by Liz Orton

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

I work in a hair salon. Not a day goes by when we don't sit around on our break and harp about the latest Hollywood gossip. We don't talk about our own lives or current political events, just the stars. Can you believe Paris is going out with the drummer from Blink 182? Did you see that picture of Nicole Richie, she's a walking skeleton! I love what Brad and Angelina are doing in Africa, but I'll never be able to forgive him for what he did to Jen. These conversations enter into not only the workplace, but the class room and the dinner table, too. Celebrities are a common ground most everyone knows the current happenings of Hollywood, and if they don't, they want to be filled in. So why are we so fascinated with the rich and the famous? What makes us deem them more important than us and valuable of our precious time? Why can many Americans name all five Spice Girls but not the first five US presidents?

It seems that the celebrities themselves can't even answer these questions. On an episode of ABC News' "Nightline," actress Angelina Jolie said, "Why is anybody giving any attention? Because I made a film? Because I wore a dress to something? It's silly, and it feels very shallow.". Although Miss Jolie should have a little more respect for the very thing that funds her paychecks, truer words were never spoken. But this doesn't change how things are.

Perhaps we think their lives are more interesting than our own. We don't party with the world's rich and elite our friends are normal and they all have boring jobs. So when we read about Lindsey Lohan's big birthday bash or Nicole Kidman's fairytale wedding, for a few minutes we can live vicariously through them. This is nothing more than day dreaming. However, some people take it to the next level.

They want to be near the stars, and hopefully someday, they want to be the stars. Los Angeles is crawling with people who want to make it big in the movie industry and call the stars their friends. Even in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we proudly tell our stories of how our friend knows someone who beat up Elijah Wood as a child. "It's a game to catch them, a game to spot them," Tamara Heckert, graduate student at the University of Southern California's film school, says. "[It's] a quest for mystical non-existent bonus points in our make-believe competition with everyone else on the planet." The more run-ins you've had, the cooler you are. Walking past Morgan Freeman in a film-school lobby, being within two feet of George Lucas, or

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