Last Night, I Saw Dave Chappelle Birth A New Phase Of American Comedy In An Ohio 🌽 Cornfield

The Summer Camp That Could Save The Wrinkled American Soul

I swear I’m not trying to flex here, but you’ll be jelly when I tell you what I saw happen on stage last night. I witnessed the rebirth of comedy in America.

Of course, I’ve already lied to you with that sensational headline, because comedy never dies in America, but it does change radically as the times require. Dave Chappelle is a comedian who has risen to the challenge of being the doula of what comedy will become this decade in America.

Like the author, Dave Chappelle is a good citizen in my great State of Ohio. He lives in one of the most progressive and beautiful of Ohio’s cities, Yellow Springs (est. 1825). I’ve heard this city referred to as the San Francisco of Ohio, and it’s an apt title. Yellow Springs was named from the nearby natural springs with high iron, giving the rocks the water runs over their color.

This city hosts one of the underrated liberal colleges in our country, and what you think would be cheap country homes are millions of dollars in value, mainly because good people want to live here. Many of these people are annoying to their fellow Ohioans because of the way the city encourages its citizens to celebrate and broadcast their differences as moral values. I consider this a hallmark of living in a civilized Democracy, so it’s the perfect city to host a rebirth of American comedy. What Austin did for music is what Chappelle is doing for comedy in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Here’s how it works. There’s a field in Yellow Springs. They built a sweet ass pavilion there. It looks like this:

Source: Wirrig Pavilion Facebook Page (LINK)

There is a small backstage area and room for probably 20 people to sit behind the comedians, who have a large area and steps to walk around and own as they talk. Each comedian seemed overwhelmed by the scene they walked out on, unlike any of the dungeons of comedy or clubs plopped inside malls spread through our major cities of America.

These comedians walked out onto a pastoral scene where beautiful, ancient Ohio trees embrace mowed field grass that rustles in the wind while the trees shake their leaves like applause. In this grove and field, laughter is the crop that grows from firm Ohio ground.

Ten shows this summer. Two nights for five weekends. 1,000 seats a show. After service fees, it was $160 per ticket. So that’s $160K a show and $1.6M in ticket sales for a summer of concerts that run from 8:30 PM to Midnight. Now, toss in that Dave is bringing the best of the best to Ohio for comedy, and he’s giving them an open stage to push the boundaries of what makes us laugh at ourselves and each other.

I live about 90 minutes from Yellow Springs, so I charged up the car to fill the battery and headed out to arrive at 4 PM. I met one of my oldest buddies at a brewery, and we knocked two back before heading over to hike near Clifton Gorge. This beautiful walking path lets you look down deep into the cliffs that this rushing water has carved into rock since the ice age to create the curves and erections in the stones of this land in Ohio, where our water goes to work by falling into the Earth.

From there, we headed to Young’s Dairy (est. 1869 & a must-stop if you’re rolling through the area), a working dairy farm with some of the best Quick Serve food and ice cream in Central Ohio. The cheese and ice cream are all made from the dairy harvested on this working farm. This famous landmark feeds more than 1.2M people annually.

So then we hop on buses built for school kids, and we jostle our way over the uneven ground and the country roads to a field where the VIPs park. We put all phones and smart watches into Faraday bags sealed by some techno-magic, and we carry those with us until the end of the night when helpful staff unlocks them for us so we can pull out our gear and start doom scrolling again.

I saw Chappelle first at Red Rocks Amphitheater in July 2017. John Mayer came out and played onstage with him, Michael Che, and other comedians I can’t remember. They smoked joints on stage together while the Colorado stars twinkled, and I can only describe that comedy experience as jazz. The comedians had an instrument that wasn’t singing, but it was using words that melted into the music that John Mayer was playing. Of course, Mayer was also adding his words into the performance, and he is a hilarious person.

Dave Chappelle has a way of giving artists a safe but demanding space to work inside on a stage. Dave has collected all the great and funny minds of our time into a support network that I am calling in this letter, The Rebirth of American Comedy.

We arrived and found our seats about 45 minutes before the show started at 8:30 PM. I almost went mad trying to check my watch and phone to see how much time was left until the show started. Not having access to communications didn’t bother me as much as not knowing what time it was.

Eventually, I stopped checking the time and started checking in with my best friend, and we spoke about the good and bad times, where our hearts are now a year out from our friend Paul passing away. We agreed that Paul would have loved to have seen this show and been here on a night like this. It’s amazing how quickly we reconnect with the people we love once these devil screens get locked in bags we can’t get into.

The DJ was on fire, playing some of the great Hip Hop, mixing it up with songs that had some of the same samplings in it, including one of my all-time favorite jams in history, EPMD’s You Gots To Chill; it’s one of the hardest slow rap songs ever made.

The time went fast, and eventually, out came Dave Chappelle, who announced he was going to be the MC tonight, which meant that we were going to get Dave all night long and not the Netflix Dave Chappelle with the prepared act. This work is where Dave’s finished act comes from. So instead of the famous Dave Chappelle, we were going to get the artist and citizen Chappelle. His function was to make sure laughter continued throughout the evening.

Here is the progressive lineup in the order I can remember. I warned you that you’d be jelly; I’m sorry again for that:

Dave Chappelle

Marshall Brandon (Website)

Jimmy Fallon

Sam Jay (Website)

Mohammed Amer (“MO” - Website)

Caroline Rhea (Website)

Craig Shoemaker (Website)

Jon Stewart

Donnell Rawlings (Website)

Chris Rock

I’m not spoiling anyone’s jokes because the people who pay for these tickets deserve to have the content be as fresh as possible. But I want to talk about the vibe and some things that happened during the show.

There was a lineup but no format.

Dave Chappelle is about creating moments of shared laughter on stage, and he was not above gently interrupting the other comedians to guide them back toward the audience when they occasionally drifted away. My suspicion is that Dave is a hyper empath who innately senses the emotional state of his crowds and has learned with his craft over time to shift and shape a crowd’s emotional landscape. He is truly a Master of Ceremonies in all the art he does.

New York & LA Comedians Are Learning Here In This Ohio Field How To Talk Again About And To White People In Post-Trump America

It’s odd to say, but most of these comedians come from New York or LA, and they may not understand the mind of the Ohioan like Dave does because he is an Ohioan in his heart (just like me).

I think we both love this State, even with its current terrible leadership, which seems to be fully vested in ensuring minority white rule in Ohio and America.

There are plenty of things to laugh about in Ohio. The innocence and often ignorance of Ohioans is an easy target for trained comedians. And that’s okay. People are tough here. We can laugh at ourselves, but it got carried away for one unfortunate pair of souls in the audience.

Weird Christians & “Woods White People” Are Still Fair Game For Ridicule

I don’t know why the Mennonite Mother thought it would be a good idea to bring her adult teenage son to this show and sit in the front row. I don’t mean the front row in the field; I’m talking about stage right, where every comedian walked past them when they came out. It all started when one of the support staff told the comedian Mo’ that an Amish couple was on stage. Mo said something about this in his set, and they told him they weren’t Amish but Mennonites. As soon as the other comedians backstage heard that detail, there was blood in the water, and Caroline Rhea was the first to seize that floating carcass of spontaneous jokes just waiting to be created live on stage.

And they flew furiously for the next two hours. But, of course, it wasn’t in my opinion anything the young man and his mother won’t recover from. Still, I guarantee they will never forget that experience of being singled out in front of a thousand people and made a spectacle because of how they looked, dressed, their religion, and their quaint rituals and ways.

Chappelle even joined in lightheartedly by telling everyone he would become a Black Mennonite and churn butter and make furniture. The crowd shifted rapidly from laughing with the Mennonites to laughing at them, and I was laughing right along with everyone else.

Any of us can go along with a crowd emotionally, and being in a horde of people is a dangerous place to be. This event was no Trump Rally but wasn’t an anti-Trump rally either. Last night, as they have for nearly sixty years in America, comedians stepped on stage and performed various exorcisms of our cultural malignancies.

Comedy is the Midwife Of American culture. But there is always a butt of the jokes, and it sucks when it’s you.

I once went to a comedy show when I was in high school. I was skinny, short, and looked like I was twelve. And I sat in the front row. I was singled out repeatedly and made fun of in front of everyone. I was messed up for a while over that experience, but I got over it because I’m not a sucker. I live on a mountain of privilege compared to the shit other people have to deal with in this life. But, because of that experience, I am much better under pressure now when I’m on stage or presenting my ideas and designs to audiences.

Great comedy heals, but only after it rips a subject apart.

Also, everyone should have to take their licks and smile about it; it’s what makes our society whole and strong. I’m not talking about abuse here or excusing any crimes, but having our feelings hurt publicly now and then is not violence, and it can be character-building through humility.

Don’t Fuck With These Ohio Insects

Mo swallowed a Junebug on stage and nearly choked. It flew right into his mouth in the middle of a joke and was buzzing in his throat. He tried to swallow it by drinking the rest of his tequila, but that only seemed to make the drowning bug angry, and the joke was lost. It took him minutes of his set to recover, but he still managed to pivot and tell his jokes. Of course, not many comedians tell jokes in an Ohio cornfield, but for those coming to do it this Summer, “Keep a close eye on what’s flying at you.” Protect Ya’ Necks, fools!

Don’t Start Nothing, Won’t Be Nothing

Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle are two of the most famous comedians in the world, and both were recently attacked on stage in front of people.

Chris Rock had a show in Cincinnati that ended probably 25 minutes before he arrived, by what I’m assuming was a helicopter, and when he took the stage, Chris seemed overwhelmed. At first, he forgot where his act started, the show he had just gone through less than an hour before. So he gets into his set for a few minutes, but then stops, looking out into the audience, stage left. Muffled voices carried over the crowd. People were shouting, maybe fighting. Rock says something that shook me, “Is this a, ‘Get your hand out of my pocket!’ moment?’”

That’s what someone in the crowd yelled out when Malcolm X was shot and murdered on stage.

It hit me that these comedians are taking their lives into their hands by stepping on these stages. Chris Rock was attacked live on Global television by another one of the most famous entertainers in the world. Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage at the Hollywood Bowl in one of the cities that lays legitimate claim to being “The Entertainment Capital Of The World.”

And even with all their money and influence, on a stage they put together, each of us drawn here by their immense talent, these men seemed anxious for everyone’s safety in the field. So it was an intense two minutes that saw Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Chappelle, and Chris Rock standing shoulder to shoulder, shouting down whatever was happening in the crowd. And I felt in that moment that this crowd (along with myself) would have risen to defend each other and the comedians if we had to. There was a moment that night when a thousand strangers would have stood up together to settle whatever the matter was, and it was a powerful experience to feel that the crowd had each others’ backs.

We desperately need this experience of committing to the Common Good in America right now and I believe that this new phase of Comedy is going to be part of that happening.

Two white comedians and two black comedians, all human brothers who have dedicated their lives to helping us laugh at ourselves by laughing at each other, stood by each other in a small moment of crisis. It was equally frightening and inspiring, two emotions I feel deeply about my country right now.

The wheel was in spin last night on America. I don’t know what will happen to our fragile Republic, but I do know that the things that bring us together to smile and laugh with each other are far more powerful than the forces that would see us abandon the Common Good for anarchy and piracy.

Dave Chappelle is leading a revolution in Comedy that may save the soul of America, right here from a simple corn🌽 field in our beautiful State Of Ohio.

I wore my OOOG Legacy shirt to the show in case I got on camera. I have known the founder Street Lotto since high school. He accepted me when I was this weird little white kid who loved Hip Hop and wanted to be around other people who did. They weren’t easy to find in rural ass Ohio in 1990. Please check out OOOG’s story and product line. It’s a positive brand built on kindness and community. I wear this logo proudly. Check it out - LINK