Parked in the Park

I got to do a really fun story on abandoned cars hikers and bikers can see in the woods around Westchester. 
Entitled "Dude, Where's My Car?" the story looked at wrecked autos at Graham Hills, Cranberry Lake and a few other parks around Westchester.
Some of the cars are really old, like from the '50s, I learned. They're not going anywhere.
I'm always pleased when my reporting involves hiking in the woods.

New Gig For Megan Fox

I got to chat with Megan Fox about her new gig as host, and creator, of Legends of the Lost on Travel Channel.
Here's a little something Fox, who you may have seen in the Transformers movies, or in 40-Year-Old Virgin, said about the show.
I’ve always been really interested in archeological mysteries. Not necessarily the nitty gritty of the science of archaeology, but what archaeology can expose, what it can bring to life. I was like 29 and felt it was time to start doing what I love, and wondered how I could make it happen. I wasn’t really passionate about creating a scripted show or trying to write a movie. I realized I could probably make a documentary of some sort about these things. We pitched it for a couple years and we finally sold it.

Nice Cache!

Geocaching.
I learned about this pastime--using a mobile app to locate little boxed treasures hidden in the woods at a park near you--as a Cub Scout leader.
I wrote about it for the NY Times over the summer. 

Jeremy Jacobowitz and John Mitchell were on the hunt for treasure in Central Park. Mr. Jacobowitz consulted the coordinates on his phone as a misty rain fell. He and Mr. Mitchell were geocaching, and if past experience was any guide, they would most surely find something. In nine years as a geocacher, Mr. Jacobowitz has discovered more than 8,200 caches, as the treasures are known, ranking him very near the top of the heap among New York City players. Mr. Mitchell counts his haul at around 3,600.

If golf is a good walk spoiled, geocaching is a good walk enhanced by digital devices and GPS coordinates, where hidden treasures are in parks and other public spaces. “Treasures” may be a bit overstated. The prizes may be a sew-on patch, a Matchbox car, a piece of costume jewelry. Each cache includes a small notebook or scroll for the finder to log in their name and the date they found it. Then the cache is returned to its hiding spot.

Vinyl Destination

Record stores aren't quite dead. In fact, they are coming back.
I did a page one story about record stores in our area for the Journal News. 

The latest addition to Hawthorne’s diminutive downtown is a blast from the past, but one that looks well positioned for the future.

Big Jim’s Records opened in April, selling those big, round vinyl discs from yesteryear. A record store may seem as relevant in the internet age as a Fotomat, but owner Jim Gibson said business is cranking.

“Word got out quickly that there is a record store in the area,” said Gibson, who is 50. “It’s working out very well.”

'Man v. Food' Visits Westchester

I got to write a little something about the Travel Channel series, Man v. Food, and some trips the show, and its new host, Casey Webb, were making to Westchester County's River Towns for the new season. That was for Westchester's own Journal News. 

Webb visited Dobbs Dawg House in Dobbs Ferry, The Oath Craft Beer Sanctuary in Tarrytown and J.P. Doyle’s in Sleepy Hollow, and tried some funky foods at each joint.

“What a beautiful spot that was,” says Webb, a Jersey Shore native who said he’d had little exposure to Westchester before this trip.

Man v. Food  sees a restaurateur lay down a challenge to host Webb each episode; it may involve spicy food, such as the habanero ghost chili wings he had at the Lunchbox on Staten Island, or an enormous portion, such as the four-and-a-half-pound Reuben sandwich he encountered in Milwaukee, and a dozen hot dogs at Dobbs Dawg House.

Capturing Happy Days of Yore in the Irish Catskills

I got to write a little something...OK, not that little a something...about a place that was very special to me as a very pasty kid.
If you're wondering just how pasty I was, click on the link. 
It's an essay on summers spent in the Irish Catskills--not just by me, but by Irish immigrants decades before that, and those who continue to visit the diminished, but still active, Irish community a few hours north of NYC today.
A snippet:

Every year, we would spend a week at the O’Neill House, one of around three dozen Irish resorts in East Durham at the time. We would wake up groggily with the breakfast bell, spend hours in the pool, hike the mountain behind the ball field, build rock dams in the creek and play baseball until the crickets came out. Our parents would then put us to bed and, along with the rest of the grown-ups, walk up the hill to the pub for live Irish music and dancing.

Three decades removed from those vacations, there I was, driving my own children to the Irish Catskills. Or what’s left of them.

The Times ran it on the front page of its Sunday "Metropolitan" section in late August.

My Novel is Out!

Betsy Town, which is book No. 3 of my Tompkins Trilogy, three standalone novels set around Tompkins Square Park, is out. Unlike the first two, much of Betsy Town is set in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which gives the novel its title.

The main character is David. Three decades before, his mentally imbalanced mother stood on the train tracks at Elizabeth Station, her baby in her arms. David survived.
This is his story. 

Wrote John Roche, author of "Bronx Bound": “From the first page to the very last, readers feel as though there’s a speeding train heading right for us as we accompany David Campion on his complicated quest for sanity, happiness and wholeness. Michael J. Malone’s gift for dark humor makes this madcap journey even more worth the ride.”

If you're curious about, ya know, reading the book, you can grab a copy here. 

I'll be having my book party at Captain Lawrence Brewing in Elmsford, NY Feb. 21.