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BN: In looking back through the issues, one of the things you noticed is there's no editor. There's sometimes not even a staff box, but oftentimes there is just a list of people. So can you just take me through how a typical issue would come together? I mean, how do you decide what goes in, who decides what's on the cover, and how did it work?

DA: Well, again, I think it was all, like you said, there's no one person in charge. But that actually wasn't quite true. There was always some... at some point, someone was given the responsibility of making sure the edition got done, and it would be passed on to different guys, they would rotate.

BN: So you would have, like, you're responsible for the March issue and someone else for the April issue?

DA: Something like that. And then it would always be in a group situation, so in terms of, for example, the cover, whoever was in charge might have put together some ideas, but he or she would not decide which one, they would all be part of a group, and we would all decide, okay, we'd decide as a group what would be done. And then as far as the content, there was really no editor per se. If you had something you wanted put in, it got put in. [Laughs] Pretty much. So we would end up with this whole collage of different things that we wanted to go into the edition, and the group of us would decide, okay, this, this, this. And then we would be given pages to put together, and depending on if it was a poem or if it was an actual article. Then if it was an article, then we'd have to have it typed out. Back in those days we actually have to have a typewriter. We actually ended up investing in one that could kind of... you know how the columns are a certain width, right? And nowadays it's very easy with computers, but back in those days, to have so many characters in a line, this typewriter would, you were able to kind of program it where it will, when you type out a column, it will type out to that certain width and then move to the next line. Yeah, that typewriter was kind of expensive. I can't remember where we got the money to get that. But that was our, I think our number one major buy. But those were interesting times back then, because today it's all computerized. Back then you'd have to lay out this page, and then we'd edit it, and then if we find a typo, we'd have to actually cut it out of that piece of paper, lift it out, get the corrected piece and paste it right in there. So for young guys out there, that's how it was done back in those days. So yeah, it was kind of fun that way.

BN: Did you have a primary job of laying out, proofreading, or did everybody sort of do everything?

DA: Everyone did a little bit of everything. I think, though, that some people would do what they were better at. I mean, there were good people that were typists. So me, at, like, forty-eight words a minute, not too great, when we had guys that could do a hundred words a minute, so they'd obviously do the typing. But I had to end up doing some typing as well, whenever I had to. And then obviously we had a lot of artists, right, if you saw those articles or the editions, there's about, I'd say about six to seven that would consistently draw something. So I know that they were given themes every now and then, and they'd come up with some illustrations that we'd print. Yeah, so we have these big boards, we'd finally lay 'em out, and then we'd take 'em over to, there was this place out in Glendale that would print it for us. Every year, there was... I know that during the course of those five years, we had to change printers a couple times. Just 'cause either they went out of business or they became too expensive. Those are a lot of all-nighters, lot of all-nighters. I mean, I never did that before, but I got used to it. I don't know how we did it.

BN: For five years.

DA: For five years.

BN: Nobody got paid, right?

DA: Right, nobody got paid.

BN: So how did the finances work? There was subscription income, right?

DA: Right. There was subscription income, there was ad income, and I think we even got a grant from UCLA, not often, but enough. And I know some of us paid out of our own pocket sometimes. But by hook or crook, we were able to raise enough to make the print run. It wasn't that expensive from what I remember. So, yeah.

BN: Got by somehow?

DA: Got by somehow. You're going to have to ask Mike more about that.

BN: Right, right, yeah, I will.

DA: About the finances, because I wasn't involved with any money.

BN: And then in terms of, the way you describe it, you were kind of making these collective decisions. I mean, what happened when there was like a disagreement, or do you remember times where, "Oh, we can't run this article?" Or there was even political disagreement, right, on, "Should we take this position?" "No, no, we should do this." Well, first, did that happen a lot and how were those resolved? Do you remember a particular example?

DA: A particular instance or example? No. But I know that there was a lot, a lot of talking. A lot. And you know, if you ever bothered, on a lot of the issues, or next to the staff, there's blurbs. Those blurbs -- and generally that was either written by Bruce Iwasaki, Mike Murase, just those two, I think. Those will give a reader a sense of what happened that month. When I was going over them, I was kind of reading some of those going, oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, did that happen? I don't remember that. [Laughs]

BN: I noticed those.

DA: To me, that's more interesting reading than some of the articles, right? But yeah, there's a lot of discussion, lot of talk. And for me, I know that I felt that there were times that we were just beating a dead horse and that we're not going to get to any kind of consensus. That was just me trying to be pragmatic, I guess. But never harsh words per se, just agree to disagree. And when that happened, then nothing got done. [Laughs] In some ways, we'd reach an impasse. So I guess it would depend on any particular issue what we'd finally decide on, but I'd imagine that somebody would have just taken the bull by the horns and just make a decision. I think that's kind of what happened, happened at some point.

BN: At a certain point, this issue's got to come out, so someone's got to decide.

DA: That's right.

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