People: Justin Bieber gets Jesus tattoo

On a trip to Shakey's Pizza in Sherman Oaks with his dad and some friends this week, Justin Bieber showed off a new tattoo on his leg. The episode shocked observers, pop culture watchers and those believing themselves to be curators of good taste.

That's right -- people still go to Shakey's Pizza?

Otherwise, no biggie. He's just another 17-year-old kid with Jesus' face on his leg, looking up at him all day.

Bieber already has two other tattoos: a dove and Hebrew script of Jesus' name, which matches his dad's. So I guess you'd say he has a theme going.

Bieber must be pretty sure he's not ever going to change religions. In fact, the singer isn't shy about speaking up about his religion. "I believe that Jesus died on a cross for my sins," Bieber told Billboard last November. "He's the reason that I'm here."

THEY HEARD YOU MISSED THEM, THEY'RE BACK: Behind its first new album with singer David Lee Roth since 1984, Van Halen will kick off a four-month U.S. tour next month, with Bay Area stops slated for June 3 at Oakland's Oracle Arena and June 5 at HP Pavilion in San Jose.

Tickets for some shows go on sale Jan. 14. West Coast on-sales dates and ticket prices have not been announced. The tour begins Feb. 18 in Louisville, Ken., and currently extends into late June. The band played a 11-song warm-up gig Thursday at the small Caf Wha?,

owned by Roth's uncle Manny Roth, in New York. The set included no new songs, according to the website Van Halen News Desk, but feature a reworked version of "She's the Woman," a song originally included in the band's early demo tapes in the mid-1970s, part of which became "Mean Street" on 1981's "Fair Warning."

The band said new single "Tattoo" (not Justin Bieber's) will be released Tuesday and the new album, set for a Feb. 7 release, will be called "A Different Kind of Truth."

IN OTHER NEWS OF LEGENDARY L.A MUSICIANS REUNITING: This year Slash, Duff McKagen and Matt Sorum will indeed reunite on stage with their volatile for! mer sing er to play some of their old hits.

No, not that old singer.

Velvet Revolver -- Slash, McKagan, Sorum, Dave Kushner and Scott Weiland -- will reunite for one show Jan. 12 at L.A.'s House Of Blues, according to Rolling Stone. Guitarist Kushner brought the band back together to play a benefit show for the family of his best friend, musician John O'Brien, who was found dead at the age of 45 in a Chicago hotel room in August.

"I found out he passed away on August 20, and it was like out of nowhere," Kushner told Rolling Stone. "Next day I was in shock and my wife said to me, 'You gotta have a benefit concert for his wife and you have to get Velvet Revolver back together.' That's how it started."

Velvet Revolver is officially still a band, though their search for a replacement for Weiland seems to be never ending, since he left the band following the tour for 2007's "Libertad." Slash, McKagan, and Sorum are slated to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year with their previous band Guns N' Roses. There's been much speculation over whether the band would reunite with singer Axl Rose to play at the induction.

This reunion seemed much easier. Kushner said the response was almost instantaneous from everyone, something he attributes to how loved O'Brien, a childhood friend of Kushner's, was in the industry, as well as the members of Velvet Revolver.

The show will also feature Maroon 5, Sheryl Crow, Tom Morello, Stephen Stills and more. Which Kushner said takes the pressure of Velvet Revolver, who will likely only play three songs.

"Because we hadn't played with Scott in a long time I said, 'Look, let's just do three songs.' It's not too much of a commitment," he told the magazine. "So we just got a bunch of people, everyone will do three songs."

It will be the first time Weiland has performed with the band in four years. He has since rejoined Stone Temple Pilots.

All of the proceeds from the benefit will go to O'Brien's wife and family. "Unfortunatel! y, John didn't have life insurance at the time and he left behind a wife that's pregnant and a four-year-old son. That to me is the main focus of why I'm doing this," Kushner said. "I'm doing it so that this sells out and that money can go to her, period."

Kushner said he realizes the show will prompt questions about a full-fledged reunion. "We haven't played together in four years, and so we're really just like, 'Let's see how this goes,'" he said. "I know everyone's got other commitments, but I think everyone's like, 'Let's get this thing done and get through this and then we'll see.'"

ETTA JAMES GOES HOME: Etta James' longtime friend and manager says the singer has been released from a Southern California hospital and is back at home with her family.

Lupe De Leon says James was released Thursday afternoon, just a few days after the terminally ill singer's condition improved enough for her to be removed from a breathing machine.

The "At Last" singer had been hospitalized since before Christmas after she experienced difficulty breathing. James has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia, and she is also suffering from dementia.

She has been receiving mostly at-home care.

De Leon says James, who lives east of Los Angeles in Riverside County, is stable and is with her husband and other family members.

NBC LOOKING TO REBOUND: Robert Greenblatt, entertainment chief for NBC, bemoaned the network's fall rating woes on Thursday, but expressed hope that the beleaguered network can regain some mojo with its midseason lineup.

"We had a really bad fall, worse than I hoped for, but about what I expected," Greenblatt told reporters gathered here for the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

NBC has several new shows debuting at midseason, including the highly hyped Broadway drama, "Smash." Returning shows include "The Voice" and "30 Rock."

Among the tidbits gleaned from NBC's press tour session:

-- Mariska Hargitay will return to "Law & Order: S! VU" next season. "I'm having too much fun (to leave)," she told reporters in a pretaped segment.

As for this season, her character will be getting a potential new love interest in Harry Connick Jr., who will appear in a four-episode arc as a new D.A. beginning Jan. 18. The two actors playfully flirted with one another before Hargitay announced that they had to leave to shoot a "sexytime scene."

-- "Community" fans can relax. The show has not been canceled, despite the fact that it is not on NBC's midseason schedule. Greenblatt promised it will return in the spring.

-- Greenblatt claimed he spend no time worrying about what kind of havoc new judge Howard Stern will wreak on "America's Got Talent." Insisting that Stern is taking the assignment very seriously, he said he won't be "a shock-jock judge" and has no plans "to usurp the show and make it the Howard Stern circus."

-- The talk of Ryan Seacrest replacing Matt Lauer on the "Today" show is "premature," according to Greenblatt. "It is our hope that Matt Lauer will stay on the show," he said.

-- Among the NBC shows that crashed and burned early this season, Greenblatt called the failure of "Prime Suspect" his "biggest disappointment of the fall."

BETTY WHITE IS OLD: The irrepressible, (no, really) Betty White turns 90 this month and NBC is celebrating with a star-studded birthday special. But White herself thinks it's all kind of silly.

"Don't give me any credit," she told reporters at TV's winter press tour. "I didn't do anything to get to be 90. It just happened. I didn't accomplish anything. It just came up on me."

For an old person, she makes a lot of sense.

Still, Hollywood loves a good party and you can't help but be awestruck by a woman who is busier than ever with a cable sitcom ("Hot in Cleveland"), movie roles, a book and an upcoming hidden-camera show on NBC called "Betty White's Off Their Rockers."

The special bash, to air Jan. 16 -- a day before White's actual birthday -- will feature appea! rances

TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2012. There are 359 days left in the year.

1608: An accidental fire devastated the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony.

1610: Astronomer Galileo Galilei began observing three of Jupiter's moons (he spotted a fourth moon almost a week later).

1789: The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.

1894: One of the earliest motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in West Orange, N.J., as Fred Ott was filmed taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing.

1927: Commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.

1942: The Japanese siege of Bataan began during World War II. (The fall of Bataan three months later was followed by the notorious Death March.)

1949: George C. Marshall resigned as U.S. Secretary of State; President Harry S. Truman chose Dean Acheson to succeed him.

1972: Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the U.S. Supreme Court. An Iberia Caravelle jetliner crashed into a mountain while on approach to Ibiza Airport in Spain, killing all 104 people on board.

1979: Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

1989: Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.

2006: Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped and her translator shot dead in Baghdad. (Carroll was freed almost three months later.)

2011: A package addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ignited at a Washington postal facility, a day after fiery packages sent to Maryland's governor and state transportation secretary burned the fingers of workers who opened them.

BIRTHDAYS

Pop musician Paul! Revere (74), magazine publisher Jann Wenner (66), singer Kenny Loggins (64), singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman (63), actress Erin Gray (62), actor Sammo Hung (60), actor David Caruso (56), Katie Couric (55), rock musician Kathy Valentine (The Go-Go's) (53), actor David Marciano (52), actress Hallie Todd (50), actor Nicolas Cage (48), singer-songwriter John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting) (47), actor Doug E. Doug (42), actor Kevin Rahm (41), actor Jeremy Renner (41). country singer-musician John Rich (38), actor Dustin Diamond (35), actress Lyndsy Fonseca (25), actor Liam Aiken (22), actress Camryn Grimes (22), actor Max Morrow (21).

Associated Press