11:23 p.m.:  I ask Robyn Troup, the My Grammy Moment winner, if she ever auditioned for American Idol. "Yes," she says.

11:24 p.m.:  I ask Troup when she auditioned for American Idol. "This season," she says.

11:25 p.m.:  I ask Troup, well, what happened? She looks left. She looks right. "Can't talk about it," she says before being escorted offstage by a squadron of black helicopters.

11:34 p.m.:  Chamillionaire, a winner with Krayzie Bone on "Ridin'," has an announcement: "I have this car that changes colors."

11:35 p.m.:  Okay, I give: How does your car change colors? "It's called chameleon paint," Chamillionaire explains.

11:36 p.m.:  I like Chamillionaire way more than Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband.

11:50 p.m.:  Where was Melissa Etheridge, who'd been a scheduled presenter (and was spelled by a queen, as in Latifah, and a former vice president, as in Al Gore)? "She had a terrible case of the flu," Recording Academy president Neil Portnow tells me in the hall.

11:51 p.m.:  Rock Album winners the Red Hot Chili Peppers are here. And I can't help but notice that they are: (a) musicians; (b) jet-setters; although (c) probably not polka people. In any case, are any of them willing to fess up to the baby-daddy matter? Anthony Kiedis steps forward: "I am Anna Nicole's baby."

12:35 a.m.:  Three subdued (overwhelmed?) Chicks. Five shiny Grammys.

12:36 a.m.:  "Five of five is unbelievable," Natalie Maines says of the Chicks sweep, highlighted by Album of the Year for Taking the Long Way. "I am a little out of touch."

12:37 a.m.:  No, Maines, who made the President Bush remark that sparked the record burnings that inspired "I'm Not Ready to Make Nice," doesn't view the Grammy haul as vindication.

12:38 a.m.:  Yes, Maines views the Grammy haul as something special. "I totally lost it backstage at the end of it all," she says. "It was my first big cry in three years."

12:40 a.m.:  A Grammys flack announces it's a wrap—no more press conferences. No Mary J. Blige? No Tony Bennett? No Justin Timberlake? No answer to the baby cliffhanger?

12:41 a.m.:  It's my first big cry in three years.