Last week the Newport film festival showed a documetary about the American super group Journey. I had no idea that the song "dont stop believing" is the most downloaded song in musical history. Anyways the whole movie was about the band searching for a new singer. I guess the old frontman was so epic its been real tricky to find a replacement. So the band have been trawling youtube and craigslist for months and months looking for anyone that can fill Steve Perry's giant shoes. Almost giving up the guitarist finally finds a random karaoke style clip from some gangster ass cover band in Manilla , Philippines. He was blown away when he watched the video. This tiny wee Manilla man could actually bloody sing. They track him down send him a flight and bring him to New York City and three days later he's the singer for journey. Mental !! I'd like to add that he was homeless and sleeping in parks and singing in pubs for peanuts to feed his family before his plane ride to 'Merica. Arnel Pineda is his name and he's a minature mixture of David Lee Roth and Bruce Lee. Go see this movie it's called Everyman's Journey. The story is pretty incredible. Its almost as if the song "dont stop believing" was written for this wee guy 20 years ago. Its the ultimate feel good , bro movie.

After the movie ended i skated against traffic heading uptown and i passed 2 cars blasting Journey . Now when i hear these monster balleds i think of homeless people in the Philippines. It's weird cos for the last 20 years those songs made me think of weddings and college dingbats. A few days after that i bought my first Journey CD and now i try to sing like a 4 foot tall rockstar from Manilla.

Courtney is Filipino and hates Journey.

This photo is called "Harrrooooo" .

Epic fun in the panda grasslands of RI.