A view from inside

After a long, hard winter's march. the trophy trail ends at the Big Enchilada — the 78th annual Academy Awards. Tonight, my tux gets to take one last cruise around the block, as I am a ticketed and parking-permitted guest at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. My yellow brick road really has led to the Emerald City.

The (cordoned off) boulevard of broken dreams
With the parking permit affixed to my windshield (where big chunks of it will remain when I try to remove it later) I drive to the metal gates placed along Sunset at Wilcox. The police see my permit, wave me past the barricade, and suddenly I am driving down a wide-open Hollywood Boulevard. Well, wide-open save for the cement barriers in the street that force my car through a serpentine, mad-bomber-stopping roundabout.

After parking, I make my way to the red carpet entrance. Before venturing down the carpet proper, one must first pass through a giant white tent that houses a row of magnetometers. The tent is bathed in a pale white glow and cushioned from the pandemonium outside, which makes the effect a bit like the security check-in for heaven.

After passing through security, people huddle at the far end of the tent, composing themselves before making their walk down the carpet de tutti carpets.

The route runs through a canyon of fan bleachers on one side, while the press stands on the other. People hang out of windows from the buildings that line the street, and perch on the El Captain Theatre marquee to watch the spectacle. Everywhere you look, hundreds of camera lenses are pointed at the carpet.

I enter with George Clooney, who calls, "Hello, boys," as he steps before the still photographers. Roger Ebert interviews Dolly Parton. From the bleachers, a fan yells, "Gary Busey! Gary Busey!" If I linger for a moment or my gait slows to less than a brisk crawl, security people pounce and say, "Please keep it moving. Let's get inside the theater."

Where the carpet makes a right turn and goes up the steps into the Kodak, a line of ominous looking women in blue blazers and grey skirts awaits. I talk with their leader, Talcia, who tells me, "We're people movers. We move the people who make this show. If a star is loitering, we say, 'Star, you're loitering. Follow me.'''

Kingdom of gawking
One might expect that after moving past the frenzied fans in the bleachers and the ravenous media hordes, you would enter a pristine collegial world where these attendees, drawn from the top ranks of the industry, would invoke a blasé attitude to the hysteria.

Instead, familiarity seems to have fostered only deeper, if better dressed obsession. The theater lobby is filled with people craning their necks to see who walks in. There are tuxedoed gawkers standing in a line by the door, and more well-clad gawkers hanging down into the stairwell.

The math tells the true story. While this may be the greatest concentration of star power on earth — perhaps as many as 150 stars inhabit the building — that leaves approximately 2,850 seats to be filled by people who are not celebrities.

And though they may be titans of their industry — executives with green-light power at their fingertips, producers and directors, agents whose phone calls make the mighty tremble — the walk down the red carpet reminds everyone there is only one currency that matters: star power.

Either you're a star or you're not, and the majority of people in tuxes decidedly are not.

Pre-show jitters