Something of the works of Mouse

This story is about Stanley Mouse and how Mouse and Kelly and a few thousand friends staggered the commercial and graphic art worlds and the world in general as a result of a lot of smoking of the sacred muggles.

Mouse lives in Detroit and pinstripes cars, has long hair for which he is kicked out of high school, goes to junior college, flunks out, goes to art school, quits, goes back, draws monsters on sweatshirts at the state fair and makes a fortune at it. Gets high and deep into as they say Fine Arts. School again. Then LSD , and “everything falls apart.” No more schooP for Mouse. Instead he goes to San Francisco.

“The heavies in the poster scene in San Francisco Were: first, Kelly, who did the poster for the first Family Dog dance. Kelly was one of the founding members of the Dog. Fie named it. Wes Wilson. He designed the Family Dog Logo and did the first few posters. Then came Moscoso and Rick Griffin. Moscoso is a technical genius'. Griffin’s work is indescribably deliscious.” 1

Mouse hooked up with Kelly. Still is, in fact. “Everybody danced like crazy. Jumped up and down as high as they could jump. The posters reflected it all. Then came the big summer that was felt all over the world. Thousands invaded San Francisco. Thus, the Human Be-in. A grand year.”

The major media picked up on posters. Posters began to sell big and a thousand poster companies blossomed everywhere. (Today you get a poster with a subscription to Snow Tire World or a six pack of beer. Peter Max is a neo-psychetropic millionaire. So What?)

What can happen after the orgasm of 1967? San. Francisco, raped by the media, trips, stumbles and falls. “1968. The down year. The day after the party.” A year of stagnation and Mouse splits for London.

“It was the first time that I realized that there was more than America — Americans seem to think that they are all that is. London was a very hard learning experience. 1 had to scale down all my habits and thoughts and patterns and realize that America is a total ‘pop’ culture. A free-for-all with little tradition. It changed all my notions about _the world, made me realize how much we are culturally starved, and.how gross we are as a people and small minded and narrow and BOGUE. All Americans that I saw looked like (1959 Chewies,”

But there was no money in London. Most of the jobs he was offered paid less than he could see doing them for at all so most everything he did he did for free, like a couple of pages in the illustrated Beatle lyrics book. And came back to the USA where he now lives in Boston where he and Kelly have a studio and do things like the new Timothy Leary album cover.

So after Mouse, along with Kelly and a few thousand friends smoked a lot of the sacred muggles and staggered the commercial and graphic art worlds and the wo'rld in general and got kind of blown back by all those worlds in their turn he did the cover for this issue of CREEM. Now look at the posters.

Something of the works of Mouse

Deday LaRene