It's early Monday morning, and on the north side of AmericanAirlines Arena is a densely packed crowd of thousands of people who truly believe they have exceptional musical talent. They've been herded between barricades, where they've been waiting patiently in the humid darkness, some of them for hours, not unlike cattle, except that instead of mooing, every minute or so somebody deep in the sweating mass belts out a random snippet of a song such as Unchained Melody, as if this person simply cannot hold his or her talent inside any longer without exploding in a blinding fireball of musical excellence.

Why are these people, some of whom have come great distances, here at this insane hour? They're here because they have a dream. It's a dream shared by millions of Americans, a belief that if they put themselves in the right place at the right time, and catch a lucky break, maybe -- just maybe -- they will get . . .

An American Idol wristband!

That's the most they can hope to get today. The wristband would entitle them to return two days later and wait hours again for a 30-second audition that will maybe get them called back in September, when they will get another audition that will maybe get them to a third audition for the actual Idol judges -- Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell -- who will conclude that, in the vast majority of cases, they suck. Each judge will indicate this in his or her trademark style:

• Randy, after calling the contestant ''dog'' to indicate that Randy has street cred and is a nice guy who likes the contestant personally, will regretfully note that the performance was ''a little pitchy,'' a technical musical term meaning that the contestant sounds like a cat trapped in a microwave oven set on ``popcorn.''

• Paula will do her best to form a coherent sentence saying something nice about the contestant, which is very difficult because the words are apparently being transmitted to Paula's brain one letter at a time from a completely different galaxy.

• Simon, with the facial expression of a man passing a live badger through his digestive system, will say something cruel. Simon is always irritated during auditions because (a) he wants a cigarette; (b) he's sick and tired of listening to these pathetic delusional people who, without getting a nickel, allow themselves to be exploited and humiliated by a TV show that makes millions and millions of dollars for . . . OK, for Simon . . . but he's still irritated because (c) he really wants a cigarette.

But most of the people waiting outside the arena this morning will never get as far as the judges, because most of them are just not as great at singing as they believe they are and their friends and moms have told them they are.

They don't know this, of course. They believe they are major talents, about to be discovered. When I talk to people in the crowd at random, almost every one, without being prompted, says, with real conviction, ''I'm going to be the next American Idol!'' It's actually quite moving, by which I mean scary.

Finally, at 6:35 a.m., the producers announce that they're going to start letting people into the arena, in groups of 50, to register for the auditions. The massive talent herd, still emitting random song snippets, lurches forward. I'm standing off to the side with several other professional journalists when an intense pony-tailed man in a tank top breaks away from the crowd to talk to us. He's 28-year-old Michael Westbrook, although he informs us that his stage name is Mikel Shane. He came from Eureka, Mo., to audition.

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