Did you see Ashton’s dreamy pink suit?

?She grew up in east LA watching celebrities living out all her dreams. The plastic canopy of… ?She grew up in east LA watching celebrities living out all her dreams. The plastic canopy of U.S. royalty drew her gaze toward the sky, away from her own mind, and it took bites out of her insides till she was just a hollow shell.?

– Saves the Day, Cars and Calories

The link advises me to ?Take a gander at Ashton?s pretty pink pantsuit.? The guy annoys me but I click anyway. I guess there?s just something about a college dropout from Iowa who lands Demi Moore. And ? while guessing all that ? I guess it?s remarkable that I know these things: Ashton Kutcher is from Iowa, he dropped out of college to pursue modeling, and he is now dating Demi Moore. If they break up tomorrow, I?ll know about it before bedtime.

On certain rainy days I?ve missed classes because I was too caught up in an episode of VH1?s The Fabulous Life of [whomever]. If I can?t spend $10,000 a night on a hotel room, I?d at least like to hear about someone who can. It?s not about jealousy, it?s about irrational fascination: Jay Leno owns 160 cars and Mariah Carey once filled her bathtub with 68 bottles of Cristal. I?m not interested in Pink?s music, but for some reason I will read about her feud with Christina Aguilera, or the latter?s feud with Kelly Osbourne, or the latter latter?s feud with, yes, Bob Dole.

I don?t like boy bands either, but I?ve seen Justin Timberlake?s crib, and I was interested ? and a little confused ? to learn that the boys from O-Town were all living together in one house. I know that Mark Wahlberg?s brother was in New Kids on the Block and that Lance Bass tried to buy his way into outer space. I know what Nick Lachey?s wife got him for Valentine?s Day.

I don?t go out of my way to find this information, but it has a way of finding me, and I just sort of absorb it all. Magazine covers, commercials, newspapers, television shows, pre-movie preview trivia questions ? celebrity profiles and much-hyped gossip are everywhere. Celebs sell themselves and I end up buying them; with my money and my time, my interest, and somehow, my emotional attachment. Then there?s the Internet.

At E! Online I accidentally discovered a wealth of useless information about celebrity life, including even the most mundane of details. One feature, called ?Tops ?o the Tabs,? records the weekly number of column inches allotted to certain individuals in popular publications. Tom Cruise got 783 for dumping Penelope Cruz last week; Paris Hilton got 251 for doing her nails. While backstage for his appearance on Live with Regis and Kelly, Clay Aiken went ballistic after asking for a Pepsi and being handed a Coke: ?What part of Pepsi don?t you understand?!?

E! gossip columnist Ted Casablanca makes a living reporting on facts like these, which would have to strike me as extremely pathetic if I hadn?t just spent 15 minutes reading his column myself. If there?s a fool and a fool who follows him, then the bigger fool would be?.

E!?s Web site also features a game in which you practice identifying celebrities in a crowd and snapping their photos, paparazzi-style. The paparazzi, for the record, now have their own show. Of the 12 individuals I shot, one turned out to be Jean Claude Van-Damme, one was Brad Pitt, and the remaining 10 were marked ?Nobodies.? Most of them were partially covering their faces, so I didn?t notice whether or not any of them was me.

I could diagnose this phenomenon pretty easily in a number of different ways, most likely pointing out how sick it is and trying to lead the revolution. Celebrities are people just like us! Be bound by their yoke no longer! Free your mind and kill your television! But that doesn?t seem entirely practical. In an electronic world, local flavors tend to get overlooked and then replaced by tedium from California. If a kid from Portland, Maine would bump into a kid from Phoenix, Arizona on a street in Lincoln, Nebraska, they could become fast friends over a discussion of the Kobe Bryant trial or quotes from The Simpsons. Computers and cable have developed a media mold, shaping our minds and directing our attention toward personalities and events from different states and larger scales. And we find ourselves enjoying it.

If George Clooney ever gets married ? for some reason I?m well aware that he hasn?t yet ? reporters and photographers will hunt down his secluded island chapel and flock there like remoras to a shark. The pictures will run in magazines and I will stop in the check-out lane to scan the details. Then, if someone else asks if I read about it, I will say of course, and we will begin a conversation. Sure, if someone else were to ask about Pittsburgh?s financial troubles I wouldn?t know. But seriously, we?re talking George Clooney here ?

Eric Miller plans to drop out of school to pursue modeling and, later, a relationship with Diane Keaton. E-mail him at save101@hotmail.com.