Monday, the Geffen Playhouse is hosting a staged reading of “The Normal Heart,” Larry Kramer’s wrenching play about the AIDS crisis. It's a 25th anniversary benefit performance for a clinic at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, and it's directed by Joel Grey, who played Ned in “The Normal Heart” 25 years ago. (COME INSIDE for a link to the production, a look at Grey many years ago, and info on Grey's new exhibit of celphone photos.) This time on Off-Ramp, in a four-part interview, Joel Grey talks with host John Rabe about his decades in show business, including "Dallas," "Alias," "Cabaret," "Wicked," and even an appearance on Tom Jones' variety show in the 1960s.

Back in 1965, Roky Erickson fronted The 13th Floor Elevators, arguably America's first psychedelic rock band. His life went great until 1969, when—in a tragedy of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" proportions—he pleaded insanity to a drug conviction and ended up in the infamous and terrifying Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It took him years to fully recover from his time at Rusk, but he's back and better than ever, and for the first time in years, he's playing in LA on Tuesday. COME INSIDE for the gig details, and listen to Kevin Ferguson's 2008 interview with Roky himself, including a very rare Erickson track.

Congratulations to Colman Andrews and the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold, who took home James Beard awards over the weekend for their tasty food writing. It is unclear at this point whether they won because they have appeared on Off-Ramp, but we'll assume that's the case and offer these interviews from the archive. John Rabe talked with Gold when he won the Pulitzer in 2007; John talked with Andrews after discovering Andrews' 1984 guidebook to LA restaurants ("Best Restaurants LA"), which is a time machine to an entirely different era for food in Southern California. Gold won the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews award for his LA Weekly pieces “Sauced,” “Hot Birria, Cold Cerveza,” and “Hare Today”; Andrews won Cookbook of the Year for "The Country Cooking of Ireland." COME INSIDE for the James Beard news release, a way to buy Andrews' book on Irish cooking AND help KPCC; and the entire Gold LA Weekly archive.

Brendan Newnam and Rico Gagliano's Dinner Party Download: Celebrated author Marisa Silver exorcises her right to write... We go on the lam with Ronnie Biggs... and Brendan discovers a sandwich shop inside a bodega wrapped up in an enigma.

The Brown Betties is an African-American Cabaret group that's been performing in Los Angeles since 2005. We sent Off-Ramp correspondent Jenee Darden to check out the current Brown Betties show, "Brown Betties & Joe: A Bedtime Story," which looks at the many faces of love.

... in which the reporter -- driving the quarter-million dollar prototype -- sees a turtle and gets toad. COME INSIDE FOR A LINK TO THE PIECE.