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.

Does true love exist? Can you dig safely out a million pounds of dirt from under your house? Can you win a dinner party in 8 and a half minutes?

Hank Rosenfeld asks people, "What's the Richest You've Ever Been?" ... A Life of Crime - How the Scam Works ... EatLA: Happy Hours ... New Music Night at the Crawford Family Forum ... English Dracula v. Spanish Dracula ... the Car Culture and the SoCal Economy ... is the 14th District Council race about to go nuclear? ...

Wayne White's one man stage show ... Hard Times goes to South Central ... Dinner Party Download ... Vang Pao -- Arlington bound? ... Pluto's Assassin ... LA Phil and Dudamel go to Europe ...

Ron Perlman and Nameer El-Kadi on "Quest for Fire," one of their most demanding films ... Vietnamese cuisine from North to South ... getting through Hard Times with Pasadena's Union Rescue Mission ... personal finance for kids ... mobile murals ... Mark Peel says, "Skip culinary school." ... Pacific Serenades marks 25th year of chamber music with piece by Army major ... This Old House in Silverlake

Ron Perlman and Nameer El-Kadi tell Off-Ramp's John Rabe about their first movie: 1981's "Quest for Fire," a landmark film about human life on Earth 80,000 years ago.

Why did he dig a cavern under his house? ... Mac Davis: "And then I wrote..." ... Making Merguez with Farid Zadi ... Graham Moore, 28-year old author of "The Sherlockian" ... Dale Hoppert: "Leave the snow where it is!" ... Two OCMA artists who say "Touch my art!" ... Steve Lopez and the real lesson of the Arizona rampage ...

Graham Moore, a 28-year old Angeleno, on his debut novel, "The Sherlockian."

RH Greene celebrates iconic director Paul Mazursky ... Kevin Ferguson remembers Captain Beefheart ... Mark Peel says, "skip culinary school and work" and Dale Hoppert says, "put down that snow and step away from the vehicle" ... And Then I Wrote: Mac Davis sings "In The Ghetto," "Memories," and "A Little Less Conversation" ...