June 22, 2023 • 29 mins
Comedian Dave Chappelle has been buying up properties in the tiny town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. The residents have mixed feelings about their powerful neighbor’s real estate decisions and it’s been splitting the town in two. Reporter Tyler J. Kelley paid a visit to Yellow Springs to see if it’s really becoming Chappelleville.
You can read Tyler J. Kelley’s Bloomberg story “What Happens When Dave Chappelle Buys Up Your Town” here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-dave-chappelle-yellow-springs/#xj4y7vzkg
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi, I'm Tyler J. Kelly, and I wrote what Happens
when Dave Chappelle Buys up Your Town for Bloomberg Business Week,
and it's the story of the Week.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
In nineteen ninety nine, I was interviewing the host of
The View and comedian Joy Behar, and one of my
pressing questions was, can you get me in the Friars Club?
She could, and she did so. For years, I invited
people to lunch at the Midtown Manhattan six story townhouse
that was called the Monastery. We'd eat the sliced bagel
(00:51):
chips that served as a bread basket that were inches
away from soupy sales Buddy Hackett and five Ish Finkle.
I worked out at the gym there and saw many
old people naked who may have once been famous. But
the Friar's Club has been closed for months. It hasn't
paid its mortgage in a while. Inside, according to court papers,
(01:11):
there's trash, mice, quote, unidentified liquid waste, and even more sadly,
not one joke about unidentifiable liquid waste. The club's probably
gonna go under, as it's current dean said to The
New York Times. Quote if there's one thing I've learned.
The friars should not be running clubs. They should be
(01:34):
telling jokes and singing songs. Obviously, comedians shouldn't run businesses.
And it can also get complicated when they buy towns,
as the people in tiny Yellow Springs, Ohio found out
when Dave Chappelle started buying up main Street. Writing is hard.
(01:56):
Who's got that kind of time when you're already busy
trying to be Joe stand So it turns on a mic?
Made the twitles enough.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Because a journalist trand has gotten that Jule job. Single story.
Just listen to smart people speak, conversation, film and information.
It's the story.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Tyler Kelly took a trip to you call like Yellow Springs,
Ohio for BusinessWeek to see the town that Dave Chappelle bought. Tyler,
thank you for doing this. Are you a Chappelle fan?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I am a Chappelle fan. I've been a fan of
Chappelle since the Chappelle Show. I have it on DVD.
I used to watch it all the time.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So you fly out to this town, Yellow Springs, Ohio,
and what's it like When you first get there.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It's a cute town, you know, low rise two story buildings,
kind of a classic Midwestern small town, except I guess
I would say I've never been to a place with
more window signs, you know, pride flags, masks wearing signs,
giant Black Lives Matter banner hanging over the main street.
(03:15):
There's many very overt signals. You know that you've crossed
into the liberal bastion from you know, rural Ohio.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Why is this one small town in the middle of
Ohio so liberal?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The whole town was founded by these religious utopians in
the eighteen hundreds. Anyat College grew out of that town,
which is also kind of like a very idealistic, very liberal,
you know, bastion of long standing. It was a stop
on the underground railroad. So the progressivism, you know, it
(03:50):
comes by it authentically and deeply.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Antioch was the first college that made rules about consent,
and everyone thought it was so absurd. You'd be like,
is it okay if I touch your breast young woman?
I remember this SNL sketch making fun of that, which now,
of course I'm sure they don't erics. It makes them
look like jerks. But then I saw Dave Chappelle's dad
taught in Antioch did Chappelle grow up in this town?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
He went to middle school there, like that kind of
time period. So you talk to a lot of people
who were I guess about Dave Chappelle's age, like mid forties,
and they talk about this utopian kind of feeling growing
up going to school in maybe the eighties in Yellow Springs,
how diverse it was, how affordable it was, how artsy
and weird it was, and they all say that that
(04:38):
time is over, and that's one of their big laments
about what's going on in the village today is sort
of the loss of that feeling.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What's changed.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
A lot of things have changed. The kind of middle
class manufacturing jobs are mostly gone, so it's become older, whiter,
and more expensive in the last couple decades.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And then the sound's also changed. Because what I learned
from your story that I had no idea is that
Antioch is gone. Like I didn't know a you know,
two hundred year old college could just disappear.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It isn't literally gone. It did completely fold in two
thousand and eight, but it came back to life in
twenty eleven, and so it still exists in a much
much diminished version. I think the current class is one
hundred and twenty students. Yeah, and just sort of the
cultural force that it used to be, it's not anymore.
(05:30):
So I think that's part of the Dave store too,
is because there's nothing else going on. He's a big,
big deal, maybe bigger than he should be in people's minds.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, there's this superstar comedian who's living in this tiny
village because he spent some time growing up there. What
made him move back to Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I don't know. He bought a house there, I think
while he was filming The Chappelle Show in New York.
So that would have been like the early two thousands,
and it would go back and forth, like living in
a furnished apartment in New York and then going back
to Yellow Springs. It appears that he authentically always had
long standing had wanted to be there. He likes it there.
He's raising his kids there, his kids go to public
school there. Oh, he hangs out in town. I mean,
(06:10):
he genuinely likes it there. But I think that's pretty unequivocal.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So Dave Chappelle in two thousand and four ends his
Comedy Central show He's just gotten I think fifty something
million dollars to make two more seasons, and then he's
he doesn't show up to work anymore. He just takes off,
which is, you know, the craziest entertainment story of that time.
People were obsessed, like, where is Dave Chappelle? Why is
he leaving fifty million dollars on the table? Why isn't
(06:37):
even telling his longtime writing partner that he's not going
to show up for work.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, there was a lot of rumors that, you know,
he had some kind of breakdown, that he was on
some kind of drugs, that he was on some spiritual retreat,
that he had moved us south that Africa. According to
his spokesperson, none of that was true.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So he was hiding out in Yellow Springs, which is
remote enough that no one figured out he was in America.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, and I'm sure he was keeping a low profile.
People told me that he would insert bits of misinformation
into his like conversations with people he didn't know very well,
like he and his wife were going to get a
divorce or something like that, and then wait to see
if that person leaked it to the media. And that's
how he'd I guess, kind of know who his friends.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Were that's genius. He'd say something to like the guy
at the grocery store about I'm going to leave my
wife and then wait to see if it was in
the Star magazine. This is classic high school behavior, right,
This is what you do in high school to make
sure your friends are your friends. Yeah, I should be
doing that all the time. I'm sure that mafia does
this too, right, Give a little bad information, see if
(07:37):
it comes back to them, and then whack the guy.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, that is what it reminds me of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh, so he's living in Yellow Springs, getting along with people,
keeping a low profile, and then in the summer of
twenty twenty, after COVID hits, things change a little bit
because he's stuck at home and what happens that kind
of causes some conflict in that town.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So he started doing these shows in the summer of
twenty twenty, basically weekly shows at this property call the
Word Pavilion, which is owned by a friend of Dave's.
It's outside of the village and the township, and they
get permission from the governor's office to do these shows
pretty early into the pandemic, and they the Chappelle's people
(08:21):
take credit for pioneering a bunch of the ways to
have a live performance during the pandemic. COVID tests, masks,
temperature checks, social distance seating, all that stuff they did
outside in this field where they had these shows.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And these shows that he's having have huge stars coming
to Yellow Springs somehow.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, huge stars, Sarah Silverman, Michelle Wolf, Donnell Rawlings, Chris Rock,
John Ham shows up, big musical guests, Tallip Quali Common
And I think part of the reason all those big
deal comedians come is because there's nothing else to do
in the Summit twenty twenty. All their stuff is canceled.
They have nowhere to go, And so it was really successful.
It did great things for the small businesses of Yellow Springs.
(09:03):
Something a lot of people say is that there are
businesses that would have gone out of business were it
not for these shows. But the other thing that happens
is some of the people who live near this field
start to complain there's noise, there's trash. They are thinking
they're living in a rural setting next to this rural property,
(09:24):
and all of a sudden, there's four hundred people there.
So the township zoning inspector looks into it and decides, actually, yes,
this is a violation of the zoning code. And so
he tells him, yeah, this isn't violation. You guys need
to shut this down. They don't shut it down. They
keep going. They ignore him.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
You can't ignore the zoning Inspector of Yellow Springs, Like,
what is he doing?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
He told me he has the authority to issue a
fine of a couple hundred dollars. So he thought that
was pointless. Obviously they've got a lot more money than that,
So what else could he do?
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Wow, So Dave Chappelle is too powerful for the government
of Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, technically this is the government of Miami Township, which
surrounds Yellow Springs. Okay, but yeah, actively and so then
in August, I think Steve Worrig, who owns the field,
applies for a zoning variance, an exemption from the zoning code,
and wins it. Their initial justification for the variant says, oh,
we need these to lift our spirits, we need these
(10:24):
to get together. We're so depressed because of the pandemic.
The Zoning Board of Appeals goes for that. So then
he gets I think a year's worth of shows that
brings him to twenty twenty one. Then the following spring
he gets another variants and another variance the next time around,
there saying well, we need these for businesses. The businesses
are going to go to business without this. The zoning
Board of Appeals goes for that the third time around.
(10:45):
I interviewed a member of the board who said that
she felt unequivocally that it did not merit a variance
this time, and she was going to vote against it,
but somehow she felt intimidated enough by all the Chappelle
supporters in the room and the kind of general like
rah Ra Chappelle, pro Chappelle culture personality thing that was
(11:07):
going on in the village that she voted yes against
her conscience. And then she told me that she felt
so dirty afterwards that she quit the zoning board.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oh my god. So she felt like she caved to
the Chappell machine and she couldn't love herself anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Cave just a word, she used.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Wow, I've never done a story with so much anonymity
and people so worried about their identity than this one.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Really, because if you're on the wrong side of it,
what happens to.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
You, you'll get slammed on social media. People are worried
about losing business. There's also sort of this cult of
personality around Dave that a lot of you know, certain
members of the community are a part of. And I
think they're worried about reprisals less from Dave and more
from this sort of cult of personality.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So the people who didn't want to go on the
record with you were the Chappelle critics.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Wow, I heard him talk about this fight when he
was on SNL in like twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Chappelle makes this joke that just seems so mean to me.
He imagines someone from Yellow Springs saying, honey, come quick,
come quick, the guy from the grocery store is on
the television, and then Chappelle says, no, you big dummy,
the guy from television is at the grocery store. That's rough.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So Chappelle is telling people that he's the guy from
television and should be treated as such. He's not the
guy from the grocery store. And I was like, Wow,
to me, it says a lot about how he views himself.
I guess in respect to the village.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
It's crazy. His take is like I'm a super famous person,
and you should treat me as such when I'm in
your town. I just happen to be in your town,
but I am a global celebrity. Yeah, that's awful. He
said stuff that seemed really mean about the town, like
these hicks basically shouldn't decide my fate, which I thought
was was not nice. But now I'm thinking, like, if
(13:07):
it's already tense in this town, why would you want
to go piss off people on television.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I don't think risk aversion is one of Chappelle's traits.
I don't think it ever has been so true. But yeah,
he said they don't deserve to decide a guy like
me's fate. They haven't seen enough. They haven't they don't
know enough. And he also said he saved the town,
which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. That
made a lot of people, I think feel like he
(13:35):
had gone too far in terms of sort of claiming
to be the kind of single benefactor of the whole village.
So those are the people who are complaining to the
zoning inspector, the ones he's talking about in that bit,
And yeah, he went after them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When we come back, Chappelle starts buying up properties all
over town, effectively turning Yellow Springs into Chappelleville. Okay, so
Chell fighting with his neighbors in rural Yellow Springs, Ohio
(14:13):
over the village's owning laws for these outdoor comedy shows
he's doing. And what does Chappelle own in this town?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
At that point midsummer of twenty one. By this time,
he had bought half a dozen properties downtown and nothing
had really happened with any of them.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What is he buying?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's mostly these little storefronts. He has a smoke shop
and a merch store. He has two kind of gift shops.
He bought this old kind of Birkenstocks and hippie novel
two store. When the owner passed away, which is basically abandoned.
He bought a two story building and kind of kicked
(14:53):
out the two tenants.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It's crazy. It's like, it does feel like he owns
a bunch of this town.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
And a lot of people wanted to know what his
plans were.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So then there's this town meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It's not a town meeting, it's a private meeting of
business owners.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh okay, so they're all getting together to find out
what Dave's up to is Dave at this meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Dave is at this meeting.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, they're going to find out.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Then they're going to find out. And it's at the
Word Pavilion, at Dave's invitation.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
At this this pseudo cornfield that doesn't actually grow corn
where he throws the show's okay.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And some of the business owners this rubs them the
wrong way immediately because they think, well, this is kind
of like on Chappelle's turf. Chappelle has an outsized influence
on this meeting, and they don't like that.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So this is the first rule of a gang war.
You have to have it no neutral turf, right exactly.
I'm basing this mostly on West Side Story, but I
think if you have a meet, you go to a
neutral's place. Yes, okay, So they meet Dave here and
how does it? What happens?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So they have the meeting. Dave is the last speaker,
and so you know, he sort of does two things.
He gets up and says, I want to make yellow
springs of cultural Mecca. I have a vision, like I
want you to get on board with me. This is
going to be amazing, saying you know, but he also
has this whole story of how hurt he feels by
(16:16):
the distrust by the criticism, and so he gets I think,
pretty upset. He also says, you know, you better get
on board, you know, and I feel like you're disrespecting me.
So following the meeting, the owner of the local T
shirt shop goes and prints up all these signs that
say thanks Dave, respect with Chappelle's logo for the sea
(16:38):
and in respect, and he kind of hands him out
to all the downtown business owners.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
What a kiss ass? Oh my god, I hate this guy.
First of all, he owns a T shirt shop and
instead he makes signs instead of T shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
He's he's actually into a lot of different lines of business,
so he prints stuff. He can print anything.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Sounds like you're in his back pocket too. He can
print anything.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
He prints. Actually, I went to his print shop. I
watched him printing all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
What's this guy? Like? I really inherently don't like him.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Are you allowed to say that? I'm not allowed to
say that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As a journal and I'm like Chappelle, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, okay, I think this the guy who made these
signs is very pro Chappelle, and I guess maybe from
his perspective, there is no downside to Dave because the
more tourists come to town and buy T shirts, it's
all for the good. He makes the signs, right about
one hundred of them wow and hands them out or
make it known that they're available, and a lot of
(17:33):
people who essentially want to suck up to Dave come
and get these signs.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So now you have to pick a SiGe. Either you're
going to put up sign in your window or you're not.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Exactly a lot of people said if you didn't put
one up, it meant something. So it's not as if
Dave created this dynamic or necessarily wanted this dynamic to occur,
But this is what happened, right, So again there's this
small town everybody's sort of afraid of a backlash. I
think apparently more than half the downtown businesses had one
(18:03):
of the signs at the apex.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Of this, and would people not shop in stories that
didn't have it thanks Dave's sign, or only shop one
that did. Everything's Dave's sience.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Nobody admitted to that to me, but I think people
felt like if they didn't put one up, maybe they
would lose business.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
But there's a fair amount of holdouts, like almost fifty
percent of people don't do it. That must make things
way more tense.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I'm sure it does. So now we're going into winter
of twenty two, so you have this tension, you have
this division. There's a clear pro Dave and clear anti
Day faction. And so the next thing that happens is
these plans come out for a big development on the
(18:45):
south end of the village on this fifty two acre
property that abuts Dave's property, Dave's home, okay, And the
plan needs a approval from the village council, and there's
a meeting scheduled for February of twenty two when they're
going to vote on this. And Dave is opposed to
this development.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And why is Dave Chappelle against this housing development?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
It literally is his backyard. I mean it's not his
backyard because it's not his property, but his house backs
up to this.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Why did he just buy it? He's buying everything else.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
He was offered it by the former owners before they
sold the developer. The rumor is he would have bought
part of it, but he didn't want to buy the
whole thing, so he declined, so he has the opportunity,
he has right of first refusal, he refuses it. Then
they sell to developer for one point seven million. The
developer goes ahead with the plan, and then the plan
(19:42):
gets unveiled and Dave starts rallying opposition to the plant.
There's a whole anti this development faction. The village has
stopped lots of developments. They hate change. There's a huge
change of verse population, so it's not surprising that a
lot of people are opposed to this thing. But you know,
Dave is a major I think mover behind the opposition.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So there's this fight over the development and how does
it come to a boil?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, So they have the public meeting. It's a zoom meeting,
but the anti development faction rents out the hotel ballroom
to broadcast their comments to the zoom meeting from the ballroom.
And this is very kind of convivial atmosphere there. And
a lot of the people are wearing Chappelle branded face masks.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Oh so if you're pro Chappelle, the kind of mask
you wear might be the Chappelle mask compared to just
a normal.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Nine five definitely, So the anti development faction feels very
much like they're in Chappelle's pocket because they're in the ballroom.
Some of the arguments against it are pretty I would
consider them to be pretty far fetched.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
They say, this is going to be the disintegration of
our community. This is welcoming Walmart and Panera bread.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh oh, Banera bread. That's the best argument. I'm not
really afraid of Walmart, but I'm totally afraid of for Theera.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And to be fair to Yellow Springs, I think there
are maybe one or there's a subway and there's a
speedway gas station. Those are I believe, the only chain
stores in the.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Entire Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So they have a really really good track record, and
they've done it on purpose in terms of how they've
controlled development of keeping these chainstores out. So Chappelle's the
last person who comes to the mic, and then he
compares the size of his kind of operations. I forget
how many millions of dollars. He says it is to
the price of the development or something. And then he says,
(21:31):
you look like clowns. I will take it off the table.
I can't believe you'd make the audition for you. I'm
not bluffing, thank you, and that is understood by everybody
to be Chappelle's threat to liquid in all his holdings
and pull out of the village, which he had threatened
to do before.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So the Zoom meeting, how does the vote go now
to vote.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes and to vote no, which equals the motion does
not pass. So the development is is killed.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So what's going to happen to this land?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Chappelle has quietly bought up the entire property.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
He could have just done this in the first place.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
He could have done in the first place, and I
bet he could have done a lot cheaper in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Is he a good business person? Is he getting good
deals and all this stuff or turning them into good things?
Or is he making money in Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The most sort of high profile things he's doing in
town the old schoolhouse which is getting turned into a
home for the NPR affiliate Wyso. That hasn't been finished yet.
It's under construction, so we don't really know. And then
the other project, the comedy club, also under construction, not finished.
So those could be great boons for the village, but
(22:44):
we don't know yet. It's too early to say.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Wow. Normally, if you are a developer of a mall
or whatever you're building in town, you spend a lot
of time winning over the town. You spend a lot
of time going to meetings and meeting with politicians and
telling people your plans. That doesn't seem to be a
Chappelle's style.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
No, And so that's the interesting thing about considering Chappelle
as a developer. So, you know, does he have the
responsibilities of a public figure, does he have the responsibilities
of a developer, or, as his spokesperson insisted to me,
does he just have the responsibilities of a private citizen
like you and me, who don't owe anybody anything when
(23:27):
it comes to what we buy, the decisions we make
with our money. And I think that's sort of one
of the fundamental tensions with Chappelle in this town is
I think when it suits him, he wants to be
a famous person who can do whatever he wants, and
when it suits him, he wants to be a private
citizen who gets to be left alone and not asked
questions of It doesn't seem like he can really have
it both ways, but I think he wants to What do.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You think is going to happen to this town. Where
do you think is it going to become like Chappelleville.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It's at a turning point right now. It could become
the asspen of Ohio. It could become a really expensive,
really white, really deluxe if are kind of allowed to
go the way they're headed, or maybe through enlightened planning,
(24:18):
savvy investments and the kind of enlightened activities of someone
like Chappelle, it could become a really unique cultural mecca
kind of place. So there's some things Dave can do.
There's a lot of things he can't do. There's a
lot of decisions the village needs to make, and it's
really hard to get anything done in this town because
everybody wants to have input on everything. Everybody wants to
(24:40):
argue about everything. Everybody feels entitled to opine on everything.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Is it still pretty divided, like the signs in the
windows that thanks Dave versus the non thinkers.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, it's still very divided. There is a decent argument
made that some of the skepticism of what Dave is
doing is based on race. He's he's, you know, probably
the wealthiest, most high profile black person in that town,
if not you know, in that county. And it's a
mostly white village. And you know, a couple of people
(25:12):
said to me, why are people so suspicious of Dave?
And I think it is worth asking, you know, how
much of this is discomfort with a black man with
power and money whom they can't control.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
But you've also got this incredibly progressive town. And the
last year Dave Chappelle said that stuff and is special
about trans people. He said all that stuff on that's
now about Jews. He kind of rowed down with Elon
Musk on stage. Is the town really just pissed him
(25:44):
for these more conservative stances he's taken over the last year.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
You know, people never mentioned any of that stuff to
me when I was there, So, to almost an odd degree,
I feel like the people in Yellow Springs are only
concerned with the local controversy. It's only concerned with the
local Dave and really don't seem to care that much
what he does when he's out of town.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Would you move to Yellow Springs?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
By the fourth day I was there, I was running
into people that I knew at the coffee shop, people
who I'd interviewed.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Oh, I kind of love that. Do you like that?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
No? I don't like that I don't know. I lived
in New York. I like the anonymity. I like being
left alone. I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I don't
want to meet everybody that I know every day.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Have you heard anything from Chappelle.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, but he did post a story on Instagram. He
made a joke that I can't say on the radio.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
About then say it. This isn't the radio.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Okay. So the cartoon for the cover page of the
article was a big balloon of Dave floating over the town. Yep,
Dave posted it and said, Clifford the big black N word.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Whoa, you can't say it here. I was one hundred
percent wrong. I know he's not say it's the radio.
You just can't say it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, but he's making a joke about Clifford the big
red dog, you know, because it's like Dave the big
cartoon floating over the town.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Wow. Okay, Well he read it and he had thoughts and.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
He beamed it out to his followers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So this is gonna be one of your better read stories.
Oh definitely, Yeah, Tyler Kelly, you wrote what happens when
Dave Chappelle buys up your town for Business Week. Thank
you for coming.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
On, Joel, I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I could never buy up my hometown of Edison, New Jersey,
but my lovely wife Cassandra is from a way cheaper
town called get this, Whosick Falls, New York, and we
totally considered buying it up. Whosick Falls population has been
shrinking steadily since eighteen ninety. When I asked my wife
(27:48):
what the boarded up shops in town used to be,
she said, boarded up shops. We were still talking about
it when in twenty seventeen a group of artists bought
the gorgeous eighteen eighty former opera house in the middle
of town and moved in. Now there's this great coffee shop,
a barbecue joint with live music, a brewery, a French restaurant,
(28:12):
and something called a package store that I'm pretty sure
it's just a hipster word for a liquor store. Thank
god wheden by it at best Story of the Weekville
would have had a lame little podcast studio.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe he'll take a Napple poker round online.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Our show Today was produced by Molebard and Nisha Bencott.
It was edited by Lydia jen Kott. Our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang and our executive producer is Katherine Shira
dah And our theme song was written and performed by
Jonathan Colton and a special thanks to my voice coach
Vicky Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find
(29:00):
more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein,
and this is Story of the Week, And you stayed
at a hotel in Yellow Springs itself.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I stayed in an Airbnb actually in Springfield, but it's
like twenty minutes away, but it's way way cheaper. I
couldn't have the Yellow Springs airbnbs were way too expensive.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
For me, even for Michael Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, I mean I try not to like push it
too far when it comes to expenses.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Uh, you've a lot to learn, probably,
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi, I'm Tyler J. Kelly, and I wrote what Happens
when Dave Chappelle Buys up Your Town for Bloomberg Business Week,
and it's the story of the Week.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
In nineteen ninety nine, I was interviewing the host of
The View and comedian Joy Behar, and one of my
pressing questions was, can you get me in the Friars Club?
She could, and she did so. For years, I invited
people to lunch at the Midtown Manhattan six story townhouse
that was called the Monastery. We'd eat the sliced bagel
(00:51):
chips that served as a bread basket that were inches
away from soupy sales Buddy Hackett and five Ish Finkle.
I worked out at the gym there and saw many
old people naked who may have once been famous. But
the Friar's Club has been closed for months. It hasn't
paid its mortgage in a while. Inside, according to court papers,
(01:11):
there's trash, mice, quote, unidentified liquid waste, and even more sadly,
not one joke about unidentifiable liquid waste. The club's probably
gonna go under, as it's current dean said to The
New York Times. Quote if there's one thing I've learned.
The friars should not be running clubs. They should be
(01:34):
telling jokes and singing songs. Obviously, comedians shouldn't run businesses.
And it can also get complicated when they buy towns,
as the people in tiny Yellow Springs, Ohio found out
when Dave Chappelle started buying up main Street. Writing is hard.
(01:56):
Who's got that kind of time when you're already busy
trying to be Joe stand So it turns on a mic?
Made the twitles enough.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Because a journalist trand has gotten that Jule job. Single story.
Just listen to smart people speak, conversation, film and information.
It's the story.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Tyler Kelly took a trip to you call like Yellow Springs,
Ohio for BusinessWeek to see the town that Dave Chappelle bought. Tyler,
thank you for doing this. Are you a Chappelle fan?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I am a Chappelle fan. I've been a fan of
Chappelle since the Chappelle Show. I have it on DVD.
I used to watch it all the time.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So you fly out to this town, Yellow Springs, Ohio,
and what's it like When you first get there.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It's a cute town, you know, low rise two story buildings,
kind of a classic Midwestern small town, except I guess
I would say I've never been to a place with
more window signs, you know, pride flags, masks wearing signs,
giant Black Lives Matter banner hanging over the main street.
(03:15):
There's many very overt signals. You know that you've crossed
into the liberal bastion from you know, rural Ohio.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Why is this one small town in the middle of
Ohio so liberal?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The whole town was founded by these religious utopians in
the eighteen hundreds. Anyat College grew out of that town,
which is also kind of like a very idealistic, very liberal,
you know, bastion of long standing. It was a stop
on the underground railroad. So the progressivism, you know, it
(03:50):
comes by it authentically and deeply.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Antioch was the first college that made rules about consent,
and everyone thought it was so absurd. You'd be like,
is it okay if I touch your breast young woman?
I remember this SNL sketch making fun of that, which now,
of course I'm sure they don't erics. It makes them
look like jerks. But then I saw Dave Chappelle's dad
taught in Antioch did Chappelle grow up in this town?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
He went to middle school there, like that kind of
time period. So you talk to a lot of people
who were I guess about Dave Chappelle's age, like mid forties,
and they talk about this utopian kind of feeling growing
up going to school in maybe the eighties in Yellow Springs,
how diverse it was, how affordable it was, how artsy
and weird it was, and they all say that that
(04:38):
time is over, and that's one of their big laments
about what's going on in the village today is sort
of the loss of that feeling.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What's changed.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
A lot of things have changed. The kind of middle
class manufacturing jobs are mostly gone, so it's become older, whiter,
and more expensive in the last couple decades.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And then the sound's also changed. Because what I learned
from your story that I had no idea is that
Antioch is gone. Like I didn't know a you know,
two hundred year old college could just disappear.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It isn't literally gone. It did completely fold in two
thousand and eight, but it came back to life in
twenty eleven, and so it still exists in a much
much diminished version. I think the current class is one
hundred and twenty students. Yeah, and just sort of the
cultural force that it used to be, it's not anymore.
(05:30):
So I think that's part of the Dave store too,
is because there's nothing else going on. He's a big,
big deal, maybe bigger than he should be in people's minds.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, there's this superstar comedian who's living in this tiny
village because he spent some time growing up there. What
made him move back to Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I don't know. He bought a house there, I think
while he was filming The Chappelle Show in New York.
So that would have been like the early two thousands,
and it would go back and forth, like living in
a furnished apartment in New York and then going back
to Yellow Springs. It appears that he authentically always had
long standing had wanted to be there. He likes it there.
He's raising his kids there, his kids go to public
school there. Oh, he hangs out in town. I mean,
(06:10):
he genuinely likes it there. But I think that's pretty unequivocal.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So Dave Chappelle in two thousand and four ends his
Comedy Central show He's just gotten I think fifty something
million dollars to make two more seasons, and then he's
he doesn't show up to work anymore. He just takes off,
which is, you know, the craziest entertainment story of that time.
People were obsessed, like, where is Dave Chappelle? Why is
he leaving fifty million dollars on the table? Why isn't
(06:37):
even telling his longtime writing partner that he's not going
to show up for work.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, there was a lot of rumors that, you know,
he had some kind of breakdown, that he was on
some kind of drugs, that he was on some spiritual retreat,
that he had moved us south that Africa. According to
his spokesperson, none of that was true.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So he was hiding out in Yellow Springs, which is
remote enough that no one figured out he was in America.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, and I'm sure he was keeping a low profile.
People told me that he would insert bits of misinformation
into his like conversations with people he didn't know very well,
like he and his wife were going to get a
divorce or something like that, and then wait to see
if that person leaked it to the media. And that's
how he'd I guess, kind of know who his friends.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Were that's genius. He'd say something to like the guy
at the grocery store about I'm going to leave my
wife and then wait to see if it was in
the Star magazine. This is classic high school behavior, right,
This is what you do in high school to make
sure your friends are your friends. Yeah, I should be
doing that all the time. I'm sure that mafia does
this too, right, Give a little bad information, see if
(07:37):
it comes back to them, and then whack the guy.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, that is what it reminds me of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh, so he's living in Yellow Springs, getting along with people,
keeping a low profile, and then in the summer of
twenty twenty, after COVID hits, things change a little bit
because he's stuck at home and what happens that kind
of causes some conflict in that town.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So he started doing these shows in the summer of
twenty twenty, basically weekly shows at this property call the
Word Pavilion, which is owned by a friend of Dave's.
It's outside of the village and the township, and they
get permission from the governor's office to do these shows
pretty early into the pandemic, and they the Chappelle's people
(08:21):
take credit for pioneering a bunch of the ways to
have a live performance during the pandemic. COVID tests, masks,
temperature checks, social distance seating, all that stuff they did
outside in this field where they had these shows.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And these shows that he's having have huge stars coming
to Yellow Springs somehow.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, huge stars, Sarah Silverman, Michelle Wolf, Donnell Rawlings, Chris Rock,
John Ham shows up, big musical guests, Tallip Quali Common
And I think part of the reason all those big
deal comedians come is because there's nothing else to do
in the Summit twenty twenty. All their stuff is canceled.
They have nowhere to go, And so it was really successful.
It did great things for the small businesses of Yellow Springs.
(09:03):
Something a lot of people say is that there are
businesses that would have gone out of business were it
not for these shows. But the other thing that happens
is some of the people who live near this field
start to complain there's noise, there's trash. They are thinking
they're living in a rural setting next to this rural property,
(09:24):
and all of a sudden, there's four hundred people there.
So the township zoning inspector looks into it and decides, actually, yes,
this is a violation of the zoning code. And so
he tells him, yeah, this isn't violation. You guys need
to shut this down. They don't shut it down. They
keep going. They ignore him.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
You can't ignore the zoning Inspector of Yellow Springs, Like,
what is he doing?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
He told me he has the authority to issue a
fine of a couple hundred dollars. So he thought that
was pointless. Obviously they've got a lot more money than that,
So what else could he do?
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Wow, So Dave Chappelle is too powerful for the government
of Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, technically this is the government of Miami Township, which
surrounds Yellow Springs. Okay, but yeah, actively and so then
in August, I think Steve Worrig, who owns the field,
applies for a zoning variance, an exemption from the zoning code,
and wins it. Their initial justification for the variant says, oh,
we need these to lift our spirits, we need these
(10:24):
to get together. We're so depressed because of the pandemic.
The Zoning Board of Appeals goes for that. So then
he gets I think a year's worth of shows that
brings him to twenty twenty one. Then the following spring
he gets another variants and another variance the next time around,
there saying well, we need these for businesses. The businesses
are going to go to business without this. The zoning
Board of Appeals goes for that the third time around.
(10:45):
I interviewed a member of the board who said that
she felt unequivocally that it did not merit a variance
this time, and she was going to vote against it,
but somehow she felt intimidated enough by all the Chappelle
supporters in the room and the kind of general like
rah Ra Chappelle, pro Chappelle culture personality thing that was
(11:07):
going on in the village that she voted yes against
her conscience. And then she told me that she felt
so dirty afterwards that she quit the zoning board.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oh my god. So she felt like she caved to
the Chappell machine and she couldn't love herself anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Cave just a word, she used.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Wow, I've never done a story with so much anonymity
and people so worried about their identity than this one.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Really, because if you're on the wrong side of it,
what happens to.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
You, you'll get slammed on social media. People are worried
about losing business. There's also sort of this cult of
personality around Dave that a lot of you know, certain
members of the community are a part of. And I
think they're worried about reprisals less from Dave and more
from this sort of cult of personality.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So the people who didn't want to go on the
record with you were the Chappelle critics.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Wow, I heard him talk about this fight when he
was on SNL in like twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Chappelle makes this joke that just seems so mean to me.
He imagines someone from Yellow Springs saying, honey, come quick,
come quick, the guy from the grocery store is on
the television, and then Chappelle says, no, you big dummy,
the guy from television is at the grocery store. That's rough.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So Chappelle is telling people that he's the guy from
television and should be treated as such. He's not the
guy from the grocery store. And I was like, Wow,
to me, it says a lot about how he views himself.
I guess in respect to the village.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
It's crazy. His take is like I'm a super famous person,
and you should treat me as such when I'm in
your town. I just happen to be in your town,
but I am a global celebrity. Yeah, that's awful. He
said stuff that seemed really mean about the town, like
these hicks basically shouldn't decide my fate, which I thought
was was not nice. But now I'm thinking, like, if
(13:07):
it's already tense in this town, why would you want
to go piss off people on television.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I don't think risk aversion is one of Chappelle's traits.
I don't think it ever has been so true. But yeah,
he said they don't deserve to decide a guy like
me's fate. They haven't seen enough. They haven't they don't
know enough. And he also said he saved the town,
which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. That
made a lot of people, I think feel like he
(13:35):
had gone too far in terms of sort of claiming
to be the kind of single benefactor of the whole village.
So those are the people who are complaining to the
zoning inspector, the ones he's talking about in that bit,
And yeah, he went after them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When we come back, Chappelle starts buying up properties all
over town, effectively turning Yellow Springs into Chappelleville. Okay, so
Chell fighting with his neighbors in rural Yellow Springs, Ohio
(14:13):
over the village's owning laws for these outdoor comedy shows
he's doing. And what does Chappelle own in this town?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
At that point midsummer of twenty one. By this time,
he had bought half a dozen properties downtown and nothing
had really happened with any of them.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What is he buying?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's mostly these little storefronts. He has a smoke shop
and a merch store. He has two kind of gift shops.
He bought this old kind of Birkenstocks and hippie novel
two store. When the owner passed away, which is basically abandoned.
He bought a two story building and kind of kicked
(14:53):
out the two tenants.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It's crazy. It's like, it does feel like he owns
a bunch of this town.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
And a lot of people wanted to know what his
plans were.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So then there's this town meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It's not a town meeting, it's a private meeting of
business owners.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh okay, so they're all getting together to find out
what Dave's up to is Dave at this meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Dave is at this meeting.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, they're going to find out.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Then they're going to find out. And it's at the
Word Pavilion, at Dave's invitation.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
At this this pseudo cornfield that doesn't actually grow corn
where he throws the show's okay.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And some of the business owners this rubs them the
wrong way immediately because they think, well, this is kind
of like on Chappelle's turf. Chappelle has an outsized influence
on this meeting, and they don't like that.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So this is the first rule of a gang war.
You have to have it no neutral turf, right exactly.
I'm basing this mostly on West Side Story, but I
think if you have a meet, you go to a
neutral's place. Yes, okay, So they meet Dave here and
how does it? What happens?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So they have the meeting. Dave is the last speaker,
and so you know, he sort of does two things.
He gets up and says, I want to make yellow
springs of cultural Mecca. I have a vision, like I
want you to get on board with me. This is
going to be amazing, saying you know, but he also
has this whole story of how hurt he feels by
(16:16):
the distrust by the criticism, and so he gets I think,
pretty upset. He also says, you know, you better get
on board, you know, and I feel like you're disrespecting me.
So following the meeting, the owner of the local T
shirt shop goes and prints up all these signs that
say thanks Dave, respect with Chappelle's logo for the sea
(16:38):
and in respect, and he kind of hands him out
to all the downtown business owners.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
What a kiss ass? Oh my god, I hate this guy.
First of all, he owns a T shirt shop and
instead he makes signs instead of T shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
He's he's actually into a lot of different lines of business,
so he prints stuff. He can print anything.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Sounds like you're in his back pocket too. He can
print anything.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
He prints. Actually, I went to his print shop. I
watched him printing all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
What's this guy? Like? I really inherently don't like him.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Are you allowed to say that? I'm not allowed to
say that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As a journal and I'm like Chappelle, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, okay, I think this the guy who made these
signs is very pro Chappelle, and I guess maybe from
his perspective, there is no downside to Dave because the
more tourists come to town and buy T shirts, it's
all for the good. He makes the signs, right about
one hundred of them wow and hands them out or
make it known that they're available, and a lot of
(17:33):
people who essentially want to suck up to Dave come
and get these signs.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So now you have to pick a SiGe. Either you're
going to put up sign in your window or you're not.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Exactly a lot of people said if you didn't put
one up, it meant something. So it's not as if
Dave created this dynamic or necessarily wanted this dynamic to occur,
But this is what happened, right, So again there's this
small town everybody's sort of afraid of a backlash. I
think apparently more than half the downtown businesses had one
(18:03):
of the signs at the apex.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Of this, and would people not shop in stories that
didn't have it thanks Dave's sign, or only shop one
that did. Everything's Dave's sience.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Nobody admitted to that to me, but I think people
felt like if they didn't put one up, maybe they
would lose business.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
But there's a fair amount of holdouts, like almost fifty
percent of people don't do it. That must make things
way more tense.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I'm sure it does. So now we're going into winter
of twenty two, so you have this tension, you have
this division. There's a clear pro Dave and clear anti
Day faction. And so the next thing that happens is
these plans come out for a big development on the
(18:45):
south end of the village on this fifty two acre
property that abuts Dave's property, Dave's home, okay, And the
plan needs a approval from the village council, and there's
a meeting scheduled for February of twenty two when they're
going to vote on this. And Dave is opposed to
this development.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And why is Dave Chappelle against this housing development?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
It literally is his backyard. I mean it's not his
backyard because it's not his property, but his house backs
up to this.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Why did he just buy it? He's buying everything else.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
He was offered it by the former owners before they
sold the developer. The rumor is he would have bought
part of it, but he didn't want to buy the
whole thing, so he declined, so he has the opportunity,
he has right of first refusal, he refuses it. Then
they sell to developer for one point seven million. The
developer goes ahead with the plan, and then the plan
(19:42):
gets unveiled and Dave starts rallying opposition to the plant.
There's a whole anti this development faction. The village has
stopped lots of developments. They hate change. There's a huge
change of verse population, so it's not surprising that a
lot of people are opposed to this thing. But you know,
Dave is a major I think mover behind the opposition.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So there's this fight over the development and how does
it come to a boil?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, So they have the public meeting. It's a zoom meeting,
but the anti development faction rents out the hotel ballroom
to broadcast their comments to the zoom meeting from the ballroom.
And this is very kind of convivial atmosphere there. And
a lot of the people are wearing Chappelle branded face masks.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Oh so if you're pro Chappelle, the kind of mask
you wear might be the Chappelle mask compared to just
a normal.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Nine five definitely, So the anti development faction feels very
much like they're in Chappelle's pocket because they're in the ballroom.
Some of the arguments against it are pretty I would
consider them to be pretty far fetched.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
They say, this is going to be the disintegration of
our community. This is welcoming Walmart and Panera bread.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh oh, Banera bread. That's the best argument. I'm not
really afraid of Walmart, but I'm totally afraid of for Theera.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And to be fair to Yellow Springs, I think there
are maybe one or there's a subway and there's a
speedway gas station. Those are I believe, the only chain
stores in the.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Entire Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So they have a really really good track record, and
they've done it on purpose in terms of how they've
controlled development of keeping these chainstores out. So Chappelle's the
last person who comes to the mic, and then he
compares the size of his kind of operations. I forget
how many millions of dollars. He says it is to
the price of the development or something. And then he says,
(21:31):
you look like clowns. I will take it off the table.
I can't believe you'd make the audition for you. I'm
not bluffing, thank you, and that is understood by everybody
to be Chappelle's threat to liquid in all his holdings
and pull out of the village, which he had threatened
to do before.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So the Zoom meeting, how does the vote go now
to vote.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes and to vote no, which equals the motion does
not pass. So the development is is killed.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So what's going to happen to this land?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Chappelle has quietly bought up the entire property.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
He could have just done this in the first place.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
He could have done in the first place, and I
bet he could have done a lot cheaper in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Is he a good business person? Is he getting good
deals and all this stuff or turning them into good things?
Or is he making money in Yellow Springs.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The most sort of high profile things he's doing in
town the old schoolhouse which is getting turned into a
home for the NPR affiliate Wyso. That hasn't been finished yet.
It's under construction, so we don't really know. And then
the other project, the comedy club, also under construction, not finished.
So those could be great boons for the village, but
(22:44):
we don't know yet. It's too early to say.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Wow. Normally, if you are a developer of a mall
or whatever you're building in town, you spend a lot
of time winning over the town. You spend a lot
of time going to meetings and meeting with politicians and
telling people your plans. That doesn't seem to be a
Chappelle's style.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
No, And so that's the interesting thing about considering Chappelle
as a developer. So, you know, does he have the
responsibilities of a public figure, does he have the responsibilities
of a developer, or, as his spokesperson insisted to me,
does he just have the responsibilities of a private citizen
like you and me, who don't owe anybody anything when
(23:27):
it comes to what we buy, the decisions we make
with our money. And I think that's sort of one
of the fundamental tensions with Chappelle in this town is
I think when it suits him, he wants to be
a famous person who can do whatever he wants, and
when it suits him, he wants to be a private
citizen who gets to be left alone and not asked
questions of It doesn't seem like he can really have
it both ways, but I think he wants to What do.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You think is going to happen to this town. Where
do you think is it going to become like Chappelleville.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It's at a turning point right now. It could become
the asspen of Ohio. It could become a really expensive,
really white, really deluxe if are kind of allowed to
go the way they're headed, or maybe through enlightened planning,
(24:18):
savvy investments and the kind of enlightened activities of someone
like Chappelle, it could become a really unique cultural mecca
kind of place. So there's some things Dave can do.
There's a lot of things he can't do. There's a
lot of decisions the village needs to make, and it's
really hard to get anything done in this town because
everybody wants to have input on everything. Everybody wants to
(24:40):
argue about everything. Everybody feels entitled to opine on everything.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Is it still pretty divided, like the signs in the
windows that thanks Dave versus the non thinkers.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, it's still very divided. There is a decent argument
made that some of the skepticism of what Dave is
doing is based on race. He's he's, you know, probably
the wealthiest, most high profile black person in that town,
if not you know, in that county. And it's a
mostly white village. And you know, a couple of people
(25:12):
said to me, why are people so suspicious of Dave?
And I think it is worth asking, you know, how
much of this is discomfort with a black man with
power and money whom they can't control.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
But you've also got this incredibly progressive town. And the
last year Dave Chappelle said that stuff and is special
about trans people. He said all that stuff on that's
now about Jews. He kind of rowed down with Elon
Musk on stage. Is the town really just pissed him
(25:44):
for these more conservative stances he's taken over the last year.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
You know, people never mentioned any of that stuff to
me when I was there, So, to almost an odd degree,
I feel like the people in Yellow Springs are only
concerned with the local controversy. It's only concerned with the
local Dave and really don't seem to care that much
what he does when he's out of town.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Would you move to Yellow Springs?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
By the fourth day I was there, I was running
into people that I knew at the coffee shop, people
who I'd interviewed.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Oh, I kind of love that. Do you like that?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
No? I don't like that I don't know. I lived
in New York. I like the anonymity. I like being
left alone. I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I don't
want to meet everybody that I know every day.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Have you heard anything from Chappelle.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, but he did post a story on Instagram. He
made a joke that I can't say on the radio.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
About then say it. This isn't the radio.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Okay. So the cartoon for the cover page of the
article was a big balloon of Dave floating over the town. Yep,
Dave posted it and said, Clifford the big black N word.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Whoa, you can't say it here. I was one hundred
percent wrong. I know he's not say it's the radio.
You just can't say it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, but he's making a joke about Clifford the big
red dog, you know, because it's like Dave the big
cartoon floating over the town.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Wow. Okay, Well he read it and he had thoughts and.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
He beamed it out to his followers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So this is gonna be one of your better read stories.
Oh definitely, Yeah, Tyler Kelly, you wrote what happens when
Dave Chappelle buys up your town for Business Week. Thank
you for coming.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
On, Joel, I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I could never buy up my hometown of Edison, New Jersey,
but my lovely wife Cassandra is from a way cheaper
town called get this, Whosick Falls, New York, and we
totally considered buying it up. Whosick Falls population has been
shrinking steadily since eighteen ninety. When I asked my wife
(27:48):
what the boarded up shops in town used to be,
she said, boarded up shops. We were still talking about
it when in twenty seventeen a group of artists bought
the gorgeous eighteen eighty former opera house in the middle
of town and moved in. Now there's this great coffee shop,
a barbecue joint with live music, a brewery, a French restaurant,
(28:12):
and something called a package store that I'm pretty sure
it's just a hipster word for a liquor store. Thank
god wheden by it at best Story of the Weekville
would have had a lame little podcast studio.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe he'll take a Napple poker round online.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Our show Today was produced by Molebard and Nisha Bencott.
It was edited by Lydia jen Kott. Our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang and our executive producer is Katherine Shira
dah And our theme song was written and performed by
Jonathan Colton and a special thanks to my voice coach
Vicky Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find
(29:00):
more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein,
and this is Story of the Week, And you stayed
at a hotel in Yellow Springs itself.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I stayed in an Airbnb actually in Springfield, but it's
like twenty minutes away, but it's way way cheaper. I
couldn't have the Yellow Springs airbnbs were way too expensive.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
For me, even for Michael Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, I mean I try not to like push it
too far when it comes to expenses.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Uh, you've a lot to learn, probably,
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