6/21/11 -- UPDATE: "Larry Crowne" hits theatres July 1st. Here's our piece from the set of the movie while it was filming last summer. Normally, the studios don't want journalists anywhere around a movie set (the Pentagon might want to follow this example), or they embargo any info gathered there, but Tom Hanks allowed Off-Ramp exclusive access to the set of the new movie he's written, directed, and starred in -- "Larry Crowne" -- which was entirely shot in the LA area, including a K-Mart in Long Beach.

For our Hard Times series – conversations with people hit hard by the "Great Recession" – Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with 48-year old Peggy Martin in the front yard of her bungalow apartment in Pasadena.

Eat:LA's Colleen Bates looks at a new wave of Vietnamese restaurants, and talks with Joseph Shuldiner, who makes his own aperitifs from local fruit, much of it harvested from local backyards. Click HERE for the Limoncello Recipe!

Earlier this month, Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson went to the Santa Monica Pier Paddle and Ocean Festival: both a paddle boarding competition and a celebration of the rich history behind LA surf culture. He spoke with Craig Lockwood: author, co-chair at the Surfing Heritage Foundation, AND a former lifeguard.

For the first time in decades, the Theatre Communications Group, a nationwide theatre advocacy organization held its annual conference in Los Angeles. After the conference, which was the organizations 50th, KPCC's Steve Julian hosted a panel with several LA Theatre executives inside our Crawford Family Forum to discuss the state of live performance in LA today.

Rico and Brendan--with the help of John C Reilly--help you get smart, informed and drunk. All so you can win your next dinner party.

To celebrate #ColumboDay, here's John Rabe's conversation with William Link, co-creator of the GOOD lieutenant, "Columbo."