‘Like a rural Scarface’: Hollywood star Kyle MacLachlan’s wild discovery of Pablo Escobar’s secret town
Kyle MacLachlan is bent over, wearing a bright yellow raincoat, as Lana Del Rey plays softly in the background. He lifts his head up in a jerking motion, revealing a pile of white powder on a mirror next to a straw. His nose and upper lip are covered in powdery residue, as he then slips on a pair of black sunglasses before picking up a microphone and walking off.
This is the kind of scene you may have come across if you have been following the award-winning actor on social media of late. Fret not, MacLachlan hasn’t entered his midlife crisis cocaine era (it was corn starch), but instead has been creating a series of silly, slightly surreal videos to promote his new podcast Varnamtown.
Described as “a real-life Twin Peaks in North Carolina”, this years-in-themaking project is not just another jump-on-the-bandwagon celebrity podcast. Made in collaboration with Joshua Davis, an Emmy-winning investigative journalist, it delves into strange goingson in the titular sleepy backwater fishing town in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Think S-Town meets odd angling-based scam tale The Paddlefish Caviar Heist, albeit more playful.
MacLachlan was told about Varnamtown by Lynn Betz, a mutual friend who had moved there, and about how in the 1980s the town (population of around 300 at the time) effectively did a deal with the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar that allowed him to use the it as a shipping and transport hub for his trade. “I went down there and met some of the characters, and I came away with a real curiosity about what happened,” says MacLachlan. “I said, ‘We have to pull this apart and figure out what’s real’.”
MacLachlan contacted Davis, who saw the potential in this untold story. “In the national media it seems completely unknown,” he says. “It doesn’t seem like people really paid attention outside of Brunswick County. But a DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] agent told us that in his first year there he captured more drugs than the entire Washington DEA office had captured in seven. It was like, whoa, why aren’t people paying attention to this?”
Varnamtown became the busiest port of entry for illegal drugs in the US, as Escobar and his crew realised that operating from somewhere small and discreet was better than the bright lights of ports such as Miami. “The influx of cocaine was coming into south Florida but when the DEA cracked down on that they started looking for other places,” says Davis. “They had learned their lesson: Florida is heavily populated so why not go somewhere that’s not?”
When the actor and Davis arrived – and once the residents got over asking why Kyle MacLachlan was in Varnamtown – a number of idiosyncratic characters and outrageous stories appeared. Central to this whole narrative is Dale Varnam, also known as crazy Dale – who claimed to have brokered the Escobar deal.
Varnam – a common surname in the town – lives in a sort of junkyard mansion called Fort Apache. “He has basically built an entire full-size town inside the walls of his compound,” says Davis. “It’s bizarre. It’s full of all sorts of elaborate stuff, like Hollywood paraphernalia mixed in with massive murals of drug-running operations. There is a main street, a jail, a pharmacy and a bar. But there’s nobody there – the place is just filled with chickens. There’s also a particularly aggressive turkey that, according to the DEA, is classified as an attack turkey. Kyle and I definitely felt like we were being pursued by a turkey.”
Elsewhere the two podcasters speak to local residents, former dealers – including one who keeps accidentally revealing his real identity when he is being recorded – law enforcement and several characters at the heart of the incident. Another strand is about two brothers who were best friends but ended up torn apart. “This influx of cocaine precipitated a betrayal that feels almost Shakespearean,” Davis says of the brothers. “It’s one that still hits me in the gut.”
The Twin Peaks comparisons of a small town filled with odd characters, crimes and strange goings on is not lost on MacLachlan. “That was immediately apparent,” he says. “Everybody was real friendly with each other, nice and cordial, like we’re all just getting along in this world; you’re the law enforcement and I’m the criminal but we can get together and have a barbecue. There are a lot of eccentric characters there for sure.”
The idea of an entire town being to varying degrees complicit in one of the largest drug operations in the US may seem far-fetched, but for much of the population the arrangement offered stability and security when it was needed. “Dale felt that it was an opportunity to bring a lot of money into a town that was suffering,” MacLachlan explains. “The shrimp trade is a tough business and at that particular time it was in a depression. He was saying: ‘I’m giving this opportunity to the people around me, I’m helping my community by bringing in this money. Or at least that’s what he was doing to people who were on his side. If you were not on his side then things didn’t go as well.”
The amount of money paid to unload one drug shipment was the equivalent of six months’ wages to some people. “There was a large group of people that were appreciative that they could earn a living,” MacLachlan says. “That was never an opportunity for some before.”
While many residents simply used the money to buy a home or start a business, the effects of all that cash began to spread in more toxic ways. “It went everywhere,” says Davis. “Local law enforcement was getting paid off. The numbers that were involved – there were massive amounts of money going to buy off law enforcement.”
Not everyone was entirely happy about that. One lone wolf resident does seek to bring down the whole operation, and things get messy along the way with busts, betrayals, and an informant who turns against literally hundreds of people.
As paranoia grew in the community, so too did Varnam’s compound. “He’s got a huge wall built around it and when the DEA first arrived to investigate him, they saw that it was guarded by men with high-powered rifles and shotguns, and cameras everywhere – it was kind of like a rural Scarface,” says Davis. Except the cameras were just spray-painted pieces of plastic with cheap electrical wire going nowhere. Just like Varnam’s fake jail and pharmacy inside Fort Apache, it was a facade.
With so many wild characters and stories floating around, a big part of Davis and MacLachlan’s job has been figuring out what is myth and what is fact. “We basically recreated the DEA investigation,” says Davis. “And we present the conclusion that Kyle and I came to. I have been amazed by the depths of emotion and drama in this sparsely populated, yet tight-knit, community. It’s a story full of characters – there are probably more eccentric characters per capita in Varnamtown than any other place I’ve been.”
• Varnamtown is available now on audio streaming platforms
didn’t like my relationship with it. I have reached a consistent month with no watching, as of today, and I have had streaks like this before, but I am afraid that porn is still affecting how I perceive the relationship.
I am also developing straight-up crushes on other women. I hate it, I wish it would go away because I am on such a good path with this person, but the physical attraction is only like a 3/10! I don’t know what the next steps are. I cry because I don’t know if I should let her go, and she notices. What should I do?*
Eleanor says:Desire isn’t famed for its responsiveness to good reason. It’s kind of the opposite. I’ve written before that love and desire are – for some people – right on the edge of being contradictory: love responds to what we know, and desire responds to mystery.
I wonder whether some part of this is to do with just how “good on paper” you are. For a lot of people, desire lives in the taboo: the whole point and thrill of it is that it exists in the shadows just offstage. When you act from desire, you’re stepping out of the usual rules to do something unshackled and animal. Try to bring that desire into daylight, back among the rules and business of normal life, and it dissolves.
Too much of this kind of categorising can give a guy a complex. You can wind up not knowing how to simultaneously know and cherish someone in the daylight and want to toss them around in the dark. If you think there’s anything like that going on here, then that – rather than “physical type” – is what to focus on, perhaps with the help of a therapist.
That aside, there are some things you could try to awaken desire that goes beyond physical type.
One might be to get really focused on what she likes, has liked before, wishes you’d do more of together. You don’t want the economy of desire between you to get stuck on whether you’reinto her.Paying attention to whether she’sinto youcan wake things up a bit. In all likelihood she’s desired and been desired before you, fantasised about others and been someone else’s fantasy too. Remembering that she has this part of her life without and outside you can make you want to get in on it. It might wake up something red-blooded to remember that you might have things to prove to her in this domain, as well as the other way around.
Another strategy might be to focus on how much you can make her have a good time. It sounds like you really do care about her, see a good path together, respect her. There doesn’t need to be a schism between how you feel about her as a person and how you feel about her body. Some of the best physical intimacy is precisely about showing another person how you feel – not waiting for their body to make yours feel something. If you can make your physical time together about what you can give her, that can, in a nice sleight-ofhand, wake up your own desire. Chasing ever-higher connection and surrender can be a lot more fun than chasing a particular kind of body.
A word of caution, though: you say that she notices this. Usually I think candour is the currency of relationships, but I wouldn’t talk to her about the other “type”. You could mean so much by that – race, size, colouring, vibe – and she just doesn’t need to compare herself to people she’s never going to resemble.
I think the options are to fix this or let her go. The middle option – doing her a favour by keeping her in a relationship where she’s compared unfavourably to pornography or other women – is no favour at all.
You’re not the only person who will want her: don’t keep her from other options if you can only ever desire her at “3/10”.
*This letter has been edited for length
***
Ask us a question
Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through life’s questions and puzzles, big and small. Your questions will be kept anonymous.
If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here
planning to move to New York, to soak up the jazz clubs. Wherever she plays, Café Molly is the conceptual lounge pop-up she creates.
“Until I have my own red velvet sunken piano lounge, I take it with me,” she says. “Hey, if there are any investors interested in a foolproof plan to make tons of money on a whistle club, get in touch.”
On the Lips by Molly Lewis is out now through Jagjaguwar
– One Tree Hill, The OC, Gilmore Girls – when I use it.”
The overwhelming majority of American adults do not own landlines. According to the Washington Post, barely a quarter of Americans lived in homes that had one in 2022. The number has basically death-dropped since 2010, when about 63% of Americans had both wireless and landline options.
Service providers are closer than ever to phasing landlines out: in California, AT&T proposed doing away with landline phones altogether, appealing to the state’s public utilities commission for permission to cut service. The telecommunications giant called landlines a “historical curiosity that’s no longer necessary”.
Maybe so, but that’s exactly why some gen Z customers are so charmed by the analog tech. They don’t need the service; they still use cellphones for most daily tasks. Instead, they appreciate the aesthetic of the landline. It reminds them of a simpler, pre-digital era. Landlines are how you talk to your friends for hours, where conversations go deeper than the standard “wyd” text.
“When people see my landline, they treat it like a toy,” Randone added. “Since I’m an influencer, I’m constantly online, so it’s really nice to disconnect and it almost feels like an escape.”
Sunny bought her Hello Kitty landline after seeing someone on TikTok show off their frog-shaped phone. (Sunny asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons.) She later learned that she could buy an adapter to connect her iPhone to the landline, which makes it more convenient; the adapter connects to Bluetooth and pairs with her cell, which means that the landline shares a number with her iPhone, and calls go to both devices.
“I love the novelty of talking to my friends and sitting in one place,” Sunny said. “When I’m having a long text conversation with a friend, I’ll just ask if we can speak over the phone and catch up.”
Sam Casper, a 27-year-old singersongwriter who lives in West Hollywood, owns a light pink Crosley landline. “It was my mom’s husband’s grandma’s phone,” she said. “But it’s hilarious, because saying that makes you think it would be old, but she bought it from Urban Outfitters a few years ago.”
Casper uses the phone to speak with friends, some of whom have their own landlines, too. “It’s so cute and romantic,” she said. “It’s very Sex and the City, which is why we started doing it. I really loathe cellphones, because everyone cancels at the last minute these days through text, which I find so absurd.”
Casper keeps her friends’ phone numbers listed on a napkin from the Chateau Marmont that sits next to her phone. Another part of her setup: “I have a tape – what’s it called? – a voice box thing … a voicemail machine,” she added. Her phone service combined with wifi used to cost around $130 a month, but she called her provider and talked it down to $82.
Not everyone gets to speak to
Casper on her landline. She’s “selective” about who receives that phone number, which is separate from her cell number.
“There’s no caller ID, so I can’t screen who’s calling,” she said. “If I meet a new friend and they’re the type of person I’d invite back to my house, they get the landline. Whenever I hear my phone ringing, I get so giddy. I love to just sit there and talk and twirl the little cord.”