"The Oscars are green…I noticed in the bathroom there was a sign that all the toilet paper is recycled."

On my other side a man offers a mock cheer, "Hooray! We're green."

Whatever you say, Mr. Eastwood… Clint Eastwood enters the bar carrying a plastic container of Kodak Theater sushi. The crowd duly and gives him a space at the bar where he is monopolized by Fox's dean of the gossip corps, Roger Friedman. When "Happy Feet" wins, the unflappable Eastwood seems momentarily aroused. "George Miller, he's a great director," he says. "He's also a physician."

"Really?" I ask.

Eastwood nods. Whether it's true or not, no one is going to argue with Clint.

Stars--they're just like us I hear an amazing story from the wait staff that Peter O' Toole just wandered from the lobby into the kitchen. When one of the waiters asked, "Can I help you?" He replied, "Oh, I'm just looking around" and proceeded to inspect the contents of the pantry.

At another break, Sasha Baron Cohen makes plans with his parents to rendezvous after the show. Jennifer Hudson wanders through with director Bill Condon and is immediately set upon by a string of reporters who emerge from the corners of the room.

In the bar, I eavesdrop on a conversation between Cate Blanchett, Peter Saarsgard, Maggie Gyllenhaal and, briefly, Sasha Baron Cohen. I am distressed, downright heartbroken, that over the course of 20 minutes these respected thespians say not one thing remotely interesting.

They discuss how to use their Blackberries, jet lag, pictures of kids…very much like every conversation I've had with every one of my most boring friends with whom I have nothing in common.

Depressing beyond description to think that these people sit here at the center of the center of the universe and still have to politely make banal chit-chat with semi-strangers. If they can't break free of that, what hope is there for me?

The home stretch As the show crosses the three-hour mark, the crowd in the theater seems excited but entirely deflated, if that is possible. The Michael Mann montage is viewed as a room might watch a commercial when it is too tired to change the channel.

But as the final Big Awards come on, it's time to sit up straight and pay attention. Wins by Forest Whitaker and Martin Scorsese get big whoops of applause from the invigorated crowd. When it comes time to hand out the big one, the crowd braces itself, murmurs "Oh" … and immediately races for the exits.

Even the DJ music and the dancing man and good feelings for Scorsese can't dilute the crowd's need to not be sitting in these seats anymore.

And so AA79 lurches to a halt. As the celebs and industry types surge toward the Governor's Ball, there's still a sense of euphoria that even the four hours, the extraneous clips reals, and the tedious acceptance speeches cannot take away.

In fact, maybe those things even increase the luster. For all its foibles and bloatedness, there is no event on Earth that can match the high-octane glamour and vertigo-inducing sensation that comes from standing on top of the world at Oscar night.

Presidential inaugurations and Super Bowls try for star quality, but Oscar has it in sewn right into its double helix. And that is why, for all the bother, no one ever regrets coming down to the Kodak.