Journey singer/songwriter/keyboardist Jonathan Cain reports the band is sticking by its new Filipino lead singer Arnel Pineda – despite some racist responses from concertgoers when Arnel was introduced earlier this year.
“As much as we like to think we’re this hip country, we’re not,” says Cain. “There are still a lot of backward people living amongst us and it’s going to happen. But we’re just going to have to roll with that.  It’s there, it’s part of America but I’m just ignoring it.”
Cain says he knew Arnel was The One when he discovered him singing Journey songs on YouTube. “This guy was meant to sing our music. He can sing it in his sleep. It was destiny and Arnel is no mistake. He fit in our camp perfectly and we’re really excited to have him.”
The current incarnation of the classic rock band – which also includes guitarist Neal Schon, bassist Ross Valory and drummer Deen Castronovo — is set to head out on the concert trail with Heart and Cheap Trick July 9 with a kickoff concert in Denver, CO, in support of the band’s new release, “Revelation.”  They’ll be performing two songs on Ellen DeGeneres’ show Wednesday (5/28) with other appearances to follow.
Cain says the most personal song on the CD is “After All These Years.” “It’s just a love song from the heart I wrote for my wife,” he says. “We’re going on 20 years now and I got up one morning and wrote it in about 40 minutes. I got her in the studio and played it for her. I knew I had a good song when she was touched.” The three-disc CD/DVD will be available at Wal-Mart stores June 3.

BOLDLY GOING: Speaking of Ellen DeGeneres, her recent announcement on her talk show that she and girlfriend Portia Di Rossi plan to get married, now that the California Supreme Court has overturned the ban on gay marriage, could be the first of a string of high-profile same sex marriages around these parts.
Following in their footsteps is former “Star Trek” star George Takei, who just told fans on his website that he plans to marry his partner Brad Altman.  The two have been together for over 21 years.  We caught up with Takei not too long ago, and he talked about the restrictions he’s had to face as a gay man:  ”I grew up behind the barbed wire fences of the American and German camps during World War II, but the GLBT community is confined behind a different kind of barbed wire fence,” he noted.  As he stated on his website, he and Altman are “overjoyed” with this new turn of events.  ”Now, we can have the dignity, as well as all the responsibilities, of marriage. We embrace it all heartily.”

TALKIN’ TRAILER TRASH: “We don’t know what makes a good trailer, but we know when a trailer sucks.”  So says comic and “Golden Trailer Awards” host Sinbad, who’s become a bit of a connoisseur of the art of movie previews thanks to his latest gig.  He’s learned, “Every trailer company has one cat who’s a visionary, a man or a woman, who really has the gift for it.  One man drove an ice cream truck before he started doing trailers,” he claims.
Sinbad says his personal favorite trailer on tonight’s (5/26) “9th Annual Golden Trailer Awards,” on MyNetwork TV, is the preview for “Pineapple Express” – “It was slammin’.  I can’t wait to see the movie.”  The Awards show doesn’t have anything in the way of production numbers, but it does have lots of comedians.  “We had a chance to clown around a lot.  Some of the funniest stuff was off-camera.  I hope they can keep the looseness and fun they have,” says Sinbad.  “They’re not like the Oscars and Emmys.”

BOW WOW WOW BOW: Things are getting really ruff in the reality TV world.  First, we have CBS’  “Greatest American Dog” show –  think kind of a “Big Brother,” only with contestants who go around naked on all fours without having had anything to drink first.  Twelve dogs and their people coexist in a house and do challenges to try to win squeaky toys, treats and $250,000,.  That’s due July 10.  And now we hear the casting call has gone out for another network reality show, for dogs and their owners who need to lose weight.   Ha!  We thought that would give you paws.  Producers on the show are looking for owners to be a minimum of 40 pounds too hefty, and their pooches must also be pudgy.

CASTING CORNER: Casting forces on Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man” have had an interesting task, looking for actors to play a Midwestern Jewish family – not with an East Coast feel, they specify – including a forty-ish woman who’ll do full frontal nudity in the film.  We’re told they’re saying to “think Anne Bancroft in ‘The Graduate.’”

Sharon Gless will be back on “Nip/Tuck” next season as the worst talent agent ever – the unlicensed, fraudulent, potentially homicidal and suicidal Colleen Rose.  It’ll just be a brief appearance, to wrap up her storyline as she who has been representing Dylan Walsh’s character, Dr. Sean McNamara, on the FX series.

She couldn’t be happier.  When series creator Ryan Murphy “told me the storyline he wanted to do, I knew it was a gift,” recalls Gless, who’s been getting Emmy buzz for bringing the bizarre character to life.  “I said, ‘Ryan Murphy, you are the sickest, most twisted guy I’ve ever met — which is what I like about you.’  He said, ‘You can’t tell anybody!’  He holds his storylines close to the chest.”

While Colleen has been good for Gless as an actress, playing her has been hell on her hair.  “I decided to go almost white and wear bright red lipstick to play her,” she recalls.  Then she went back to her look as a “one-dump platinum” Florida blond for the USA Network’s “Burn Notice,” in which she plays Jeffrey Donovan’s mother, Madeline.  Then “I had to strip back down to the white, then go back to platinum.”

They’re doing 16 episodes of “Burn Notice,” which returns to the USA lineup June 10 for its second season premiere.  “That’s a huge order for cable,” notes Gless, who’ll wind the series Oct. 16, see her niece get married the 18th, and fly to London to begin rehearsals the 20th for a play that’s yet to be announced.

“I’m so grateful my plate is full and I never take it granted,” says Sharon.  Despite critical kudos and industry honors through the years, including a Best Lead Actress in a Drama Emmy for “Cagney & Lacey,” she admits, “I don’t think there’s a day when I step on a soundstage when my heart isn’t pounding.  I still am capable of getting frightened.  I always think they’re going to find out I don’t know what I’m doing.”

DRAMA FROM REAL LIFE: John Stamos will do a changeup, out of his “ER” series medical world  and into true crime this hiatus, with a movie for television (remember those?) about the murders of wealthy brothers Robert and Andy Kissel – the former of whom was bludgeoned to death by his wife after being rendered passive via a drugged milkshake (hence, “The Milkshake Murder”) and the latter of whom was stabbed to death in a  professional, vendetta style in the basement of his home.

Casting is underway on “The Fallen,” the feature to be produced by Penny Marshall (haven’t heard from her in awhile) with Brian Goodman directing, from the real life story of a firefighter injured so badly on the job he finds himself severely drug addicted.

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: “We’re the Bonnie and Clyde of marijuana,” quips Gary Cole, who partners with Rosie Perez in the upcoming “Pineapple Express,” the Aug. 8-debuting stoner comedy from the “Knocked Up” writing team of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, starring Rogen and James Franco

“I play Ted the dope dealer and Rosie is a corrupt police officer. We had a great time. She’s a riot,” reports Cole of the movie about a pothead who witnesses a cop commit murder and then goes on the run from the law with his dealer.  Cole says “Pineapple Express” due out in August, is “a fairly big movie. It kind of defies genre because it is a comedy, but it’s not all comic. And I wouldn’t call it a romantic comedy, even though it has romance in it. And it has some for keeps action in it as well.”

DRIVE TO SUCCEED: Ben Bailey, who’s been busy driving contestants around New York City while they answer questions on the show “Cash Cab,” tells us producers are taking much better care of him now that they have settled into the show.  ”It’s better than it used to be.  When we started out it was kind of crazy.  They were worried about having enough content so we’d do like 11 games in a day back then,” he recalls.  ”I was having dreams about it where I would repeat my lines in my sleep.  It was a really overwhelming period in my life.”  Luckily for Bailey, they cut the show to six games in a day, which has left him a lot more time to spend with his family.  Plus, thanks to the popularity of the show, the former limo driver is also getting to enjoy a few of the finer things in life.  ”I’ve got a pretty good deal, which I haggled for.  I feel like I’ve settled into this new life that I have, which is totally different from my old one.  If go back two-and-a-half years, I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have a TV show, and I didn’t have a baby.  I was a completely different guy.”