Imagine that you're making a documentary about baseball. But instead of filming from the sidelines, reading up on the sport, and interviewing players, you boldly bombard the mound, kick the pitcher in the dick, and record the crowd's reaction. You'd probably end up with a movie about angry baseball fans, and perhaps even be able to pepper it with footage of yourself getting tackled by infielders.

I knew that this would be depraved. Not because I came down here with an anus full of substances; if the $50 million in security preemptively accomplished one thing, it was to scare me out of smuggling mushrooms in my undies. Rather, my premonition came at Logan airport, where I sat stranded in the terminal for two hours with the likes of Mitt Romney cohort Eric Fehrnstrom, who's best known lately for boosting Etch A Sketch sales; anti-choice, anti-marijuana, pro-charter school New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte; and Boston Herald gasbag Howie Carr, who was rocking short-shorts and Birkenstocks despite the promise that he'd sport bright-yellow hurricane year

Richard Harding Wood was riled up before Occupy. Along with other friends from Malden, the then-20-year-old started coming into Boston on weekends early last year wielding placards to protest the Federal Reserve Bank. So when Occupy Boston settled across Atlantic Ave from the Fed in late-September, it was a no-brainer for Wood to get involved.

Last night in Chicago was surreal . . . There was zero violence, unconditional love, and peaceful pandemonium. I accidentally stepped on some dude’s Jordans and he shook my hand . . . Cell phone lines were so jammed that people couldn’t reach one another, but I was far from alone. I must have wrapped my arms around 100 people .

As is becoming increasingly evident, the actions surrounding NATO add up to a perpetual protest. There's no beginning or end, with shit popping from activist crash pads to streets across the city, where clashes with police are getting more frequent and more intense around every corner. In the past few days I've had countless conversations with journalists, Occupiers, and every type of reporter and aggregator in-between about how most of us won't be able to file extensive accounts until things slow down a bit, since every second spent writing inside is a second that we could and should be documenting from the front lines.

I wasn't even at Daley Plaza for two minutes when I ran into Vermin Supreme. From Austin to Boston to here, I've seen him more than I've seen my family over the last six months . . .

Like Vermin, there were a few thousand other heads out there assembling peacefully at the National Nurses United rally . . .

I'm not following Tom Morello around the country. It might seem that way; in the past few months I've caught him at South by Southwest in Texas, and a few weeks ago for May Day in New York City, where the Rage legacy and Occupy icon organized a GUITARMY to stomp some blacktop swinging axes. But while Morello will indeed be in Chicago today, kicking for tens of thousands in Daley Plaza, his street-side spectacular is hardly the main selling point for my trek to the Windy.

Dear Readers,

At long last, I'm having a New York City release party for my Occupy book, 99 Nights with the 99 Percent. Better yet I'm doing it the night before May Day (on Monday, April 30), and one block from Zuccotti park, where this whole thing began. If you're in the area, it would mean a lot to me if you stopped by.

Readers of the Phoenix don't need to be told that CHRIS FARAONE has got #Occupy coverage on lock -- you've been reading his dispatches from #OccupyBoston (and Wall Street, Florida too many more to list . . . ) since the beginning of the movement. Still, we wanted to point out that we're not the only ones who think Faraone's shit is awesome.

First of all, I want to say that everyone feels just awful about the polite woman who lives in Harbor Towers, and who had to sit in traffic for a full half-hour one day last Fall on account of Occupy Boston marching down Atlantic Ave. In a way, she's a bold representation of all the apathetic martyrs who've been inconvenienced by the countless people who are standing up for jobs and civil rights.

Chris Faraone, our fabled staff writer, embedded Occupy correspondent, and author of the newly-published 99 Nights with the 99 Percent -- out now, get a copy tonight when he reads at Brookline Booksmith -- was sparring with WRKO's Tom & Todd this morning when they called in reinforcements: for the last ten minutes of an hour-long talk-radio battle over the Occupy movement, Faraone went mano-a-mano with right-wing provocateur and all-around awful human ANDREW BREITBART, last seen outside CPAC screaming at Occupy protestors to "stop raping people

The best way to comprehend the nuts and bolts of the American political machine is to work for it. And so I did. For Newt Gingrich.

Situated in downtown Manch next to a cigar shop, the office broadcasts the message that Newt wants you to know that the good people of New Hampshire like him. Really like him.

Enough with all the bullshit about how much New Hampshire residents know about politics. And about how everyone who lives here has had numerous dinner dates with each of the candidates, in which they've discussed Iranian nuclear proliferation over porterhouses. It's nonsense, and if you don't believe me, then ask any average “undecided” voter what they think of Rick Santorum's foreign policy, or Ron Paul's vintage collection of Nike Airs.

Dispatch from Boston Phoenix New Hampshire correspondent Dan McCarthy:

MANCHESTER – Rick Santorum wants to be like Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaign New Hampshire Primary. He wants to compare his plight here against Mitt Romney to how the Gipper came around and whooped George H. W. Bush, who eventually conceded and accepted the VP nod.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day for #OccupyBoston: arguing the constitutional merits of Dewey Square in state court, getting their sink bogarted by BPD. So we totally understand if you missed that our easter-egg meme from last week's paper -- #OCCUTAN, created by Phoenix design director Kevin Banks -- was declared "winner of the internet" by some dudes on Reddit