AT HOME WITH: Ed Feldman And Joe L'Erario; The Two Stooges Of Furniture Repair
Here is the secret: Ed Feldman and Joe L'Erario, known to their passionate if offbeat fans as television's Furniture Guys, in reality don't give a varnish about furniture.
"I tell people the apocryphal story of my rise to a low level of fame," Mr. Feldman says one rainy morning while seated at the 1950's kitchen table of his television partner.
"The devil came down and said, 'You want to do a TV show?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'You've got to fix furniture.' I said, 'O.K.' He said, 'On cable. Whoo hoo!' "
"No, first he said on PBS," interjects Mr. L'Erario. "Then he said cable."
Mr. L'Erario and Mr. Feldman are the hosts of "Furniture to Go," a low-budget, low-comedy home-improvement show that began in 1990 as "Furniture on the Mend" at the public television station in Philadelphia. The new half-hour show is now on six days a week on the Learning Channel: Monday through Friday, starting at 5:30 P.M., and twice on Saturday, at various times. The station also televises reruns of "Furniture on the Mend."
The program brackets repair tips with witticisms and comedy sketches in which the circular Mr. Feldman and the angular Mr. L'Erario lampoon everyone from John Steinbeck to Howard Stern.
The show has developed a loyal following, first among public television viewers and then among nesting baby boomers.
What separates "Furniture to Go" from the other home shows that crowd the Saturday afternoon airwaves is the concept. While "This Old House" demonstrates how to install a cathedral ceiling and "Home Time" shows how to lay a slate floor after work, "Furniture to Go" tackles projects most people might actually have a prayer of completing.
And while the hosts of all those other shows may have their charms, none can match the always useful, often clever, sometimes painfully bad banter of Ed and Joe.
"From Curly to Kierkegaard, we'll reference anything," Mr. Feldman says. "We don't know who our audience is, so we just try everything we can think of."
Each show begins with a short skit. In one, Joe and Ed run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art lugging a chaise longue between them while the theme from the "Rocky" films blares in the background.
In another, before going into how to repair a cabinet drawer, Joe patiently displays different tools to Ed and promises that one day they will have their own wood shop where they will use things like dovetails and rabbeted joints to build cabinets. Dressed in Depression-era clothes and looming over a kneeling Joe, Ed looks into the camera and pleads, in a takeoff on "Of Mice and Men," "Tell me about the rabbit, George."
Mr. L'Erario (pronounced luh-RARE-ee-oh) now lives alone in a third-floor loft in the Old City section of Philadelphia. He is divorced and has a 9-year-old son, Zane. At 39, and with his hair in a ponytail, he says he looks better than he did 20 years ago when he drank too much and worked too little. His V-shaped upper body is testament to the hours he spends pumping iron.
The walls of his loft are crowded with his paintings and with framed photographs of his parents, both show-business veterans (his father was a tap dancer, his mother played steel guitar). On one wall is a photo of a young Jerry Lewis. A 32-inch television sits on a table.
But there is surprisingly little furniture. From the show Mr. L'Erario has scavenged a rosy faux marble table, two multicolor armchairs, an antique red desk and a few other assorted items. No gilded armoires. No ornately carved mantel pieces. No floor-denting antiques.
Mr. Feldman, who also lives alone, begs off showing his home, situated 15 minutes away in the Germantown section of the city. "It's a mess," he says apologetically.
Mr. Feldman, also divorced, has a 13-year-old daughter, Amanda. At 41, he jokes about his girth, which he disguises by wearing big shirts and loose-fitting jackets. His riot of curly black hair, glasses and a thick mustache make him look like a cross between Harpo and Groucho Marx.
Mr. Feldman grew up in the Great Northeast section of the city; Mr. L'Erario in South Philadelphia. They met more than 15 years ago while working for a construction company.
"We tied steel, we poured concrete," Mr. Feldman says. "It was no-brain work. What we did all day to entertain ourselves and the others on the crew was crack everybody up. We did entire ad-lib routines."
Mr. L'Erario says, "We talked like Jerry Lewis one day, the entire day, just to get on the nerves of the supervisor."
Mr. Feldman adds, "Later I drifted out of that job,"
"Yeah, yeah. He got fired."
"Well, O.K."
Mr. Feldman says he got into the furniture business when a friend who fixed furniture let him fill in while she was out with a broken ankle. After a year he opened his own shop.
Mr. L'Erario also opened his own shop, called Refinishing by Vincent. "I thought it was better than Refinishing by Joe," he says.
Mr. Feldman's job entailed going to people's homes to repair department store furniture that had been damaged during delivery. It was excruciating work, he says.
"I'd lift a sofa to check the springs," Mr. Feldman says. "There's a cucumber. 'I don't know how it got there.' Somebody says, 'There's a lump in my mattress.' I would reach underneath. 'Here's the pistol.' These are all true stories."
At the same time Mr. Feldman began teaching furniture repair at a local community center. He discovered that people liked furniture, and that people thought he was funny.
"People were laughing as they learned," he says. "Now there's a motto."
He talked Mr. L'Erario into putting together a demonstration tape for WHYY, the PBS affiliate in Philadelphia. The show went national in 1992 under a co-production deal between WHYY and the Learning Channel. This year the Learning Channel became the sole producer.
The pair say they left public television primarily because of restrictions on earning money through endorsements and outside appearances. Money, Mr. Feldman says not once but several times, is very important to both of them.
"I don't consider myself mercenary," he says. "I consider myself 41 years old with a daughter in private school and a mortgage."
Between their Learning Channel paychecks, personal appearances and an advance from William Morrow & Company for their book, due for release this spring, based on their show, Ed and Joe no longer have to mend furniture. That's good, since neither one particularly likes furniture. Both grew up watching television and dreamed of appearing on the Johnny Carson "Tonight" show. Show-business fame and fortune was the end. Furniture, it turned out, is the means.
Fame has arrived, after a fashion. In April a film producer flew them to Los Angeles and gave them bit parts as themselves in a science-fiction movie, "Double Dragon," due out Thanksgiving. While walking down a street in Los Angeles, they were recognized by one of the women who displays prizes on "The Price Is Right." It was a thrilling moment.
Back home in Philadelphia, Mr. Feldman and Mr. L'Erario can scarcely walk down the street without hearing, "Yo, furniture guys!"
Fan mail pours in nationwide. One woman said they had the sexiest hands on television. Another has written Mr. L'Erario inviting him to North Carolina to attend a Chet Atkins concert. She is the only fan to send a photograph of herself.
"Most people send us pictures of their furniture," Mr. L'Erario says.
Now, the two dream of a network sitcom, based on their show and featuring a collection of crazy characters resembling their friends. If it sounds a little like "Home Improvement," the popular ABC show in which the comedian Tim Allen plays the host of a home show, don't mention it. The guys would like nothing better than to enclose Tim Allen under a thick coat of varnish.
"The man makes more before the first commercial than we do all year," Mr. Feldman says. "But never mind. We're next."