Joe Pera Talks Furniture, Fish Fries and Frahm

Whether we wanted to or not, a good portion of us spent the last 18 or so months sitting on our asses, feeling safer staying put in one comfortable, hopefully virus-free space. The act of sitting isn’t something most of us think about because it’s so simple and quotidian. In true Joe Pera fashion, though, the comedian spends the first episode of season three of Joe Pera Talks With You contemplating this commonplace activity.

It’s classic Joe Pera to take an activity we think little of and mine it for both comedy and meaning. In “Joe Pera Sits With You,” he accompanies his older friend Gene to a furniture store to sample its wares before Gene makes an important purchasing decision—an outing based on Pera’s real-life interests.

“I don’t test drive cars like some people do for fun, but I will go into a furniture store every now and then just to see what’s going on, try out a couple chairs,” he tells me over Zoom in his characteristically soft-spoken way.

Originally from Buffalo, Pera came up through the New York City comedy scene. One of his fellow comics used to work at the New York Design Center in Manhattan.

“He had this office where he sold patio furniture, specifically outdoor furniture. And it was the funniest thing, I think they even had astroturf on the ground. He was just surrounded by this furniture all day and he could sit anywhere he wanted and I would go visit him,” Pera recalls.

Chairs and the act of sitting became a theme of the beloved Adult Swim show’s third season early on, not originally as a means of exploring the pandemic (the season takes place in 2018 and only vaguely alludes to oncoming doom), but the subject quickly took on more meaning. The magic of Pera’s comedy is his ability to reveal curious truths about human nature through examining that which others might overlook.

“People having preferences about chairs is a good show of personality, and it’s kind of ridiculous and practical at the same time. So don’t get me started, I could talk about it for a while,” Pera explains. Personally, his favorite chair is a blue-and-white checked recliner of his grandfather’s that now sits in a corner of his apartment.

For those of you wondering, talking to Pera isn’t all that different from a conversation with his fictionalized self. At one point I ask him where he is at the moment, and he tells me he’s in Costa Rica.

“I live here and do most of the writing and editing in Costa Rica,” he says. Partly thanks to my own gullibility and Zoom awkwardness, and partly because of his ever-sincere delivery, I believe him for half a minute before realizing it’s a bit.