Did you you read Caitlin Hernandez's LAist longread about the history of LAX and how to keep it from driving you totally around the bend? This time on Off-Ramp we're digging into one of the most surprising and weirdest aspects of the airport's history ... when the airport created a ghost-town that today resembles what LA will look like a few months after the apocalypse. We'll drive there with author Denise Hamilton, who set a novel there, and a former resident.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.

When the Grammy Museum honored Big Jay McNeely in 2017, when he was 90, they said:

McNeely is a true original and the last of a generation of blues/R&B musicians who inspired the early rock pioneers, and are still around to remind us where popular music came from.

As Off-Ramp jazz correspondent Sean J. O'Connell put it when he interviewed him for the show: 

"Big Jay McNeely was etched into pop music immortality in 1951. Photographer Bob Willoughby captured McNeely at a concert at Los Angeles's Olympic Auditorium 1951. In the photo, the Watts native is blasting his tenor sax on his back, the camera capturing the raised fists of post-war teenage hysteria seething in undershirts and pompadours at the foot of the stage. From Central Avenue with Charlie Parker and Art Tatum in the 1940s to the R&B circuit of the '50s and '60s, McNeely was there through a roller coaster of musical evolutions and had a good time along the way. His showmanship and soul are both youthful and timeless. He is rock & roll history, alive and well."

Big Jay died a year later, but not before our listeners got to hear his story, and now you do, too.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.

Bob Willoughby photo used with permission from his estate.

An Off-Ramp Memorial Day Special ... the youngest man on the list remembers Oskar Schindler ... Louis Zamperini, torpedoed, remembers life on a raft in the Pacific and in a Japanese POW camp ... Kevin Ferguson's Grandma and the USS Indianapolis ... an Iraqi vet remembers ... stories from Vietnam War correspondents and photojournalists ... helping grieving Marine families cut through the red tape ...

EatLA talks perfect pizza and LA's best Chinese food ... Highland Park reactivates a neighborhood treasure ... Hard Times ...

John Rabe's veg oil diary ... Charles Solomon on the pros and cons of animation art auctions ... beer tasting for women ... Frank McCourt's secret plan backfires ... Madeleine Brand can't break up with her car, but she kinda wants to ... Tess Vigeland of Marketplace Money tals carbuying strategies ...

In-depth Off-Ramp interview with Newton Minow, 85, on his "Vast Wasteland" speech of May 9, 1961. It shook up the television industry and is considered one of the most important speeches of the 20th century. Many of its criticisms are true of television today. Off-Ramp host John Rabe also talks with broadcast historian Robert Thompson, and actor Don Murray, who took a role in episodic TV because of the speech. He says TV was a "vast wasteland" for actors, too.

Newton Minow on his "Vast Wasteland" speech ... 10 years of movies in a spooky setting ... Re-Animator: the musical ... inside JPL ... America's new most wanted terrorist a So Cal native?

Cleaning up the LA River ... RIP Eldon Davis, the father of Googie ... SPARKING kids' futures ... 36th Congressional race forum ...

LA County's ribbon-cutting scissors ... Dinner Party Download ... May Day rallies and Coming Out as illegal ... new folk rock singalong songs ... EatLA talks with Susan Feniger of Street Restaurant ...

Sanden Totten meets the mother of all potholes ... John Frame explains his new Huntington exhibit ... Nick Waterhouse's music ... Dinner Party Download ... Gary Leonard turns 60 with a big sale ... Passover in the Desert ...