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Off-Ramp

Exploring Southern California with John Rabe

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Episodes
  • The LA Uprising - 30 Years Later: The stories you haven't heard
    This time, we mark the 30th anniversary of one of the darkest days in LA history: Friday, April 29, 1992, when the all-white Simi Valley jury found 4 LAPD officers not guilty in the beating of Rodney King. Rage, protests, and violence, broke out across the city and lasted for days.

    Five years ago on Off-Ramp, we marked the 25th anniversary with a full hour of interviews, archival footage, and an unflinching reckoning of the LAPD and its legacy of violence. We wound up with an interview with the late Rodney King.

    That's what we're going to listen back to on this episode, but please remember that a lot has changed in five years, and one of them is that as a newsroom - like a lot of other newsrooms around the country - we at KPCC and LAist no longer use the phrase LA Riots.

    While riotis used historically, we cannot ignore the media's role in popularizing a term that is now often used as a dog whistle for race. Words like response, unrest, or uprising encourage our audiences to think deeper about its origins.

    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.)

  • Photographer Catherine Opie got exclusive access to Elizabeth Taylor's house ... so so do you, kinda.
    The LA-based Catherine Opie is one of the world's most famous working art photographers, and in 2011, she was given exclusive access to Elizabeth Taylor's home in Bel Air,, which she photographed before and after the star's death. Although she never met her, you feel from the photos that Opie knew Taylor intimately.

    In 2017, when the photos were exhibited in the exhibit "700 Nimes Road," Off-Ramp host John Rabe spoke with her about the experience.  

    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.)

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  • Dinner Party Download Launches Its Own Web Site!; Palin the Evangelical Feminist; N.O.W President Introduces Sarah Palin; Colcord Home; All-You-Can't-Eat; Palin Fever; Take A Virtual Trip of the Wasilla Assembly of God; Hard Times; Stone on "W"; Where's the Peace?; Happy Birthday, Philippe's!; With a Wink and a Nod; Letter From Reader
  • Dinner Party Download Launches Its Own Website!; R.I.P. Paul Newman; The People v. Experts; How to Manage Mismanagement; Spinning Out on The Melt Down; Failing at Bailing Out; Environmental Utopia?; Hard Times, Not End Times; Frangela - The Wisdom of the Crowd; Born Again: The End Times are Coming!; Hard Times II; Hearts of Palm UK; Hard Times III; Urban Homestead; Frank McCourt on the Dodgers
  • Dinner Party Download; Tom Bradley, in Retrospect; In The Shadows Of History; Peter and the Wolf in 21st Century LA; He Followed in Bradley's Footsteps; The Bradley Effect?; Bradley Good and Bad; Drive-by Driver; Angelenos on Tom Bradley; Chapin Sisters: Born to be Famous; L.A.P.D.: Art Division; The Hollywood Hills are Alive...; To Bail Out or Not To Bail Out; Is Sam Out of Time?
  • Dinner Party Download; Back on the Tracks; No Smoking...Anywhere; David Foster Wallace, R.I.P; DFW, Telling It Like It Is; Icarus in Outer Space; Charles Perry to the Rescue!; Getting an F in Detention; Historic Art Heist; Celebrating World Sacred Music
  • Dinner Party Download: Citay Beats; The Wish Tree; Landscape-Goats; The Immigrant's Dream; Give me LHC or Give Me Death!; The LARGE Hadron Collider; Getty Preview; George Putnam R.I.P.; The Lawn Bowling Life; This Citay's Rockin'; Stay Funky, Froggy's; Creating Vintage Photos
  • Haiku Contest Update!; Dinner Party Download: Barista Throwdown; He's Always Part of the Team; They Wear Their Colors Proud; They Shout Their Voices Loud; McCain's Theme Song; The Titan of Trailers; Ben Vereen: Up Close and Musical; Cut-Throat Coffee; The Sounds of Death Race; Chinese Type-Casting; You're a Good Man, Bill Melendez; Schulz and Baseball; A Labor of Laughs; Congrats, Quinn!; Music Featured on Off-Ramp: Priscilla Ahn's "I Don't Think So"
  • Welcome to the Coachella Valley!; Dinner Party Download: On Princeton; Jesse Jackson, 20 years ago; Date Shakes in the CV: Part 1; A Good Indian Wife; Date Shakes in the CV: Part 2; Princeton, The Erudite Rockers; She Drew the Line; Racy Dates?; The CV before AC; Stay Away from the Germs!; Music Featured on Off-Ramp:
  • Dinner Party Download; Rat 'Em Out; "If It's Yellow..." (c'mon you know the rest); Charles Perry: A Man For All Hallucinogens; These Germs Were Catchy; Broncos for Barack; Punch and Judy, Uncensored; Darby Crash, circa 1980; Queen of Disco in LA; Germs Culture; "Hi, Traffic Man!" Debuts