• In April, comedian Allan McLeod launched “Walkin' About,” a podcast in which he and a guest walk somewhere in the Los Angeles region.
• His walking companions include actor Dan Stevens, Ed. Begley Jr. and comedian Jon Gabrus.
• Through his many walking adventures, Mcleod has discovered that walking “can be really complex and profound.”
It's hot when Allan McLeod and I meet for a stroll through Old Pasadena, but fortunately we've missed the early September heat wave that blanketed Los Angeles County in triple-digit temperatures. He is no stranger to braving our county's persistent heat. Since he started doing his podcast, “Walkin' About,” in April, his recording studio is often outdoors.
Even before launching the series, walking was something McLeod constantly thought and talked about.
“I'm very annoying to my friends and family,” he admits. “So I decided to put that energy into a podcast.”
Now in its second season, each episode features McLeod and a guest exploring a different Los Angeles location on foot, something he considers simple and profound.
McLeod takes a selfie with Sodaro at the Hahamongna Watershed Park disc golf course. Use selfies as the cover of each episode.
Most people can take for granted the act of putting one foot in front of the other over and over again. But for McLeod, walking improves many different aspects of life, creatively, mentally and physically.
“It's great for solving problems and clearing your mind,” he said. “It also makes me feel like I'm connecting with my community.”
Los Angeles as a whole is not exactly a city built for pedestrians. Our highways and our enormous sprawl can sometimes act as a barrier to traveling on sidewalks. But McLeod is convinced that attitudes are slowly changing and that, if you look closely enough, there are communities of people everywhere who are enthusiastic about creating a pedestrian-friendly environment. And speaking of that.
While our walk is not for the podcast, I'm excited to get a taste of what it might be like to record an episode of “Walkin' About,” having already watched most of the 20 available episodes on my own walks. We started outside the Copa Vida Café on the corner of Raymond Avenue and Green Street. Old Pasadena is McLeod's favorite area, given its preserved history and the fact that it feels like it should be explored on foot.
“[Walking is] Great for solving problems, for clearing the mind. “It also makes me feel like I’m connecting with my community.”
— Allan McLeod, comedian and host of “Walkin' About”
McLeod, 44, dressed in a short-sleeved button-down shirt and a pair of Hoka Bondi 7s, spends most of our walk pointing out data about buildings gleaned from research he's done in advance.
“I think this is one of the first cooperative buildings in California,” he says, pausing in front of the Moorish-colonial-style Castle Green apartment building, once a long-stay hotel for wealthy travelers who used Pasadena as a winter resort. . escape.
Across the street we stop at the old Spanish-style train station where major train lines like the Santa Fe used to unload passengers, including Castle Green's wealthy guests. It is now a metro stop on Line A heading downtown. The main storage room is a restaurant cleverly named The Luggage Room.
McLeod came up with the concept for “Walkin' About” after meeting Harry Nelson, executive producer of Adam McKay's production company HyperObject Industries, at a party. McLeod was telling Nelson about a passion project he had been working on, an audio tour guide of Old Pasadena. Nelson was intrigued. The two took the audio guide and reformatted it into “something that was a little broader, a little less site-specific.”
Shadows are cast as McLeod walks and talks with Sodaro in Pasadena. Past guests include Andy Richter and Dan Stevens.
The structure of the podcast is simple: in each episode, McLeod meets up with a guest for a walk through a different part of Los Angeles. As they walk, the couple chats about topics such as the history of the area, what they see around them, or each guest's personal relationship with walking. So far, McLeod has strolled through Barnsdall Park with Ed Begley, Jr., walked through the Arroyo Seco with actor Dan Stevens, and traversed the Bunker Hill Pedway with comedian Jon Gabrus. If McLeod had a dream podcast guest, it would be Rick Steves.
“He's one of America's greatest ambassadors,” McLeod enthuses.
We crossed Central Park and went up Fair Oaks Avenue towards the One Colorado shopping center, stopping in front of the iPic cinema. Here, McLeod points out a painted sign advertising the old Clunes Theatre, which was a vaudeville venue in the early 20th century. It also showed an early screening of the controversial 1915 silent film “The Birth of a Nation,” which may have led to the formation of the Pasadena chapter of the NAACP.
“There's a tangential connection there, but I don't know the exact story,” McLeod cautions. But it's these kinds of facts and trivia that he likes to include in his walks. For him, that's part of the fun.
Originally from Alabama, McLeod has lived in Los Angeles for about 20 years, arriving as a recent graduate of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In college, he had taken an advanced production class led by director Tom Cherones, who would later become his mentor.
McLeod and Sodaro at Devil's Gate Dam. McLeod likes to include facts and trivia about the area he explores in each episode of “Walkin' About.”
“Tom said to me, 'You're a writer, you should move to Los Angeles,' McLeod recalls. “So that's what I did. “That's all it took.”
Today he considers himself more of an actor-writer: “Acting is where I have had the most success, professionally.” After years of doing improv comedy on the Upright Citizens Brigade, McLeod landed roles on shows like “You're the Worst” and “Drunk History.” In the Hulu comedy series “Interior, Chinatown,” premiering in November, he plays desk sergeant Felix.
McLeod has a dry, slightly deadpan sense of humor and a soft voice that can sometimes get lost in the ambient traffic noise. If this were an episode of “Walkin' About,” we would each have little DJI lapel microphones (a tiny microphone that records audio remarkably well) clipped to our shirts.
“It's a novel microphone technology that's amazing,” McLeod says. You want each episode to be as immersive as possible, which means including surrounding noise, like honking bus horns, a busker singing in an alley, or a volunteer asking if we have time for gay rights.
(As this is his first podcast, he admits that it took a bit of trial and error, and a lot of missed audio segments, to slow down the pace of recording while walking. He credits his team of editors at HyperObjects for helping with that department. )
Our last stop is the corner of East Colorado Boulevard and Raymond Avenue, in front of another Spanish Colonial style building. McLeod notes that it is one of the most haunted buildings in Pasadena. It's supposedly built on an old mission, which is never a good start.
Allan McLeod, right, with Sodaro, at Hahamongna Watershed Park.
“It was originally a bank, and there are stories of people dying in it: the bank manager's daughter was found dead in the vault, a big robbery gone wrong, things like that.” It is now an AT&T store; There is an escape room next door.
By the end of our time together, it becomes clear how much McLeod loves hiking. In the 50 minutes and about 1½ miles we spent together, I learned more about Pasadena than I have in the last 10 years living in Los Angeles. And aside from my desperate need for air conditioning, I almost regret my need for air conditioning. I get back in my car to head home.
Would our conversation have made a good tape? For McLeod, the key to a successful episode of “Walkin' About” is finding guests who enjoy walking as much as he does.
“That's the trick,” he says. “The goal is to get people talking about walking in different ways. Because the topic can be really complex and deep.”
