NOT ONLY Harvard is difficult, however--BAD is also doing battle with the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce. The newspaper had asked the Chamber of Commerce to distribute free copies at its Information Bureau as a means of spreading information about the city. In order for this to be possible, they were told, BAD must first be a member of the Chamber of Commerce--for $100. "I told them we'd support them if they could show that what they were doing was not for self-interest and not opposed to the good of the city," Lewis said. "Meanwhile convention chairmen arrange for copies of BAD in advance to demonstrate how exciting Boston can be--precisely what the Chamber of Commerce should be doing in the first place. But the Chamber of Commerce, unlike Harvard, has never been accused of thinking big."

The eager people in the Boylston St. office are glad to tell these stories; when they talk about their paper pride spills all over. "We're untouchable," Lewis says. "We won't give advertisers irrelevant publicity simply because they're our advertisers, so we can't have trouble." Mindich interrupts. " Awareness of BAD has spread on its own--we've done virtually no self-promotion." But the real interest of these people is in their future, the future of Boston After Dark--and what lies beyond.

What started as a four-page paper now averages 28 pages each week. Circulation has grown from 40 schools to over 100. And the BAD people aren't planning to stop here.

"The horizons of what we can do are expanding," Lewis said. "Our feelings toward BAD have not changed, but they have refined--we better understand what we are doing. We want to expand the cultural horizons of the city; we want to print the finest reviews; we want whatever can be done with honesty and integrity."

"The problem in expansion," said Sullivan, "is to find the same kind of people. BAD is something you become part of." "Our people give all because they want to give all, because they're doing something worthwhile," Mindich added. "We don't paly them to work 12 to 12."

ALONG the new horizon is a national publication--Word--that will begin publishing in three or four weeks. Word will deal with books and records in the BAD style, and will be distributed to college students throughout the country, shipping out of the Boston office. The first issue, with a quarter million circulation, will be distributed free, Lewis said, but a paid circulation is planned for the future.

A second new venture is Cleveland After Dark, with its own office in Cleveland. Printing date is set for March 3. "And we have people contacted in a large number of other cities," Lewis said.

So Boston After Dark has become a rich newspaper. And the demand it created was so great that even Parke Sullivan couldn't get tickets to Rosencrantz. And they're moving the garbage to make room for Ken Opin. And Steve Mindich, who was one of five young critics in the nation chosen as a Eugene O' Neill Memorial Foundation Fellow, wears a pink and green and yellow tie patterned like a Mondrian painting. And there's birthday party for a newspaper on March 4. And a Business School graduate is interested in expanding Boston's cultural horizons. And we may not be able to get our free copies anymore, unlike Cardinal Cushing College or Katharine Gibbs. So what. Just listen to the nice people smile when they tell you about integrity, and believe them