In the ’80s (yes, I was in junior high then), Steve Perry and Journey were on MTV practically every half hour. I know because I would keep vigil of the then-new all-music video channel, hoping one of Duran Duran‘s videos would air. (For those of you too young to know, think Duran Duran = NKOTB = Justin Bieber.) Back then, my adolescent taste in music had one criterion: how cute was the lead singer? Not amazing talent, not heart-wrenching lyrics, not a soaring, plaintive wail of a vocal. Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan of Journey.

That is, until Glee made that iconic Journey song, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” hip again. Now, I can’t stop inserting Journey songs into our noraebang (karaoke song room) queue. In fact, it only took 30 years for me to be able to look back on my junior high years with any semblance of fondness. So I was excited when I found out Journey was performing on the Today Show plaza yesterday. (Yeah, I know. I’m now that old fogey.) But instead of Steve Perry wailing “Street lights people living just to find emotion,” it was Filipino American Arnel Pineda. I mean, he’s no Steve Perry, but he’s pretty damn good.

And just think: if an Asian American had headed one of the hottest bands when I was in junior high. What a different world I would have grown up in.

Check out the Today Show performance below.

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Miss Congeniality: Jeannie Mai of E! Style network’s How Do I Look? is making a name for herself, one look at a time.

ISSUE: Summer 2010

DEPT: Personalities

STORY: Anne H. Kim

Jeannie Mai is probably the only person who gets paid to rummage through people’s closets and toss out anything that doesn’t meet the rules of good dressing. It can get ugly (and we don’t mean just the clothes). The dressing-impaired who appear on E! Style network’s How Do I Look? have been known to break down in tears, plead their case in a desperate attempt to get just a bit more mileage out of a tired college sweatshirt, and just plain get defensive. It’s a delicate operation to say the least. But as the show’s newest host (Mai took over for Finola Hughes), Mai deals out her fashion judgment with such a sunny and bubbly disposition that those who (grudgingly) appear on the show are won over soon enough. Mai’s happy-go-lucky attitude doesn’t seem to know boundaries either. Besides boosting up the self-esteem of her Look guests, she also reports on fashion and entertainment on Extra with Mario Lopez and chums it up with Natalie Morales as the resident fashion expert on Today. Mai is quickly building a brand as a congenial host with plenty of personality. She’s even adding a fresh dose of high energy into Avon as the iconic beauty company’s resident fashion expert.