Last week’s Audie Awards, honoring the best audiobooks of the previous year, was held in the glamorous Rainbow Room on the 52nd floor of Rockefeller Center. I have a friend who attended two Academy Awards ceremonies (once as a seat filler to keep the auditorium looking full when celebrities ran to the bathroom and once to escort winners from backstage to all the press rooms) and he said it was interminable. So, the Audie Awards is really in good company.

On average, the last few Oscar telecasts ran three hours; last Friday’s Audie Awards ran two hours and twenty minutes…unless you count the three hour cocktail party/dinner that proceeded it.

I’m not saying I don’t want to be invited back. Considering that there were awards to be given in 32 different categories, the presenters tried to keep the show moving at a fast clip (and happily, each set of presenters handed out more than one award while at the podium).

And its great fun to put faces to the voices you hear on countless recordings. The celebrities at the Audies are like celebrities at the Tony Awards: huge in their field and virtually unknown to the outside world. In some ways, that adds to their status as cult celebrities that are only recognizable by insiders. You have to be one of the cool kids to recognize Simon Vance, Barbara Rosenblat, Scott Brick or Joyce Bean.

My assigned tablemates at the dinner were a motley group. There was the CEO of Listen and Live Audio; the owner of a recording studio; a reporter for CBS News; a novice narrator; two gay documentary filmmakers and a chatty Scientologist who controlled the publishing rights to L. Ron Hubbard. Egged on by several glasses of wine and a detailed explanation of how we could each rehabilitate our thetan, I asked, “Isn’t Scientology homophobic?” Oh no, protested Hubbard’s rights keeper, “Scientology is about solving problems. If you think homosexuality is a problem, then we can help you solve it. I don’t actually understand homosexuality but I don’t think it’s as bad a murder.” That brought a hush to the table.

“So, why are so many celebrity Scientologists rumored to be gay?” I asked. She didn’t know but reassured me that Tom Cruise wasn’t gay. “He’s married,” she said as if there could be no stronger proof. So, we waited until she left the table to discuss everyone’s favorite topic: who is gay in Hollywood? One tablemate said Penelope Cruz was gay. Had our Scientologist been there I’m sure she would have scoffed by reminding us that Cruz had previously dated Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey. Which, of course, would have proven our point.