From individual author and band vanity pages to Arianna Huffington's new celebrity-blog clearinghouse The Huffington Post, more and more websites are cropping up every day to help canny creators promote their wares, their works, their ideas, their agendas, and themselves. But some of those creators hawking their home-recorded MP3s or homespun philosophies are better known for more prominent ventures. Below, The A.V. Club presents a guide to the little-known Internet sidelines of some well-known entertainment figures.
Leonard Nimoy
Website: leonardnimoyphotography.com
Primarily known as: Spock on Star Trek; guy who's spent a lifetime alternately repudiating and exploiting his role as Spock on Star Trek
Internet sideline: Photography
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Certainly. It isn't saying much to suggest that the world needs arty pictures more than it needs more Trek movies, or more Spock-redux on series like Futurama and The Simpsons. And Nimoy's high-contrast black-and-white nudes are visually interesting, particularly when he addresses unconventional models. His "Eggs" series, on the other hand, is distinctly odd.
Other hobbies he might try: Porn director. His consciously stylized aesthetic might make a nice change from porn films' usual grainy, lo-fi amateur-video quality, and he could probably find some applicable use for his interest in nudity.
Billy Dee Williams
Website: bdwworldart.com
Primarily known as: Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of the Jedi; Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman; pitchman for Colt 45 malt liquor
Internet sideline: Painting
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Based on the quality of the films he's been in lately, it looks like he already has. And more power to him. Williams was an art student before he tried acting, and his canvasses' bold colors and imaginative compositions show that he's no dilettante. (And he's no fool, either: He doesn't try to hide from his Lando fame, and features both an autographed photo and an interpretive painting of the character on his website's front page.)
Other hobbies he might try: Winemaking, perhaps–it would be a worthwhile trade-up from malt liquor, and he could serve his own vintage at gallery openings.
Kirk Cameron
Website: wayofthemaster.com
Primarily known as: Mike Seaver from the '80s sitcom Growing Pains; star of the Disney movie The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
Internet sideline: Preaching
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Cameron has barely appeared on mainstream television in more than a decade, and then mostly in Growing Pains reunion movies: This is his career, and it's apparently thriving. He has a book, The Way Of The Master, and a television show of the same name.
Other hobbies he might try: Abortion interventionist. Most women would find it unsettling if Mike Seaver screamed at them, "You're going to burn in hell, whore!" as they walked into Planned Parenthood.
Michael Madsen
Website: michaelmadsen.com
Primarily known as: Character actor and heavy in Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 1 and 2, and Sin City
Internet sideline: Poetry
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Consider this sample verse: "We are all on the run. / From the richest Maharajah / to the lowest, dirty, stinking pedophile. / The big, the wrong, the last, the found, / the forgotten, the remembered / the free and all the long timers. All on the run / one way or another." Then go watch Kill Bill again. Question answered.
Other hobbies he might try: Alas, the promised audio clips on Madsen's poetry site are nowhere to be found, so it's difficult to tell whether he has a future at poetry slams. But coat him in paint, butter, or used motor oil and have him recite the above poem while throwing fruit at his audience, and he'd make a dandy performance artist.
Kenny Loggins
Website: kennyloggins.com/kenny/tul/
Primarily known as: '80s soundtrack master musician
Internet sideline: Relationship empowerment
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Maybe. Loggins isn't quite the sought-after entertainer he used to be these days (though who knows, the current Loggins & Messina reunion might change that) but his multimedia relationship-help guide–a CD and book called The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned On The Path Of Love–could be lucrative. It's undecipherable, but that rarely gets in the way of success with such projects. One of his 10 axioms: "Truth is always the expression of love and is therefore always the necessary healing and loving action."
Other hobbies he might try: Life coach. Just retread the tenets of The Unimaginable Life for something besides relationships; it's only an infomercial away.
Lori Petty
Website: lawdknows.com/loripaints
Primarily known as: The star of Tank Girl; Keanu Reeves' girlfriend in Point Break
Internet sideline: Painting
Based on the evidence, should she change careers? Probably not. Artworks like "Kiss God On The Mouth" and "Again" look like halfhearted scratchings done on bar napkins during a drunken funk, and "Self Portrait" reveals Petty's inner lopsided cyclops.
Other hobbies she might try: Paper-clip sculptor. Her vague, scratchy, grayish images look kind of like piles of bent wire already, and they might be more interesting in three dimensions.
Chubby Checker
Website: thelasttwist.com
Primarily known as: The singer of the chart-topping 1960 novelty dance song "The Twist," and increasingly desperate-seeming follow-ups like "Slow Twistin'," "Twistin' U.S.A.," "Twist It Up," and "Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer)"
Internet sideline: Beef-jerky sales
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? If the alternative is to flog the "Twist" dead horse one more time, then absolutely yes. But Checker might want to hire an outside public-relations firm, given this sentence explaining why he decided to cash in on his fame: "Chubby… has finally decided to join his many admirers in selling a little part of himself." Say, what's in that beef jerky, anyway?
Other hobbies he might try: Long-haul trucking. He's already got his own enormous customized RV, "The Checkerlicious Express," which he uses to drive around the country raising the nation's awareness of delicious Chubby-approved gourmet snacks.
Uri Geller
Website: uribike.com
Primarily known as: A former male model who gained fame in the '70s by claiming to have telekinetic powers that allowed him to bend spoons with his mind, though his real psychic power appeared to be the ability to land guest slots on talk shows
Internet sideline: Bicycle design
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Though skeptics like James Randi would probably be thrilled if Geller tried to become the next Ignaz Schwinn, it's doubtful this will be more than a sideline, considering the many different cash streams Geller's fame as a mentalist created: Self-help books, a psychic museum, and even work looking for gold in the Solomon Islands.
Other hobbies he might try: Are there any he hasn't tried? Geller also designs jewelry for the QVC home-shopping network. He's a blogger (uri-geller.blogspot.com), he studied art under Salvador Dali, and he released a 1970 self-titled album with New Age non-classics like "Velvet Space" and "I Cannot Answer You."
Tony Danza
Website: sin-drome.com
Primarily known as: An actor who played characters named Tony on Taxi and Who's The Boss, and who now hosts his own daytime talkfest, The Tony Danza Show
Internet sideline: Pop music
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? He's actually got a pretty smooth crooning voice, and might appeal to the crowd that mobs record stores whenever Neil Diamond puts out a new album. But it's not really fair to ask a thespian of his stature to walk away from his true calling.
Other hobbies he might try: One thing's for sure: He should stay away from sports. Though he had a respectable bid at pro-boxing success before becoming an actor, Danza broke his back skiing in 1993, escaped serious injury in a go-kart accident this May, and recently got smacked down by Kangaroo Jack star Jerry O'Connell in a charity sumo match.
David Lynch
Website: davidlynch.com/dailyreport/
Primarily known as: Quirky writer-director of Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dr., and much more
Internet sideline: Giving weather reports
Based on the evidence, should he change careers? Certainly not; Lynch's long and illustrious film career has proved that his film and television projects are interesting at absolute worst, and phenomenal at best, whereas local weathermen are a dime a dozen. Still, his daily video updates on L.A.'s current weather hold a certain bizarre charm.
Other hobbies he might try: Anything and everything. A David Lynch who's interested in reporting the weather could also anchor the TV news, provide NFL-game color commentary, take over for Dick Clark by hosting ABC's yearly Rockin' New Year's Eve shows, narrate shows at Sea World… Give the man a microphone and a camera, and let him do what he wants. It's worked so far.