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.

Silverlake's Loch Ness Monster?; Gary Owens Tells All; Mayor of Hollywood?; Gary Owen's Secret Power; Throat Singing, Inuit Style; Playing with the Kronos Quartet; Pow! Wham! and Sake!; A Tale of Two Ballparks; In Living Color; On Politics and Pruning; California Video; Freeway Flowers

My Teacher Alma; Dressing a Historic Landmark; The Chemosphere; Hammer Happening; The Ninth Old Man Rests In Peace; I Can Garden; The Soloist Hits the Shelves; Johnie's Broiler Rises Like a Phoenix; Tag This Wall; Sex on the Beach; Letters

The Voice of an Angel; On Set with the Late Charlton Heston; Song: Margerine Melodie by Stereolab; Bob Baker's Marionette Theater; Arboretum Welcomes Thumbs of all Colors; Angel Gets her Wings; Song: "Faithless" by Kieran McGee; Starving Poet No More; A Down-to-Earth Angel; Acres of Retail; Burmese Feast; Fore!

This Week on Off-Ramp; Underground Woman; Underground Woman - Part 2; Underground Woman - Part 3; What's Up Doc-san?; New Model for Health Care?; Hand over the money, please...; Fresh 'n' Easy; Crowd Pleaser; Roses and Lemon; The Fields Are Alive with Flowers; Letters

Star Shooter; Lilo and Stitch in It's a Small World?; Caspian Rain; Sold!; Benson, on Exposing Recluses; My Wife and the Cabana Boy; Zankou Chicken Murders; The Public Health Hero; The Coliseum sees Blue and Red; All You Gotta Do is Act Naturally; California Dems Weigh-In on the Presidential Elections

Love Stories; New Law Aims At School Shootings; Shot In the Heart; Creating Vintage Photos; Told You So; Newspaper Reunion; Sculpting Junk; Hollywood Star; The Iraq War Five Years In; John McCain Mix

Blinky the Friendly Hen; A Way With Words; Drought Crusade; Affirmative Action President; The Liberal Cabal; BBQ King R.I.P.; Watercress on the River; Xeriscape Dentist; Prison Parolees and Those Who Rehabilitate Them; The Gay Cheers; Mateo Stoneman Revisited

Sushi Zen; Sushi 101; Hot Ramen; I Eat Ramen, Here Me Roar!; Would You Eat Granny; Urban Survivalist; El Pollo Chino; Some botanas, por favor; Umami=Yummy; The Best Milkshake in Riverside; Too Fresh Fish; Sushi Delicacies; Your Own Sushi Chef; Sushi Wrap-Up