Gag file

Whether road-tested or relatively new, these four comics deserve your attention

De’Marrio Oates

Before De’Marrio Oates made a name for himself in Tulsa comedy, he planned on spending his life in prison.

“First, there was a drug deal, right?” Oates said. “And everything went bad so I had to kill everybody in that motherfucker…” He says he then carjacked a man for an escape vehicle and evaded police before driving over a prostitute. 

People ask in shock if that’s really why he was locked up. 

“Hell, no,” Oates responds. “I was playing Grand Theft Auto and police kicked in my door over a probation violation.” 

Jokes aside, that violation and drug trafficking charges netted Oates a life sentence. However, his sentence, along with 42 others, was modified in lieu of a federal corruption probe of TPD in 2009. He was granted his freedom. 

“When I was doing life without for drug trafficking…my humor kept me alive,” Oates said. “I’m just a funny person, and can’t help myself, so I’d wake up every morning and make somebody laugh and it’d make me feel better.” 

90 days after his release, he took the stage for the first time at an open mic contest and won the first round. 

Oates continued to enter and win open mic contests; before long he was hosting his own shows and headlining.

On stage, Oates employs a meandering, conversational cadence, where punchlines creep into the dialogue, eliciting hefty laughs seconds after landing. He constantly banters with the crowd, and will stop mid-joke to pick on spectators that catch his eye. “I’m the best crowd working comedian there is, man,” he said. Prison humor figures into his set: he has no interest in watching “Naked and Afraid,” because…well, he’s been there.

Oates is now in the ranks of Tulsa’s travelling comedians, regularly making trips to Arkansas, Missouri, and as far as California to perform. “If I wasn’t doing standup, there’s no telling what I’d be doing,” he said. 

He recently sold out the Loony Bin comedy club, and filmed the performance for his first Blue Ray release, “The Session,” out soon.

Lee Ali

Lee Ali may be brand new to Tulsa comedy, but he’s just picking up where he left off 10 years ago. 

Originally from Pakistan, Ali moved to the States in ‘82, and bounced around before landing in New York in 2006. A longtime fan of American comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Pakistan’s own Moin Ahktar, Ali enrolled in New York’s American Comedy Institute. He loved the craft, but the financial strains of raising a family in New York City forced him to cut the funny business early on. Last year, Ali enrolled in Ryan Green’s standup class at Tulsa’s Comedy Parlor and quickly landed feature gigs. 

“I think I am the only active Muslim comic of Pakistani descent in Oklahoma right now,” Ali said. “I think I have a few more weeks before they send me to a concentration camp and assign me a number.”

Ali’s sets hinge on his ethnicity and religion, and he delivers his punchlines with a cold deadpan that borders on cringe comedy. But Ali knows what he’s doing, and he does it well. 

“I used to go to school on a camel,” he said. “It was a one hump camel, not two humps … we were poor.” That pause between “humps” and “we” is Ali’s calling card. He lets punchlines linger for long stretches, and if the audience doesn’t laugh at the joke, they’ll begin to laugh out of nervousness. 

Another staple of his sets is what he calls “cultural icebreakers.” He’ll tell crowds that his people invented air travel with the magic carpet, and he’ll rant about the pronunciation of “cardamom.” He says he moved to Oklahoma for our “Sharia-inspired liquor laws,” and he really loves joking about ISIS.

“Girls, if you’re going to date an ISIS guy,” he tells the crowd. “Just always let the man walk ahead of you…and find the landmines.” 

Ali may joke about being placed on a Muslim watch list, but offstage he says he’s not actually worried about it. “I’m not very religious, and don’t have a beard, so people think I’m Mexican,” he said. 

The only time he’s felt a victim of religious persecution was largely attributed to road rage. 

“I cut a guy off, and he followed me,” he said. When Ali pulled over, the man approached him and began punching him. 

“He was telling me I need Jesus… and I guess punching my head was going to lead me to him?”

Apart from a show at the Shrine on January 10, Ali is hoping to perform out of state this year. 

Katie Van Patten

What do you do when you graduate from a private Christian school where your parents also teach? You get on stage and tell strangers about your sex life. At least, if you’re Katie Van Patten, that’s what you do.

Van Patten is new to the Tulsa scene, having performed her first open mic 11 months ago. In that short span of time she’s played numerous shows and open mics in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and was a featured comic at the Blue Whale Comedy Festival last summer. 

Her time at Victory Christian School informs the awkwardly shy delivery of her candid jokes. Phrases like “horny,” “one night stand,” and “chlamydia,” are peppered through her set, interspersed with nervous chuckles and a cautious vocal fry. On the phone, I noticed she says “oh, gosh,” instead of “oh, God,” when perplexed. 

“I don’t think I really write jokes,” she said. “I just talk about myself constantly.”

Van Patten repeated one of her signature non-jokes, an anecdote about the odd selective sheltering that came with her Christian upbringing.

“When you grow up in a religious home, I think there are some things that can slip through the cracks as far as what you are and aren’t allowed to watch,” she said. “So, I wasn’t allowed to see that movie ‘Matilda’ [because of witchcraft] but I was totally allowed to see that movie ‘Face/Off’ with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage when I was nine years old. It seems a bit odd, don’t you think?” 

According to IMDB’s parental guide, “Face/Off” features “attempted rape,” the grabbing of a “teenage girl’s behind,” “blood mist,” and, you know, faces actually coming off… So yes, it seems a bit odd.

Despite her sometimes-lewd candor, Van Patten said her parents don’t mind. 

“My parents have been very supportive of me doing comedy,” she said. “The church stuff they just kinda gave up on… because they knew their efforts were futile.”

You can catch Van Patten at Yeti Writers’ Night on Tuesdays and the VFW’s open mic on Wednesdays. 

Gerald “Hurricane” Harris

Gerald “Hurricane” Harris is a 15-year vet of both the Tulsa and national comedy scenes. He can also kill you with his bare hands.

Harris began his comedy career at a Tulsa Comedy Club open mic in 2002 and kept the laughs coming when he moved to Ohio to wrestle for Cleveland State University. He was voted Top Newcomer and Top Promoter in the state for comedy.

In 2006, Harris began his Mixed Martial Arts career, fighting for the International Fight League. He continued battling his way through the world of MMA by appearing on Spike TV’s Ultimate Fighter 7, and a prank radio call to UFC President, Dana White, snagged him a four-fight deal with the promotor.

“Fighting and Comedy go hand and hand in the case of how people face competition,” Harris said. “Bombing in comedy is like getting knocked out in a fight…it’s embarrassing and hard to recover from. The greatest part of both is to absolutely kill an audience with your jokes or completely kick your opponent’s ass.”

During his years in comedy, Harris has travelled extensively, performing at landmark spots like the Improv and the LA Comedy Club. He has opened for popular rappers Too $hort, Common and Beanie Sigel. In Tulsa, he hosted a long running open mic contest (which De’Marrio Oates won six weeks in a row), and has featured countless times on local showcases.

This past December, Harris returned to MMA, fighting for the Legacy Fighting Championship at Tulsa’s Hard Rock Casino. He defeated his opponent, Aaron Cobb, 43 seconds into the first round with a brutal KO body slam. The body slam KO is a trademark of Harris’s, and a past slam has been featured as a highlight on multiple shows, including Sportscenter. 

“When he hit that slam and the fight was called, I’ve never been so pumped in my whole life,” said local comedian Evan Hughes. (Hughes was ringside, proving he is indeed everywhere in Tulsa at once.)

Although he’s famous for knocking people unconscious by throwing them on the ground, comedy remains his focus.

“I love both, but comedy is my true passion,” Harris said. “As a mixed martial artist, my popularity will only help build a following for my comedy shows.”

For more from Mitch, read about his experience with ayahuasca.