Mickey's News and Views

Jan. 5, 2000

Hi Everyone,

Well, the holidays are over and it's back to normal. So, I thought it was time to sit down and let you know what's been happening on this end of the line. I finally got the chance to have April and her friend, Vicky visit Phyllis and me during the holidays. That was fun for all of us.

Vicky and Mickey in front of his wall of gold records.

I hope all of you had the very best of holidays. I pray your Christmas was full of the reason for the season and it brought your family together. I also hope that the new year was wonderful. Ours was. We stayed right at home and enjoyed ABC-TV's coverage of the new century coming in all around the world. They must make a home video available to all of us. I know I'd buy one. I am very fortunate. As a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I have received all of the possible nominees for Oscars on either video or DVD. We have a 7 foot video screen with 4 channel quad surround sound. I also have a theatre type popcorn popper.
(April's note: April thought this popcorn popper was way too cool!)

So, we popped a load of popcorn, watched a little TV and a couple of movies. It was wonderful just to be at home.

Now,Y2K. I've been telling everyone for the past 8 months that nothing was going to happen. I have never believed in the doomsday effect. A neighbor down the street stockpiled 6 months worth of food and water. He bought a generator, took all his money out of the bank and basically locked himself in his house waiting for the world to end. He recently mentioned that he now felt like the biggest fool in town. He became a sucker to the media hype. A friend of mine suggested that I unplug my computer from the wall on the 31st of December and plug it back in the next afternoon. The reason was nothing more than to prevent a surge of power that could possibly effect things even with the computer turned off. I did unplug it and the next day I plugged it back in and everything was just fine. So much for Y2K. However, I am a little concerned about Y3K.

The months of January and February I will be very busy watching films that will be up for consideration in the Foreign Film category and the Documentary category as well as the normal films that will be up for Academy Awards.

For those of you in Florida, I will be playing in the Tim Wakefield Celebrity Golf Tournament in Melbourne, Florida the third weekend of January. Tim Wakefield is a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox. A nice guy. That will be a lot of fun. Then tax weekend, April 15th, I will be in Scottsdale, Arizona at the Alice Cooper Celebrity Golf Tournament. Those of you close enough to come by, I highly recommend doing so. It is a blast and tons of celebrities. Alice Cooper is truly one of the greatest guys around.

Now, I will be doing something this year that I have never done. I am very excited. I will be joining Kyle Petty of NASCAR in his charity motorcycle ride across America. We leave California Motor Speedway on April 30th and ride our motorcycles across America. We end up in Richmond, Virginia May 7th then on to North Carolina to Kyle Petty's home for a big concert May 8th. I will fly home one tired puppy but it is for charity and it's something I have never done before and I want to do it. My wife, Phyllis, is very excited about it as well. Her words to me were, "You should do it. It is a feat that you will be glad and proud of for the rest of your life". She's right. I'm very excited. Speedvision will be shooting the entire event for a special to be aired later in the year. As soon as I get that date, I will let you know.
(April's note:I will document the start of the race and post pictures for you all to see.)

Well, that's about it from here. Again, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. I wish you the best 2000 possible. We'll do a chat soon. April will let you know when.

Till then, all my personal best and God Bless!!!!!

Mickey

(April's note:Mickey has collected an incedible amount of memorabilia through out his career. I was especially impressed with the framed picture of Mickey and The Beatles so casually hung on the wall as if they were photo's of the family!

Everywhere we turned there were more celebrities to look at! It was so much fun, and due to time restraints, we only got to see a small part of what is in that office! I had never seen a gold record up close before, so this too impressed me! I can't wait to go back!)

This is rug was made just for Mickey.