for the past couple of years but I never got around to doing it until this year. I signed up for a membership in the German American Associations in Maryland. I had the option of either paying $25 for one year or $250 for a lifetime membership. I decided to go with one year because I don’t know if it’ll work out for me or not. If I end up really liking that organization, I’ll pay for the lifetime membership next year.
I joined because I’m looking for new friends. My church congregation, where I’ve met the vast majority of my friends as an adult, isn’t doing too well these days. The church building has been put up for sale and now the various members are at each other’s throats on Facebook. I don’t want to go into details here but it’s really a sad situation. In addition, many longtime members of my church has died over the past three years. So I’m basically hemorrhaging friends due to circumstances beyond my control.
So I’ll just wait and see what the German American Associations in Maryland has to offer in terms of meeting new friends.
I only purchased one other thing at the festival. It’s two bars of handmade soaps from a local vendor known as Towson Soaps.
Way back in 2019 I had shot my documentary about a transgender street performer named Madonna Girl Dale who is such a major Madonna fan that she would literally spend her days dancing along major highways in her then-hometown of Brooklyn Park, Maryland. Her appearance was controversial among the locals with some people objecting to the fact that she used to wear risqué clothes (such as a pair of black underwear that said “I [HEART] DICK” in pink letters) while parents were walking with their children while others were definitely transphobic and felt that Dale was too much of a freak.
In any case Madonna Girl Dale had decided that she had had enough of Brooklyn Park and the narrow-minded locals there and she decided to relocate to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Before she decided to say farewell to Maryland, she decided to do one last dance performance along Ritchie Highway (also known as Maryland Route 2, which begins in Baltimore and goes through the towns of Brooklyn Park, Glen Burnie, Pasadena, and a few others until it reaches Annapolis).
She announced her final Brooklyn Park performance on Facebook and I decided to make a special trip to Brooklyn Park so I could shoot some video footage. I had originally intended to shoot just 10 or 15 minutes worth of footage mainly because it was August and the weather was the usual summer weather in the Baltimore-DC area (very sunny, very hot, and very humid) so I wasn’t into spending huge amounts of time sweating in the hot summer sun. But Madonna Girl Dale had not only brought out a few props (such as chairs) but she also recruited a few of her friends to dance with her in a few numbers. I ended up shooting far more footage than I intended because I was pretty mesmerized by the whole scene of people doing sexy dances to Madonna’s music along a busy highway during the evening rush hour as vehicles were whizzing by.
Among the people who helped Madonna Girl Dale with her last dance in Brooklyn Park was a young guy named Nate. He was shirtless and wore a pink cowboy hat. He also made some sexy dance moves with Dale. Here are a few stills I shot of the two of them together.
This week I learned through Madonna Girl Dale on her Facebook page that Nate has passed away.
I don’t know exactly how old Nate was but, as you can see in the photos, his age was probably somewhere between 18 and 35. As of this writing I also have no information on what Nate died of. If I get any further information about his death, I’ll definitely update this post.
As for me I only met Nate that one time and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him because he and the others were busy with helping Dale with putting on a final show in Brooklyn Park. I know that some of you who know that I have a Bachelors degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland will wonder, with my background and education, why I didn’t even try to interview anyone. Here’s the thing: I didn’t originally intend to shoot a documentary. I was only going to shoot no more than 15 minutes of footage then get in my car and drive away. I simply ended up shooting more than I originally intended. I downloaded it to my MacBook and left it alone for a few months mainly because I had been hired by the Census Bureau to help with the preliminary phase of the 2020 census, which was scheduled to begin the following year. (My job was to verify that certain addresses in certain areas still had people living there.) So I was pretty busy with that job until October when the work dried up so I had more time to take a look at what I had shot in Brooklyn Park just a couple of months earlier. I discovered that I had shot enough footage to warrant a documentary.
In fact the only time I even tried to interview anyone was on that day of the last dance when I briefly asked Dale if she was going to retire from dancing in the streets once she moves to Winston-Salem and she brushed me off saying that she couldn’t talk now. She had this incredible focus that was amazing when you consider the fact that she was dancing along the streets and not in some kind of a professional stage production that’s held in a nightclub or concert hall. I gave up on talking to anyone and just focused on pointing my camera and shoot the action.
I could’ve interviewed a few of the participants when I took a look at the footage again in October but I didn’t know how to find them mainly because I had never lived in Brooklyn Park (I spent the bulk of my childhood in neighboring Glen Burnie). I didn’t even know their names nor did I know how to contact them. I decided that my documentary would just give the view of what an average person who went through Brooklyn Park would see when Madonna Girl Dale danced.
So, as a tribute to the recently deceased Nate, I’m going to embed my documentary, Madonna Girl Dale: Last Dance in Brooklyn Park, below. Dale’s dance with Nate sitting in a chair begins at the 26-minute mark.
Rest In Peace, Nate!
Sagittarius Dolly 
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