It's a little wild and a little strange...when you make your home out on the range

Folks, a year and four months ago, I was living (or more accurately, just kinda, sorta existing) in Texas, shoveling fast food down my gullet and spending an obscene amount of time on the Internet. (Hey, one big change a year ain’t so bad.)

But, most importantly, a year and four months ago, I authored The Most Important Blog Entry Of Our Time, one that my co-blogger Laura tells me is responsible for much of the random traffic our fledgling site gets. The entry, ladies and gents, was about the whereabouts of “Hey Dude’s” Joe Torres (aka Danny Lightfoot). The gist: I tried to get to the bottom of (or, um, searched the web for about 15 minutes in an effort to confirm or dispel) a pervasive Internet rumor that Torres had died in the last few years of kidney failure.

After receiving a random comment on that entry this weekend (said commenter basically asked if I had gotten off my ass and made any effort toward finding Torres…and the short answer is, uh, no), we decided it was time for an update.


As usual, my investigative work is best done from the couch, in my pajamas.

-In 2007, I “reported” that Joe Torres’ Wikipedia entry stated that he was last spotted in a Tucson bar called The Golden Nugget. In the past year and four months, that entry has been edited, and The Golden Nugget sighting is gone. Mysterious.

-Apparently I wasn’t thorough enough in my web research last year to discover that a web effort had formed and was already on the hunt for Torres. In 2006, this dude launched an “official” Where Is Joe Torres? Campaign. I have not seen any updates to the effort since the original post; however, t-shirts are available.

-Another guy posted about the controversy in Nov. 2007 on Yelp. In his post, he notes that Torres' IMDB profile has been edited—a credit for the role of “Drunken Indian” in the film “Hindustani” has been deleted, as well as a note about the rumor of his demise due to kidney failure. Hmm.

-This bizarre, random and totally unsourced page hosted on eBay states that “despite rumors to the contrary, Jose (Joe’s real name) is still alive and well and living in Tucson, Arizona.” And yes, I realized that it points to the Wikipedia page, but that page neither confirms or denies the kidney failure rumor. Ummm…I prefer my unsubstantiated news from Perez Hilton, thanks.

-TV.com still reports that Joe died of kidney failure after living for years on a reservation. BUT! Other reports say that Joe was Mexican-American, not Native American, so that doesn’t really fly for me.

-The Golden Nugget was voted “Best Low Brow Ambience” by Tucson Weekly in 2001. So you know.