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The Urban Erma is a storytelling podcast by stand-up comedian and author Leighann Lord.
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 13, 2013
Wednesday Mar 13, 2013
Rob Base is not dead. But I thought he was. Here’s what happened. After doing a joke about old-school rap, an audience member came up to me after the show and said, “Did you know that Rob Base died?” What? I was flabbergasted. Joy & Pain Rob Base? It Takes Two Rob Base? No. I didn’t know. To be honest I really haven’t been right since we lost Heavy D.
Wednesday Mar 06, 2013
Wednesday Mar 06, 2013
I recently performed in a one-night only production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues! The play was first done Off Broadway in 1996 and aired on HBO in 1998. This collection of monologues covers various aspects of the female experience including “sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, and orgasm” not necessarily in that order. This play has been performed worldwide as part of V-Day events that have helped raise over $75 million dollars for women’s anti-violence groups. It was an honor to be invited to join such a prestigious sisterhood. Quite frankly, they had me at Vagina.
Thursday Feb 21, 2013
Thursday Feb 21, 2013
They say getting old is a privilege because not everybody gets to do it. Well, not everybody gets herpes either. Where’s the privilege in that? In our youth-obsessed culture, growing older is the true Original Sin that if you’re healthy and lucky you can’t help but commit. Most of us despise getting older given the loss of agility, mental acuity, freedom... Yeah, I’m so not seeing the upside. We realize getting older is not all it’s cracked up to be at around the same time we stop counting half birthdays. Remember being nine and a half? Yeah well, nobody says they’re 39 and a half now do they?
Wednesday Feb 13, 2013
Wednesday Feb 13, 2013
This was not what I had planned to post this week but on Monday I got a piece of hate mail. It's not my first and probably won't be my last. Indeed I get it so rarely that when I do it’s unique and weirdly special. What surprised me is that I didn’t think I’d done anything in particular to provoke it.
Wednesday Feb 06, 2013
Wednesday Feb 06, 2013
Surprise, surprise, there’s a new IOS software update for my iPhone. While these updates don’t happen every day, they are frequent enough to make you think, “Damn, didn’t I just do this?” This latest update required 2.5 gigs of free space on the phone and I wasn’t gonna make it. I’ve been maxing out the memory on my 16gig 4S since I got it. I’m constantly managing my photos, making executive decisions on what to keep, delete, or move to my computer. It’s agony. God forbid I don’t have instant access to one of the dozens of pictures I have of my dog. It’s a digital Sophie’s Choice.
Read the rest of this entry »Thursday Jan 31, 2013
Thursday Jan 31, 2013
My car battery died. I went from running late to not running at all. I deduced dead battery when I repeatedly pressed the car alarm remote and nothing happened. I didn’t hear the familiar and reassuring “churp-churp” signaling the alarm had been disengaged. I pressed all the buttons: lock, unlock, panic. I pressed them quickly. I pressed and held them. Nothing. The good news? The car was stuck in my own garage. The bad news? With the remote not working, how was I supposed to get into my car?
Wednesday Jan 23, 2013
Wednesday Jan 23, 2013
It was a happy day for me when smoking was banned in bars and clubs around the country. I don’t miss standing on stage and being enveloped by the slow moving but relentless blue haze that seemed to creep straight out a Stephen King novel. I’ve gotten used to breathing deeply at bars and only smelling disinfectant and desperation. That changed when I went to do a show recently at Karma Lounge in New York City.
Wednesday Jan 09, 2013
Wednesday Jan 09, 2013
I spent part of the holidays catching up on the movies that I missed last year. And I missed many. I always do. I just can’t keep up. It seems that by the time I finish watching the trailer and saying to myself, “Yeah, I’d like to see that” it’s already out of the theaters and on cable. But I was a bit surprised to see HBO offering a Denzel Washington movie that I’d never even heard of: Safe House? Damn. Now I’m even missing the trailers.
Monday Dec 17, 2012
Monday Dec 17, 2012
It’s the end of the world… I mean… the end of the year and I just want to say thank you to all the fans of The Urban Erma. Whether you’re a reader the blog, a listener to the podcast (or as I prefer to call it: the blogcast), a watcher of the new the video edition or all of the above, thank you so much! I really appreciate your support. The Urban Erma has really grown over the years not only as a standalone blog, but as one of the featured columns on StageTimeMagazine.com. The blog has been a wonderful outlet for my creativity and as a way to preserve my sanity. This year I’ve had 38 therapy sessions … I mean … I’ve written and recorded 38 blog posts. I’ve narrowed them down and put together a collection of The Best Urban Erma posts of 2012 titled: Sometimes I wish FaceBookhad a Hate Button. It’s available as a free PDF download. My tangible way of saying, thank you for enjoying my work.
Wednesday Nov 28, 2012
Wednesday Nov 28, 2012
I was channel surfing the other day and finally happened upon the TV show that everyone's been talking about: Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo. In the interests of keeping up with pop culture I figured I should at least watch an episode so that I can speak on it with knowledgeable distain. When realization dawned that this was not a Saturday Night Live sketch but indeed the actual show, I began wondering if white folks are as horrified by Honey Boo Boo as black folks were by The Flavor of Love. Honey would break the loving resolve of even Uncle Ruckus.
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