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.’”

Joan Cusack admits that it was tough shuttling back and forth between her Chicago home and Bulgaria location for her brother, John’s, “War, Inc.” big screen political satire that opens in limited release May 23 – but she was glad to do it.

“At this point I appreciate how hard it is to get something made that you love, that you really feel has content that’s worth talking about, that’s stimulating cultural conversations.  It’s a great luxury,” says Joan, who plays an executive of the corporation running the world’s first fully-outsourced war – complete with tanks bearing sponsor logos.  “To me, whenever John is working on something that he feels passionate about and I have an opportunity to work with my family and be able to support him, of course I’m going to do it.”

She notes, “The easy part was that I have a great husband and John was obviously flexible about when I could go and come back, so it worked with my family.”

Her other upcoming film this summer couldn’t be much more different – the July 2 release “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl’s Story,” inspired by the popular line of dolls, and its young heroine wannabe reporter of the Great Depression era.  That film stars the superb Abigail Breslin, with whom Joan is currently working in the big screen adaptation of Jody Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper.” “I’d worked with her before in ‘Raising Helen,’” reminds Joan, “and she’s a great kid with a great family.” She also notes, “I have two boys, so this girls’ world wasn’t a world I knew very much about.  I was impressed with the content of the story and the way they dealt with the subject matter.  It’s very psychologically empowering.  It made me want an American Boys store.”

Next up for Cusack, “Toy Story 3.”  “They’re just in the beginning stages,” reports the actress known to Pixar lovers as the voice of cowgirl Jesse.  “That’s easy.  I can do it from my home.”

ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan admits that time with her beau, “Dancing With the Stars” pro Mark Ballas, has been pretty hard to come by lately between their respective professional activities.  “We’re just both really busy,” says Bryan, who competed in the upcoming Disney Channel Games last week.  “My partner has his card taken right now with Kristi Yamaguchi, which I’m so happy for.  We did go on tour together, which was awesome – to meet so many of the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ fans face to face and hear their applause.”

Bryan finished the much-anticipated summer Disney Channel movie “Cheetah Girls 3: One World” in India with group mates Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams last month.  “I got back on a Saturday and Adrienne and I went to that Monday’s ‘Dancing With the Stars’ show.  I couldn’t wait to get back and see him dance with Kristi, so I support Team Yamaguchi.  They’ll definitely make the finals, I think.”

As for Bryan and Ballas?  “We’ll see. We’re seeing how were going.”

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: As fans eagerly await J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” , which just wrapped production, Faran Tahir, who plays the Federation Captain, says he’s confident it will bring forth a new legion of Trekkies – and not the kind that still sleep in their parent’s basement.  “J.J. is one of those people who has the ability to re-introduce water to you in a new way.  He’s such a creative man,” claims Tahir.  “I love what he’s done with it because he hasn’t said farewell to the tradition or the story of ‘Star Trek,’ but he has such a fresh approach to it that I think he will re-introduce it to this generation in a way they can relate.  It will create this bridge between the people who grew up with it and this younger generation who didn’t know about it.”

Tahir is certainly no stranger to fantasy flicks as he is also starring in “Iron Man” as Robert Downey Jr.’s nemesis Raza.  The actor believes people will really take to Downey Jr.’s approach to playing a superhero.  “The thing about Robert is that no matter what he attempts, he brings so many layers to the character.  Yes, this is an action movie and you could just do the action part of it and it would be fine, but he brings a certain amount of levity, which not many actors can do,” he notes.  The movie certainly holds a special place for Tahir, whose son got a part in it as well.  “For other movies I might have said no, but for a nine-year-old to be in superhero movie, what is cooler than that?  I couldn’t deny him that, and he did an amazing job.”

IN HIS SITES: Gerald McRaney’s off to Namibia to hunt game for his “World of Beretta” Outdoor Life Network series.  It’s the kind of unscripted show multi-series veteran McRaney can get into.  As for other non-scripted fare, “I agree with my brother’s notion about reality television.  He said, ‘Survivor my a–!  The craft services table is 20 feet away.’”  McRaney’s wife, Delta Burke, is staying home.  He says that while she understands hunting intellectually, “She’s not going to go there herself.”  He’ll be bringing Horton Foote’s “Dividing the Estate” onto Broadway this fall.  On the scripted TV front, “I’ve seen a couple of things this year that look promising, but any more, something is going to have to be really interesting to get me involved in it.  I’m getting a little long in the tooth to putting up with something less just to have another payday.”