ike every good American kid, I grew up obsessed with celebrities. I practiced Michael Jackson's moonwalk in my bedroom. I wore the torn motorcyle glove of Billy Idol videos and the rubber bracelets of Madonna's "Lucky Star" phase. In fifth grade, my friend Christine and I entertained each other on the phone with elaborate celebrity fantasies in which we were the stars.
"You're outside a Duran Duran concert, and someone walks up behind you. It's John Taylor. He looks totally cute, just like he did in the "Rio" video. He says, 'Weren't you in the third balcony at our show just now? I noticed you. Maybe you'd like to join me and the band at our hotel suite.'"
We went on like this for hours.
Even now, I'm still powerless in the grips of celebrity. I had to cut off my supply of Entertainment Weekly and Vanity Fair, but give me a few minutes in a grocery store line and I'm bingeing on the glossies to find out if Julia and Danny are going to tie the knot, whether Britney and Justin are on the outs. It's a sickness, I know, but what can I do? It's the great American soap opera, well-scripted, with perfect lighting.

This brings us to the Star Maps. Star Maps are the natural outgrowth of our slavering tabloid culture. Give a few bucks to the sad-eyed old man sitting in a lawn chair off Sunset and you have a roadmap to American royalty. This is where the stars live, where the secret drama unfolds, where the sex parties and the coke binges go down right past those doors, where there's no excess a little yoga and Scientology can't fix. All this for only $8, my friend. And if Julie happens to have a Star Map buried somewhere in her car, then your Star Map free.

I set off toward Beverly Hills in search of celebrities, and I started with the biggest of them all:

* CRUISE, TOM

I inched my way down the zig-zagged, golden streets, lined with perfect palm trees, no one outside but the Mexican gardeners wearing baseball caps and sweat-soaked T-shirts. People behind me honked; I flipped them the bird. I was giddy with the idea of it: Tom Cruise's house. But wait. What is this? This is not a house. It is a towering hedge built so that people with Star Maps can't actually see the house. Hey, that's not fair. Now, look, I didn't think Tom would be sitting on his porch, handing out spice cake and candy apples, but I thought I might see his damn house. I look at the map again. What does that asterisk beside his name mean?

* = former residence

So Tom Cruise doesn't even LIVE here anymore? He lived here ONCE? This house I can't see isn't even HIS? I am staring at hedges he might have once stared at. I move on:

CAGE, NICOLAS

Same story. All I can make out is a "Beware Dog" sign on one of the red-brick turrets. This sucks. The stars are way ahead of me and my cheap voyeurism. Okay, okay, I know they want their "privacy." I know they're "real people." But what happened to the day when celebrities flaunted their fame? When they were proud to live in their suffocating fishbowl? I need a good, bottom-rung celebrity excited to be on the Star Maps. I need Geraldo. I need Tony Danza. I need:

LOAF, MEAT

But blasted if Meat Loaf's home isn't being torn down. The Star Maps are a total bust. And here I am, nearly out of LA without one decent brush with fame.

This is where "The Jay Leno Show" comes in. It's free, and it's easy to get tickets, and I know at the very least, there will be celebrities. There have to be celebrities. It's part of the deal. So I wait in the line with all the other tourists, take my seat in the last row, clap and smile and honk when they tell me to, watch the machine at work. Of all the jokes, none was funnier than the one played on me: Tonight's musical guest -- Michael Bolton!