Want a soundtrack for an L.A. stroll? There's a strolling podcast for that

It’s scorching when Allan McLeod and I meet up for a stroll in Previous Pasadena, however fortunately we’ve missed the early September heatwave that blanketed L.A. County with triple-digit temps. He’s no stranger to braving our county’s persistent warmth. Since he started making his podcast, “Walkin’ About,” in April, his recording studio is commonly outdoor.

Even earlier than he launched the collection, strolling was one thing McLeod was always pondering and speaking about.

“I’m very annoying to family and friends,” he admits. “So I made a decision to place that power right into a podcast.”

Now in its second season, every episode options McLeod and a visitor exploring a distinct L.A. location by foot, one thing he feels is each easy and profound.

Most individuals may take the act of placing one foot in entrance of the opposite over and over without any consideration. However for McLeod, strolling enhances so many various elements of life, creatively, mentally, bodily.

“It’s nice for problem-solving, for clearing your head,” he mentioned. “It additionally makes me really feel like I’m connecting with my group.”

Los Angeles as an entire is just not precisely a metropolis constructed for pedestrians. Our freeways and big sprawl can typically act as a barrier to touring by sidewalk. However McLeod is satisfied that attitudes are slowly altering, and that in case you look arduous sufficient, there are communities of individuals throughout who’re captivated with making a pedestrian-friendly surroundings. And speaking about it.

Whereas our stroll isn’t for the podcast, I’m excited to get a style of what recording an episode of “Walkin’ About” is likely to be like, having already powered by a lot of the 20 episodes accessible on walks of my very own. We begin exterior Copa Vida Cafe on the nook of Raymond Avenue and Inexperienced Road. Previous Pasadena is McLeod’s favourite space, given its preserved historical past and the truth that it simply feels prefer it’s meant to be skilled on foot.

McLeod, 44, wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt and a pair of Hoka Bondi 7s, spends most of our stroll mentioning factoids about buildings gleaned from analysis he’s achieved forward of time.

“I imagine this is among the first co-op buildings in California,” he says, stopping in entrance of the Moorish Colonial-style Fort Inexperienced condominium constructing that was as soon as a long-term lodge for rich vacationers who used Pasadena as a winter escape.

Throughout the road we pause on the outdated Spanish-style practice station the place main practice traces just like the Santa Fe used to unload passengers, together with rich Fort Inexperienced visitors. It’s now a Metro cease for the A Line heading downtown. The primary depot room is a restaurant cleverly known as The Baggage Room.

McLeod got here up with the idea of “Walkin’ About” after assembly Harry Nelson, government producer at Adam McKay’s manufacturing firm, HyperObject Industries, at a celebration. McLeod was telling Nelson a couple of ardour challenge he’d been engaged on, an audio tour information of Previous Pasadena. Nelson was intrigued. The 2 took the audio information and reformatted it into “one thing that was just a little broader, rather less web site particular.”

Shadows are casts as McLeod walks and talks with Sodaro in Pasadena. Previous visitors have included Andy Richter and Dan Stevens.

The construction of the podcast is easy: Every episode, McLeod meets up with a visitor for a stroll by a distinct a part of Los Angeles. Whereas on foot the pair chat about topics such because the historical past of the realm, what they’re seeing round them or every visitor’s private relationship with strolling. Up to now, McLeod has strolled by Barnsdall Park with Ed Begley, Jr., hiked the Arroyo Seco with actor Dan Stevens and traversed the Bunker Hill Pedway with comic Jon Gabrus. If McLeod had a dream visitor for the podcast, it’d be Rick Steves.

“He’s certainly one of America’s biggest ambassadors,” McLeod says excitedly.

We head throughout Central Park and up Honest Oaks Avenue towards the One Colorado Procuring Middle, stopping in entrance of the iPic movie show. Right here, McLeod factors as much as a painted signal promoting the outdated Clunes Theatre, which was a vaudeville venue within the early 1900s. It additionally confirmed an early screening of the 1915 controversial silent movie “Beginning of a Nation,” which could have led to the formation of the Pasadena chapter of the NAACP.

“There’s a tangential connection there, however I don’t know the precise story,” McLeod caveats. However it’s these sorts of details and trivia that he likes to pepper into his walks. For him, that’s a part of the enjoyable.

A local of Alabama, McLeod has lived in Los Angeles for about 20 years, arriving as a fresh-eyed graduate of the College of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In faculty, he’d taken a sophisticated manufacturing class led by the director Tom Cherones, who would later change into his mentor.

McLeod and Sodaro on the Satan’s Gate Dam. McLeod enjoys together with details and trivia in regards to the space he’s exploring in every “Walkin’ About” episode.

“Tom mentioned to me, ‘You’re a author, it’s best to transfer to L.A.” remembers McLeod. “In order that’s what I did. That’s all it took.”

At the moment he considers himself extra of an actor-writer: “Appearing is the place I’ve had extra success, professionally.” After years of doing improv comedy at Upright Residents Brigade, McLeod has landed roles in exhibits like “You’re the Worst” and “Drunk Historical past.” Within the Hulu comedy collection “Inside, Chinatown,” popping out in November, he performs Desk Sergeant Felix.

McLeod has a dry, barely deadpan humorousness and a mild voice that may typically get misplaced in ambient visitors noise. If this had been an episode of the “Walkin’ About,” we’d every have small DJI lapel mics — a tiny microphone that data audio remarkably effectively — clipped to our shirts.

“It’s a newish microphone expertise that’s type of superb,” says McLeod. He needs every episode to really feel as immersive as attainable, which suggests together with surrounding noise like buses honking, a busker singing in an alleyway or a volunteer asking if we now have time for homosexual rights.

(As that is his first podcast, he admits it took some trial and error, and plenty of misplaced audio segments, to get the recording-while-walking rhythm down. He credit his workforce of editors at HyperObjects for serving to in that division.)

Our last cease is the nook of East Colorado Boulevard and Raymond Avenue, throughout the road from one other Spanish Colonial-style constructing. McLeod factors out it’s one of the vital haunted buildings in Pasadena. Supposedly it’s constructed on prime of an outdated mission, which isn’t a superb begin.

Allan McLeod, proper, with Sodaro, at Hahamongna Watershed Park.

“It was initially a financial institution, and there are tales of individuals dying in it — the financial institution supervisor’s daughter was discovered lifeless within the vault, a giant theft that went flawed, issues like that.” Now it’s an AT&T retailer; there’s an escape room subsequent door.

By the tip of our time collectively, it’s clear simply how a lot McLeod actually does love strolling. Within the 50 minutes and roughly 1½ miles that we’ve spent collectively, I’ve discovered extra about Pasadena than I’ve within the final 10 years of dwelling in L.A. And except for my determined want for air-con, I virtually lament my must get again in my automobile to go residence.

Would our dialog have made for good tape? For McLeod, the important thing to a profitable episode of “Walkin’ About” is discovering visitors who take pleasure in strolling as a lot as he does.

“That’s the trick,” he says. “The aim is to have folks speaking about strolling in numerous methods. As a result of the topic could be actually complicated and profound.”