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.

Donovan, Fitz and the Tantrums, John Cale, Joel Grey, Brian May, Lou Adler, and more as Off-Ramp rings in the new year with our best music interviews.

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" -- the Lionel Barrymore version, plus new takes on the classic.

Your favorite celebrities read "The Night Before Christmas" for Off-Ramp ... "Andy Rooney" doesn't like Christmas ... Marc Haefele pays tribute to author James Salter ... EatLA and Craft Beer ... Judy Chicago treats Frida Kahlo like an artist in her new book ... Life isn't easy as Isaac Haille Selassie ... Black Facts and Wax museum ...

Lamont Dozier on writing "How Sweet It Is," "Stop in the Name of Love," and "Sugarpie, Honeybunch" ... Dinner Party Download ... Downtown Women's Center's New Home ... Van Dyke Parks, American composer ... B'way Deli closes ...

John visits This Old House's set - a home renovation in Silverlake - and talks with the show's founder, who also produced The French Chef and Victory Garden ... another OCMA Biennial artist ... Frank Romero is painting offramps and selling his Frogtown studio ... Mark Peel lamb bastes chicken breast ... Seth Menachem's mysinglepeeps.com -- like dating sites, but without the lies ...

"Walking Out of History," John Rabe's NPR documentary about Sir Ernest Shackleton's 2-year odyssey on the Antarctic ice.

Actress Gwendoline Yeo on her new one-woman show ... Off-Ramp's new series Hard Times meets Laurel Holliday, mother of three, living in a foreclosed house ... Marc Haefele: Not much new in Twain autobio, but a "magnificent browse" ... Luke Butler, OCMA Biennial artist and Trekkie ... Aztlan Underground ... Browsing 7th Street in Downtown LA ... Dinner Party Download meets actor Sally Hawkins

An intimate and bawdy conversation: Gwendoline Yeo and Off-Ramp host John Rabe on Yeo's new show, "Laughing With My Mouth Wide Open"