Some More News - Attack Turkeys, Barbie, and Wigs Of All Sizes with Kyle MacLachlan and Joshua Davis

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

 Hi. Actor Kyle MacLachlan and journalist Joshua Davis join Katy and Cody to talk about their new podcast, "Varnamtown." They also discuss the tremendous number of recent layoffs in digital media, Oscar nominations, and how you don't really know what might come out of your mouth once you get up on stage. If you want to take ownership of your health, start with AG1. Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase exclusively at https://drinkAG1.com/morenews.  Factor’s no-prep, no-mess me als free up time otherwise spent shopping, cooking, and cleanup. No more wasting time in the kitchen. Head to https://factormeals.com/morenews50 and use code MORENEWS50 to get 50% off. Check out our MERCH STORE: https://shop.somemorenews.com   SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA   Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews

why hello and welcome back to even more news the first and still only news podcast my name is katie stole my name also exists hi katie hello. Hello. It's Cody. Hi. It's Cody. Okay, great, great. We had to clear that up in case everybody forgot since last week. Oh boy, do we have a special episode today? We've got two guests. One is an actor that I'm sure you all know from Twin Peaks, Portlandia, Blue Velvet, much more. The other is a journalist and filmmaker who is also the co-founder of Epic Magazine. They have a new podcast. The first episode is out now. It's called Varnumtown.

Please welcome Kyle McLaughlin and Joshua Davis. Everybody's losing their minds right now. I know. Calm down. Calm down. It's fine. I want some walk-on music oh yeah for sure we put that in after there's a bunch of sound effects that are going to be happening the entire time too imagine it it's cacophony we'll go on for at least 40 minutes

and then we'll cram you know a quick 20 in about the show we're gonna talk all about varnum town uh we all listened to the first two episodes already and it's fantastic but before we do that we've got some things to take care of here we got some holidays to celebrate uh you guys may or may not know every day is a holiday not just the big ones there's tons of them january 25th is national flor Florida Day for some reason. Founded in 2017 by a National Day calendar to celebrate Florida as the 27th state to join the union. I don't know why they chose January 25th. The 27th state would make more sense, but they didn't join until March 3rd, 1845.

But regardless, happy day to you, Florida. Happy day. It was 2017. Everyone was all over the place. You know, it's hard to lock down dates. Yeah, that was a chaotic year, I'd say. They've all been chaotic years since I turned adult. I don't know if anybody else has had that experience.

It just doesn't stop. Okay. What else doesn't stop our holidays? Holidays do not stop. This one's okay. When you're listening our holidays the holidays do not stop this one's okay when you're listening to this yeah what is this national big wig day i don't know i feel like this is it doesn't mean the big wig of your company or being a big wig it means wearing a big wig like a large wig like a large puffy wig a ratted out wig both of our guests are like huh what are we doing on this show right now i'm wearing a wig right now so oh it looks so natural it's amazing

it's not very big though this is not your day kyle this is not you're not wearing a big enough wig no it's not big enough here i'm gonna pull my ponytail a little higher it's not a wig february 23rd i think is small, okay. Well, let's all note that. Okay, well, let's talk about your show, because, I mean, we love it, as I've already said. Why don't we start off by you guys giving our listeners a rundown? Because I could try, but I'm sure that you're used to talking about your show. Kyle and I have been friends for a long time and we talk about stories all the time. And he called me up a few years ago and said, hey, I just came across a kind of a rumor. And it's a pretty strange rumor.

And he just kind of wanted to bounce it off me. And Kyle, maybe you can describe the rumor as you heard it. One of the reasons why I reached out to Josh, you know, he's an investigative journalist of some renown. And the story that I heard was involved from pretty, wouldn't say violent, but pretty shady people. And, you know, Josh has been to some of the war zones, Josh, I guess, Libya and Iraq. I was in Iraq during the war.

Libya, been in Colombia during the last Fark uprising. I knew going in that if things got hot, Josh would be able to defend us. Sure. And you can tell by Josh in the the picture he's he's a big guy yeah yeah i wouldn't want to mess with you man for real i don't i don't think that's accurate i don't i for our listeners right now i do not look like a big guy no but you do have some nice glasses well that doesn't tend to help in in terrorist situations i can imagine you just look smaller because the wig is so big.

It's like a nice sort of optical illusion. It might be, though. I will say that I am the lightest man to ever have sumoed at the U.S. Sumo Open. So I do have some skills. All right. How'd you do? Well, I went up against Marcus Barber, who was over, he was 435 pounds at the time. And I lost.

There's no shame in that. Well, yeah, I felt bad. I was 135 pounds. So there was a little difference between us. Several times over your size. So, you know. We got that match on tape somewhere. We got to see that.

Maybe in the wide world of sports. Remember that? Yeah. I think that's why Kyle reached out to me. He felt that I, as he said, that I could defend him given my performance in the sum world of sports remember that yeah i think that's why kyle reached out to me he felt that i as he said that i could defend him given my performance in the sumo ring yeah that's what i thought i'm fact checking this right now and we could do a whole episode about that this is all legit i was gonna say the same thing i was like this is like your second season maybe i don't

i don't know well we the story came to me through a friend of a friend and it started with um hearing the story from a woman named lynn betts who is was um an organic soap tycoon we use the word tycoon i don't know if she calls her tycoon but you have to i love that detail good and she had a company and she she'd moved to this little community coastal community in north carolina called varnum town population 300 josh i guess yeah yeah roughly 300 yeah 300. you know really out of the way quiet quiet, really lovely, actually, location. And while she was there, she made the acquaintance of a gentleman named Dale Varnum from Varnum Town. was responsible actually for setting up a deal between Pablo Escobar and his cartel and the local community to bring in, you know, what Pablo was exporting, the contraband.

And so they set this organization up and they ended up being quite successful for a number of years. And most of the townspeople, from what I understand, were involved. So that's what caught my attention, because we've heard stories about obviously drugs coming into the U.S. for a long time. And there was that Tom Cruise movie, American Made, which is kind of a drama about this happening. But that was one guy, like the Tom Cruise character. And what caught my attention about this story was that it was this entire town of 300 people. And that was interesting to me. How do you do a deal with an entire town? And was everybody on board? Were there dissenters?

And if there were dissenters, what did that do to the dynamic? When you have 300 people in an area that they all know each other, obviously, particularly many of them have the same last name as the town, the Varnums. So what the hell is going on? That's such an interesting part of this, too. I mean, I'm very excited to hear the rest of the episodes but you do a great job so far anyway there's not a villain you're you're making the point of there's a benefit to this you can understand why this economic this infusion

of economic activity is so important for the town grocery stores get to spring up new businesses, not just because there's money and cash. And it's interesting. It's very interesting. But yeah, the dynamics of like, does everybody want this? This is change. We're all in the drug industry now. Yeah. I mean, it's it's you can understand it, particularly in the early 80s when the industry hit some hard times and And that's the dominant industry that's supporting the community. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Suddenly, somebody comes in and says, you work one night and you're going to make as much money as you do in an entire year. It's overwhelming. I don't know that I would turn down that offer.

Yeah. I need the next six days off, you guys, if that's okay. You just need one day off. Just one day. Not even a full day. I don't think it was even a full day. It was offloading some of the shrimp trawlers, which are actually, when Josh and I went down there, I'd never been on a shrimp boat before.

I had watched Forrest G know, Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump. Yeah. But I hadn't actually been inside of one. And they're really built for smuggling. I mean, there's the holds of these boats are huge, much bigger than you think. And so this is where they would offload all the contraband from what they call the mother ship. So this ship would come up, I guess a smaller freighter

would come up from South America and anchor off shore. And then the little ship boats would just off they go, load all the stuff that they needed to bring it back into port and then it would continue on from there and in fact one of the dissenters we talked about that um roger morton uh we get into his story early on was you know takes us through what it was like to see that and to witness that while he was there living on the beach beachfront yeah it's really interesting especially like sort of to echo katie's point there's no it's at least again the first couple uh everyone is sort of treated with a lot of like respect and sympathy um even like you're in talking about the dissenter you have this sort of sense of well they're new here they are they're

not like part of the town necessarily and uh you know is it the town's right to be like no we're actually gonna we're just gonna be drug town actually and uh that's what we've decided and if you don't like it you can get out of here um it's a very interesting sort of tone and way to get into all these different people's stories and their perspectives on the situation but you can see like part of what Kyle and I both felt is we could feel how both sides felt that they were right. You know, on the one hand, the majority of the town that did the deal felt like, hell yeah, we want the money. We want to survive this season. On the other hand, you have Roger Mortonon who has moved there to

kind of enjoy the quiet paradise that it is. It's very beautiful. It's on the coast. And he sold his house and he's bought a boat. He's going to become a fisherman and he's going to live this idyllic life. But what happens when you choose an Eden and that Eden turns out not to be what you think it is? Do you find that, like being, actually being there, you know, I don't know how many, how many days you were there talking to these, these folks and being there in, you know, 2023, this is, seems like the kind of story that just couldn't happen today because of the interconnectedness everybody has. Do you get that sense? Or is it like small enough still and insular enough where like this could still be happening?

A town could sort of decide to do this, even the small town, even though we have all these connections to each other now. I don't know, Kyle, but I think it could still happen in Varnum Town because Varnum Town doesn't feel that different. It's still I don't know the latest census exactly, but it's still three or four hundred people. It's still very remote. It's hard to find this place. It sounds made up. Yeah. The name sounds fake.

For real. There's a mist that comes over. It's not there when the mist is there. You don't see the... Exactly. Every week, if you see the REO Speedwagon playing in the sky, then that means the mist is coming. You don't see the... Exactly, yeah. Every week if you see the REO Speedwagon playing in the sky, then that means the mist is coming. That's the signal.

I agree with Josh. I think this could happen there. It's hard to call it a town. I think when I went there, I was expecting a main street. You know, a stoplight. I don't know. It's a census-designated place. Yeah. It's a census designated place.

Yeah. It's like a step down from town. Yeah. Varnum Incorporated Territory. Yeah. It has that little waterfront dock area, which is the closest it has to a central area, which is kind of, I don't know,

maybe 200 foot long dock where the shrimp boats pull up. Yeah. Very small. It's an exciting place. There's an open, right there at the docks, there's an open air seafood place where they serve fried shrimp. Yeah. And that's it. That's kind of the, that's the center of it. Yeah.

And then when Kyle and I went out on that, when we went out on that shrimp boat, we went out from the dock at Varnum Town. And even when you push off from that dock, you still have to wend and wind your way through this, these inlets before you get to the open ocean, which is part of the reason that it would appeal to somebody like Pablo Escobar is because it was so well hidden. Right. I mean, it sounds like a beautiful place. There's a TV show with the guy from Friday Night Lights. And I think it's the Florida Keys. Yeah.

Now I'm picturing that a little bit with the boats in this. It is like that in many. I was thinking about that when Kyle first told me and we went there. But then as we got deeper into the community uh it veered away from that from the bloodline kind of dark swampy vibe into something a little bit more surreal even a little bit more dare i say lynchian uh-huh well that's a perfect setup for this question that i have for you thank you um well it's more for kyle but uh on the podcast you talk about how you grew up in a town in washington state where it felt like something dark was simmering below the surface and you were cast in twin peaks town with a

similar dynamic and now you're exploring that same kind of location with Varnumtown and just curious what what draws you to stories like this is it your own history and a place that felt mysterious I've cornered the market on that yeah I mean you have for real it was I grew up in a small town that there were areas of the town that were places you just didn't go. You know, this is a town, I think at the time, of about 35,000 people. So, you know, it had its areas that were sort of, you know, off limits. You just didn't go there. But the rest of the town was, you know,

I grew up in a very sweet little, you know, kind of Americana sort of style place, not unlike the town of Lumberton, which is featured in Blue Velvet. And, you know, it was certainly bigger than Twin Peaks. I think the vibe of of Twin Peaks is maybe closer to what Josh and I experienced. You know, it's obviously a small town spread out when we did take that shrimp ride on the way out, you know, you'd see setback in the, sorry, let me turn that off, setback in

the kind of off of the, what would you call it? They were like inlets and then grasslands. And then there was sort of a kind of a forest, and back in there you would see houses tucked away um off the beaten track by themselves and it just had a kind of an eerie vibe you know like i don't think i'd want to go to find that house i don't even know if you could get to that house on a road i don't even know if a road takes you there so it was more like that i felt these are people that that are on that like to be by themselves keep to themselves and are not very trusting of outsiders you know to a point there's they're nice you know it's a there's a sense of hospitality but they they're definitely a different type you moving there you're you're a different type of person you know so those those are things that that um and for some reason i don't know these stories just come come my way or at least this

one did you attract them yeah was it hard to get people to talk or is this something that they feel proud of in their, you know, shared community history? Would it ever feel dangerous at all or tense in some way? I don't think so. Did you feel that, Josh? Because you did a majority of the interviewing. Well, you're right. You've been in war zones. It would take a lot to face yeah there was definitely a moment uh which we get to in episode seven of the pot you'll hear it in episode seven that i felt like the hair on the back of my neck stand up there was this freaky place that we went to uh dale varnum has has constructed a fort in varnum town like like huge walls, wooden walls, like a Western fort that surrounds a massive compound.

And we were able to get inside of this compound. And it honestly feels like the home that, that a serial killer would build if it was like a Hollywood serial killer. Cause I, I don't imagine that a real serial killer would build if it was like a Hollywood serial killer. Cause I, I don't imagine that a real serial killer would build something so ostentatious that would attract everybody's attention. But this is like, you're trying to be unassuming.

Yeah. The unassuming, but this guy like has, it feels like a set where as you enter it, it's, he's built a tunnel. You enter the fort through a plastic tunnel that is covered with googly eyes everywhere you look there are little googly eyes looking back at you that sounds like someone was

on coke when they built it i remember looking over at kyle at one point and going like this is freaky this is this is one of the strangest places I've ever been, and I've been in a lot of strange places. But there was never like a situation. It was more just like the vibes of the location made you feel that way. There was no like, oh no, should we be here? I didn't think that anybody was going to attack us. There were some, there was actually,

there is an attack turkey. I will say that. There is a, there is an attack turkey. I will say that. There is a legitimate, this is a turkey that from what we understand has been trained to attack that Dale Varnum keeps to defend his compound. Incredible. He set it loose on the police when they arrived and it drove the State Bureau of Investigation agent who was tasked with investigating Dale Varnum, it drove him away from the compound successfully. That's incredible.

That's like, again, like talking about like lynching or Twin Peaks, like there's something, there is this dark simmering thing going on, but there's this goofiness to it. That's such a silly thing that is at the same time well that's dangerous the turkey's attacking them but it is silly too you see in the news from time to time usually around thanksgiving there are reports about how dangerous turkeys can be they have these their feet have these claws and they can they can fuck you up oh yeah they're dinosaurs they're terrified terrified of birds in general but a turkey. It wasn't the narco traffickers that I was. Maybe that's what I thought I should be worried about going in. But in the end, what I really what Kyle and I needed to be prepared for was the attack turkey.

Was the attack turkey. Well, now you know. Next time you go back there. I'm so glad you were there, Josh, because he's much meatier, you know, a better meal for the attack turkey. Got his sumo stance. Turkey couldn't knock you down. Kyle made me walk first. There's so many interesting characters that you get to meet and talk to in this. And I'm sure there are many more

that we haven't met yet. Kyle, if this were turned into some sort of like a movie or a TV show or some sort of thing, is there a character that like you are person? I guess they're not. They're real people. They're not characters. Is there a person there that sort of like you're drawn to that you would like get a lot out of, do you think, and fun of portraying? Well, if it was someone casting it, I would probably be cast as one of the DEA agents, I'm sure. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. If I can play any role. Your choice, your choice. If I could play any role. I mean, I've got to say the character, and it would never work with me, but the character of Dale Varnum is, he's just a wonderful mix of,

you know, he's very charismatic. He's very eccentric. He's a great storyteller. The fact that he's still alive, I think both Josh and I would say is a miracle. Based upon the stories he tells us of where he went, who he saw, what he did, which you learn about, of course, as you go through the podcast. But he is, and not to mention when you hear him, and you do hear him when he speaks, it's unlike anything that I think Josh or I have encountered. I certainly have never met anyone who talks the way he talks,

not just the thickness of the accent, but just the way he phrases things goes back and forward. I mean, Yoda speak doesn't even begin to explain how unusual are the things that he says. So that'd be fun. So he would be CGI then in this movie. Everyone else is live. Okay. I think Kyle, one of the, one of the sheriffs actually could be interesting. In Varnum Town, in the area, the sheriff was named Red Varnum, which gives you a little clue into how things work in Varnum Town if the sheriff's name is Sheriff Varnum.

Yeah. All the names in this place are incredible. You guys do call out that herman strong is a great name who is he which one is he again he's he's the sheriff of the county and red varnum was the sheriff of one of the towns but they're all of them feels every single name feels written to me lefty grunts amazing yeah yeah grunts is amazing because he seems to be one of the few people who he didn't vote against it exactly but he did not get involved he was a carpenter and he benefited because he built the houses for the narco traffickers in town

right and the reason they called him grunts was because when he was a baby, he grunted a lot. And this guy is now how old is he, Kyle? He's like late 60s and everybody still calls him by the name that he got when he was a baby. That's interesting right there. Well, that's what happens when you live in a small town and everybody knows you your whole life. It doesn't what happens young sticks. You got to be careful. Yeah. When you're a baby. You got to have some perspective. It feels like those little details that were written by somebody instead of just the thing that happened.

When you're a baby, you have to be very careful in Varnum Town. Don't make any noises. Very silent. Also, avoid the drug trade if you can when you're a baby. I guess, but no judgment, to be honest. No judgment. It's good for the economy. I but you know well i think that's one of the reasons why you know we talked about how they were so open to not open but they they did answer questions

they did agree to sit down and speak and you know a lot of that was really lynn betts um had sort of opened the door paved the way for us which was very nice, our organic soap tycoon. And I think both Josh and I came in and we, we just, we didn't really judge people. We just kind of asked them to tell us their story. I don't think they felt threatened or like we were gonna do anything to them that they weren't comfortable with. So I think that's why we get so many stories.

Well, here I go saying my new catchphrase. I recently moved to the mountains, a small town, and I love it in the city. But I do find entering into a small community where people have lived here for a long time, in general, having an open mind and heart and genuine curiosity about stories is very disarming. And you realize just, you know, there's lots of crazy shit that happens everywhere. People have a story to tell. And if you give them time and space and respect, they like to share it. and respect, they like to share it. Well, we are at the halfway point,

which is where I am contractually obligated to throw to an ad break, which we're going to do right now. But then we're going to be right back. You guys will still be here. Don't go anywhere. Contractually obligated. You guys come back too. Contractually obligated,

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Cats not included. Meow. And we are back from those ads. I mean, I could still talk about Varnumtown, and we probably will, but we are going to talk about a couple news things. Everyone's abuzz about Oscar nominations, and we have an actor with us today. I'm also an actor, but just not the same. Before we talk about the Oscars, Kyle, have you gotten any screeners from SAG yet?

Because I thought that would be a funny question. Well, I am actually a member of the Academy. So are you not allowed to talk about Oscar nominations? I don't know how much I can say about it. Oh, no, Kyle. They have a great thing they do because we used to get screeners sent and some still come out. But now they do everything. They stream everything.

So, yeah, online and everything is right there, which is, you know, very convenient and also great for the environment. And then they don't have to worry about these things then going somewhere else and, you know, getting used again. That's fair. So it's very fair. Made a lot of sense. So that was pretty good. But I guess the most one of the more controversial things is is Greta and Margo. It is. I got to say that I personally I think that was it was a mistake that they weren't nominated. I'm sorry that they weren't nominated. There is some there is some history of. Films of that type, you know, more kind of more of a fantasy based musical base that they did.

They're just not they're sort of they're overlooked. People don't give them the kind of, they give them the same kind of value when it comes to voting. And I think that's, that's too bad. So. Yeah. Well, first off, very sorry to put you in a position that's awkward on our show. You're very graceful to say, we didn't expect you to say you're a member of the Academy. But, you know, I also would have liked to I would have liked to see Greta nominated. But Jonathan, you wrote out some interesting thoughts that, you know, I'm going to throw to you some of the stuff that you wrote down about this because you made some good points. I wanted to bring up and I didn't want to. A lot of people have been saying similar things.

So I don't want to, like, go after an L.A. Times reporter specifically, but I wanted to quote this thing. This is from the L.A. Times. A columnist wrote, if only Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot or stood accused of shoving Ken out of the Dreamhouse's top window. Certainly millions of Barbie fans are currently wishing they could push someone, perhaps a member or two of the Film Academy, out of a very high window. Certainly millions of Barbie fans are currently wishing they could push someone, perhaps a member or two of the film academy out of a very high window. But I thought that was very interesting because to highlight the performances, and I'm sure this writer didn't mean to say Lily Gladstone should not have been nominated, right, for Killers of the Flower Moon or that Emma Stone didn't deserve to be nominated for Poor Things, but to highlight the reason why Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig were not nominated. My perspective is that I think Greta Gerwig did a phenomenal job with Barbie. I think it's

certainly reasonable for more than one woman to be nominated for Best Director at a time. It seems like they said, oh, we've got Justine Triet in there and that's all we need. But Best Actress feels like a very, it was a very crowded field this year. I thought Natalie Portman did a phenomenal job in May, December. I'm sorry to see her not in there as well. So I'm not sure that the focus on just those two, uh, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie does justice to the, the, the, the tons of great performances and directing jobs and screenplays that aren't nominated every year. And there were a lot of notable, uh, firsts in terms of, uh, uh, women of color and, uh, other representation that we might not be focusing on because of this controversy.

Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you completely, Jonathan. Mostly. I think I have a couple of thoughts. In general, it just seems every year when Oscar nominations come out, people are upset about something and sometimes for good reason, sometimes for less or for a specific reason. Everybody's opinion is valid. How do you even quantify what's the best picture of the year? Who are the best? These are all outstanding performances and productions. And

so it always feels a little bit like people are going to get mad at this point in time, but about something always. But I do wonder what is what do we look for for the best movie? You know, obviously, Barbie was a phenomenon and, you know, people were coming out in hordes dressed up, but mostly because they wanted to go see the movie. They were excited about it before they even saw the movie, you know? So it's just an interesting question. What is the movie of the year? And I don't happen to have an answer.

Right. Is it like the messaging or cultural impact or the production or whatever? Like how many combinations are? But also they are nominated for Best Picture. So. Exactly. Yeah. Which Margot Robbie is a producer on it.

So she still may get some sort of recognition for that. I think what heightens the the controversy is that Ryan Gosling was nominated. Yes, it does. That's an important point. He deserves it as much as Margot Robbie deserves it. I was reading I think it was in The New York Times, that it feels like a plot line out of Barbie. Yeah, it does. It does. It does.

Well, also, Kyle, you're a Golden Globe winner. You've gone through these awards cycles before. What's it like from that perspective where you're going to different award shows? Is it all excitement or is it anxiety is it like how many more of these parties do i have to go to it's it's anxiety it's exciting and there's a lot of anxiety and i i won golden globe is nominated a couple times nominated for emmys And there's a very strange, my experience, you go through a very strange chemical reaction, at least I did, sitting as the evening goes

and you're waiting and you have a slightly out of body. And then when they actually get to the category, there was a big part of me that sort of said, Oh God, I hope I don't win because that means I'm gonna go up to the stage and sing something. Obviously that's a kind of a weird reaction, but I don't know if it's that, if it's common or if other people have that experience.

And very, very hard to quantify a performance like that. It's someone, you know, someone does have to win the statue, but it's like, you know, these, all these performances are exceptional in the nominations. And like you said, Katie, I don't, I don't know how you really choose one, you know? And I do think as an actor in general, you know, we're both in this, the trenches here together, Kyle.

But like you audition for a lot of things and you have to develop, you have to get to a point where you're confident enough. You know, you trust yourself and your talent and what you can offer. And there's a grace personally. If not me, someone else has always been my attitude. And it's going to be, it's either going to be me or someone else always. But I hope that because I know that everybody is trying their hardest and coming with their full heart open and wants their opportunity. So it really is an honor to be nominated, as I know.

As you. But as you were, you know, honestly, I feel like I took a step back from acting because I didn't ever really want to get on that stage and have to have that moment of giving an acceptance speech. You know, it sounds very stressful. Anxiety. Anxiety. I know because there's such a fine line between anxiety and excitement at the same time, too. So you got up there and you didn't say, eat it, Scott Bakula. You know, I was kind of amazed at how people i don't know you never really know what's going to come out i think in some ways it's

it is kind of a it's a very um it can be an honest moment you know uh an unpredictable moment certainly um because of the intensity of the focus and the pressure that you feel, you know, at least I would imagine. I just got back from Sundance last night, and I went to see Jesse Eisenberg's film, A Real Pain, with Kieran Culkin and Jennifer Grey. And I went to the opening night, and afterwards, the actors and Jesse got on stage. And Jennifer Grey said something that I thought was a great, funny moment where she said about Kieran and Jesse, she said,

they're dicks, but they're not dickish. I like that. I bet she did not plan to say that. That's just a, yeah, that's a moment. Yeah. That's what made me think of it. When Kyle said, never know what's gonna come out when you get up to it's like i can't be held accountable for what happens in this moment where you're like blacking out and just trying to not fall yeah dropping the statue kieran culkin i would take that as a compliment because that he's been like that's the vibe i've been trying to curate like for years now is this like i'm a little i'm a i've

got the edge but i'm a you know i'm a pleasant person to be around all right we've got another story to get to it has been a rough week for journalism and digital media. Jonathan, why don't you set us up with this? Yeah, a lot's happened in the last week and just this past month. I got a few here on the list. Sports Illustrated has laid off most of its workers. Condé Nast is folding Pitchfork into GQ and laid off about half the editorial staff. The Los Angeles Times this week cut 115 staffers and said it loses $30 to $40 million every year. We've got Time Magazine, NBC News, Business Insider,

a few others all laying off workers. It appears to be the culmination of something that's been happening in journalism and online media for many decades. We have a journalist here. It's been a little bit shaky in our whole industry lately. So we thought we'd pick your brain about it. Not just the sequence of events that led us up to this, but like, where do we go from here? Yeah. Podcasting, right? Yeah, we go into podcasting. That's the only lifeline. But hey, listen, even podcasting has been having its troubles. Look at Gimlet. Look at podcasting in general.

The turmoil is everywhere. And the turmoil traces back 20 odd years to the advent of the digital transformation. When you go from print to digital, you go from print ads to digital ads. And those things are very different and they're valued differently. And the values between them have eroded the foundation of traditional journalism. That's the problem. Yeah. It feels also like local news specifically is getting very hard hit. And I think when local news goes away, a lot of times the national reporters might not know where to focus on, right? It's hard to take your beat and your marching orders, which is why a story like Varnumtown, I think, kind of hits a chord and might seem like, oh, we don't hear about this kind of thing all that often. That's why it's like perfect for a podcast because there's fewer and fewer, maybe long term, long form articles that come out. There's no money in it for the New Yorker to send somebody down there. Yeah, well, you're you're speaking my language. This is I'm a

narrative nonfiction writer, initially investigative reporter for the last 20 plus years. So I was dealing with this directly in my own career, which is why I started Epic magazine was to address this. So in in the old model, you had print ads and you had the classifieds and classifieds got eviscerated by Craigslist and print ads got eviscerated by banner ads. And so, the local news and investigative reporting lost all of the business, the funding from the business models that used to exist. So, I started Epic Magazine with Josh Bearman 10 years ago. This is our 10th anniversary with a whole new idea. We basically publish our stories for free. We don't have classifieds. We don't do banner ads. We basically accept the reality that

this type of publishing makes no money in and of itself. You can't do Varnumtown with banner ads. Banner ads are like less than a penny an impression. So it just does not work. And we don't have, yeah, so we don't have classified. So how do we, how do we survive? And the answer for us at Epic is we publish the stories for free. And then we try to survive on the,

what I call the afterlife of the story. Can it live in other forms? Can it live as a documentary? Can it live as in other forms? Can it live as a documentary? Can it live as a TV show? Can it live as a film? And can that afterlife support the creation? Interesting. I mean, it seems to have been working for you for 10 years.

So that's encouraging. I always feel navigating this industry and so much work is online and changing. It's not just in this space in general, you know, things are progressing quickly. Things are changing. But I feel like we're riding a surfboard. Like so far, this is OK. But what's this wave going to be like?

How is this market going to change? How is the model changing? And it's scary, but interesting as well well what you're doing is I mean so important one of the biggest things that I notice is how everything is behind a paywall and when we're talking about the news or truth it's so hard to I if I I'm not going to sign up for another thing that I have to pay for when I've already got too many subscriptions right now. Or maybe I will, but it's very difficult. How do you reach people in the same way?

We're not encouraging people. We're not putting out these kinds of pieces. Yes, like Varnumtown that show different aspects of the world, show different aspects of humanity. And then we get so disconnected and rambling. But yeah. Yeah, Varnumtown, Kyle, we've been working on this for three years, I think. Wow. Or longer.

So this is like a huge investment. Who knows what will happen in the afterlife of it. But I don't think Kyle and I would have done it if we weren't friends and kind of wanted to go on an adventure together and explore the world. Yeah. together and explore the world yeah no i would just say i think we recognize that there was value not only to telling the story because it's an interesting story it's an interesting part of history but as as josh was saying that these these types of stories have may hold value in other capacities you know other areas so in a way, as a journalist, then you now become, and Josh is a hyphen, a producer, a potential director, writer, of course, but now you have to,

you wear many hats to guide something or in relationships to guide something, a story, an idea. I think the key thing, of course, is to make sure that you have ownership of that so that you can take it, you can see it further down the road and see what the potential is. And I think that, you know, we're already feeling a little bit of that. There's a hunger for stories like this. And, you know, people are already starting to sort of talk, would talk to people about the further life

for this for this story and um oh this story's got legs that is exciting you guys can do stuff with this story well because it's saying it does take like you're saying like that time and dedication and passion of a small group of people because you you're not you're not doing this for like growth right you're not trying to make the line go up you're not trying to like make investors happy you're interested in this story and you think it has value beyond monetary value that you might get from a subscription or something we also really like shrimp that helps that could help i mean what an excuse to go get some shrimp some shrimp and turkey but i let one of my i i knew that you guys had a relationship but i love seeing how uh far back you guys have been friends because that

uh your chemistry is very good both here and on the show it's very entertaining uh your rapport is you know it's fun it's fun i think everybody should listen to it yeah it's refreshing there's um uh i think these will be on the the main the main episodes but there's sort of like the story the narrative of you talking to these people and describing what happened and then there's sort of a retrospective afterward where it's just you casually talking whether it's about themes or a certain person or just a vibe from that episode and is really refreshing to hear that is that that's i assume maybe like recorded like years later like these interviews probably happened at the sort of towards the beginning and is it is it an actual retrospective or was it happening in tandem with no that so we went to varnum town early, I guess now two years ago, right?

It was 2022. And then the kind of basically what you're referring to, Cody, is at the end of the episode, the credits roll. And then there's Kyle and I just decided like, hey, let's just vamp for a little bit and talk about not the kind of driving propulsive narrative, but let's just talk about what it means, what we were doing, what you were doing, Kyle, at the time, what I was doing and what was going on in my life, what was going on in your life. And it's I don't know, I I included it because it's a little bit

nontraditional. Typically, when a show ends, a show ends. Right. It is nontraditional. With a podcast, you can do anything. And I always get hung up when I'm thinking about a new idea. Like, well, I want to do this. I want to do that. But how does that? I don't know. Does that make sense together? And I love that you did it because it does make sense.

It feels like a two separate thing. But you're making it work. It's your show. You get to do it. And it's compelling and interesting and fun. So, hey. Well done. Yeah, why not?

So, hey, well done. Yeah, why not? Maybe we can, after this show ends, do 10 minutes of just like, you know, because we never get to like banter or chit chat. So let's just do that at the end of this show. Like another. The most uncomfortable peanut butter and jelly sandwich I've ever eaten. Oh my goodness. That story about your neighbor. Spectacular. And that's something that comes out from just talking about neighbors and the relationship of people in the town.

And it expands to just this casual, interesting story of a personal nature. It's very, very entertaining. I've got a bad neighbor in LA. I'm thinking of just standing in his doorway eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Oh, that might actually help. I'm thinking of just standing in his doorway eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Oh, that might actually help. I don't know. That neighbor ended up dying a couple of years later. So I don't hear, you know, I don't get to interact with him anymore. It's a little bit sad because we did form like from this antagonistic moment of him blasting his music in the middle of the day to then us having this understanding because we were face to face

at that moment. You'll have to listen to the episode to find out. But it all's well that ended well for a while and then death is there for all of us, I guess. Yeah, well, that's a sobering reminder of what's looming. Yeah, well, in the after show to this show, we can talk about death and the theme.

Yeah, perfect. You guys are sticking around for, we can talk about death and the theme. Yeah. Perfect. You guys are sticking around for an hour of talk about death, right? Yeah. Do you guys ever think about death? That's it. All right. Barbie. Perfect callback.

We really did it. We really made it happen today. Thank you so much for joining us. Please tell our listeners where they can find Varnum Town and anything else you want to plug. Anything else you want to plug. Anything else you want to plug, yeah. Wherever you get your podcast is where you can find Varnum Town. I assumed.

I don't know why they say that on every single podcast promo. Get Varnum Town wherever you get your podcast. Well, of course I'm going to do that. I assume there's still a few people that are like, well, where do I find it? How do I get it? Yeah. In the podcast app. Just look in there.

Yeah. Google podcast and you'll find it. You'll find it. Okay. That does it for us this week. This was fun. We'll be back next week. And in the meantime, please remember that we love you very much.

Much. Sometime in the early 80s, REO Speedwagon's airplane made an unannounced middle-of-the-night landing. This is my friend Kyle McLaughlin, the star of Twin Peaks. And he's telling me about how he discovered a real-life

Twin Peaks in rural North Carolina, not far from where he filmed Blue Velvet. What was on the plane was copious amounts of drugs coming in from South America. Supposedly, Pablo Escobar went looking for other spots, quiet, out-of-the-way places to bring in his cocaine. My name is Joshua Davis, and I'm an investigative reporter. Kyle and I talk all the time about the strange things we come across, but nothing was quite as strange as what we found in Varnumtown, North Carolina. There's crooked cops, brother against brother.

Everyone's got a story to tell, but does the truth even exist? Welcome to Varnumtown. Varnumtown is available wherever you listen to podcasts.