Flipping Out: A Slap in the Face and A Knife in the Back

Remember last week when I said that everyone needed a fashion intervention except for Trace because he only owned a pair of jeans and a white shirt? Well, I was wrong.

Jenni and Ryan (is it just me or does Ryan Brown remind you a whole lot of Ryan Seacrest?) are in Jeff’s office (sans Jeff) and Jenni is applying lip gloss like her life depends on it.

Seacrest tells Jenni that an “A-list” actress had been trying to call Jeff for over a week but Jeff never returned her calls. Ms. A-List called Seacrest instead and he’s agreed to take on the ‘very big’ job of renovating her new house in LA. Jeff walks in and Seacrest is so excited to rub Jeff’s nose in the fact Seacrest is doing this big, big, big job that he nearly pees himself.

Jeff’s mind is boggled that Seacrest just took the business. I’m not sure what’s so boggling. Some actress left Jeff two messages and he never returned the call. Why wouldn’t she call someone else to do the job? And why wouldn’t the someone else take the job? Jeff keeps saying that he and Seacrest are in business together but I have yet to see any evidence.

As an aside, Jeff claims he didn’t call A-List back because he was too busy to do it and Jenni says that A-List should have said “call me right away” on the voicemail. All of this seems like a very un-Jeff Lewis-like attitude if you ask me.

Seacrest taunts and mocks Jeff and seems particularly jazzed about how bent out of shape Jeff is getting. Jeff calls him a starfucker and sends him on his way to kiss A-List ass.

Jeff goes to Duckie’s house. For those of you with short-term memory issues, Duckie is the nipped/tucked ex-wife of some rich someone-or-other who hired Jeff to renovate her home so she can sell it so her and her son/boyfriend can move into a new home they can’t afford, dodge their bills and live out their May-December romance in surgically-enhanced bliss.

Last week, Jenni (as Jeff 2.0) had to shut down the work site because Duckie failed to pay her bills. Jeff stepped in and paid his contractors more than $15,0000 and is hoping that Duckie will ultimately pay him back. Since she hasn’t reappeared since the shut-down, it’s not looking good.

Jeff heads to Cole – the Hair Salon Bungalow Colony – and they have to pick paint colors. Now, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve watched them pick floor stains already and it was hardly entertaining so why are you going to bore me with the recap of the paint-picking?

So Jeff is looking for a warm white and is deciding between Pearl Necklace and Swiss Coffee. When Jeff tells Frank of the color choices, Frank does exactly what I did – collapse in a fit of giggles. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one with a sense of humor like a twelve-year old boy.

Jeff explains that there is a guy — a paint-name-thinker-upper — and sometimes he plays a cruel joke and comes up with a name that is clearly obscene. Now, although I think like a twelve-year old, I also thought it was possible that the paint-name-thinker-uppper really thought that the color looked like an actual string of pearls . . . until Jeff did his analysis. The color is off-white, thick, creamy . . .

The pearl necklace jokes last for a little while longer at the expense of a non-English speaking subcontractor (“Would you rather have a Pearl Necklace or a Swiss Coffee?”) and Jeff says he’s going to use the Pearl Necklace as often as he can. Cool.

Jeff is on the phone with a real estate agent named “Boni” which I pronounce as “Boney” in my head because I need to be entertained at all times. She has a great spec house so Jeff calls Seacrest to see if he’s interested. Seacrest’s answers are short and curt and Jeff knows that something is up.

Seacrest explains to the camera that although he loves the spec business, he likes working for clients now and it doesn’t make sense to partner with Jeff anymore. Um, how about explaining that to the guy Who. Thinks. He’s. Partners. With. You. Jenni says they always joke about how Jeff and Seacrest work better as business partners than as a couple. Bwah, hah, hah. Hysterical. Jeff tells Seacrest that he tried but you can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink.

But Jeff has planned his revenge in the form of the continued corruption of Seacrest’s two-year old daughter, Chloe. Jeff had been on probation and couldn’t see Chloe because he taught her bad things. He would throw her doll, yell “bad baby” and feed the doll’s head to the dog. Which is all pretty hysterical if it’s not your child. Seacrest finally relented because it makes for good television.

In addition to the rule that there be no cussing, Seacrest tells Jeff that there can be no more alcoholic beverage references. Not a typical rule but a good one in this case since this is the kid’s answer when you ask her what she’d like to drink:

Apparently, she does this in school which is a little awesome. Also, when Jenni asks Chloe if Megan is her best friend, this is Chloe’s response (and please note the position of the middle finger):

I think that maybe Chloe is the problem here and not Jeff. The three of them sit down for pizza and Jeff makes sure that Chloe is adequately protected from the perils of pizza-eating.

After lunch (and after Jeff tells Jenni that she’s insulting Chloe’s intelligence by talking baby-talk to her), they’re back in the car and playing another game she learned from Uncle Jeff. Chloe lifts up her shirt and says “girls gone wild”. Of course, this is followed by a Q and A where Chloe tells Uncle Jeff that she wants to work in Hooters when she grows up. And again I ask, could Chloe be the problem here?

Jeff shows a teeny, tiny bit of human emotion when he explains that he looks at Chloe and thinks that she could have been his baby if he didn’t screw everything up when he was dating Seacrest. Then Jeff would have had the pleasure of corrupting his very own child which is much more awesome than corrupting someone else’s.

Jeff is in his office (with Jenni and the newly coiffed Bubblehead) and plays a voicemail he received from Duckie. Duckie apologizes, says she was wrong, that Jeff will get paid tomorrow and — most importantly — tells Jeff he was right. Hearing that was enough for Jeff to put it behind him. He wants to move on because he didn’t sign up for this shit and he’s not a collection agency.

So now that everyone has gotten paid, Jeff and Jenni head back to Duckie’s house to get the house finished. Since he doesn’t have a lot of money to work with, Jeff is trying to make the most of it and is doing things that give him the most bang for his buck.

They also have to pick out paint and they’re choosing from six different whites. Of course, one of them is Pearl Necklace and every time Duckie says “Pearl Necklace,” Jeff and her boytoy collapse into a fit of giggles. Because of this, Duckie knows there must be a joke but she’s sixty-seven years old and doesn’t get it.

Jeff, Jenni and Trace are in the office and Jeff asks Trace where the rest of his pants are. Apparently, Trace woke up the morning after a bar mitzvah in 1985.

Now, Jeff isn’t religious but he does pray for opportunities to make fun of people and that morning God answered his prayers. I love Jeff a little today. He describes the pants as daisy dukes with money. Jenni says they were too short — almost four inches shorter than her shorts.

Trace defends his decision by saying that they’re designer shorts and that his style is a little more European that Jeff’s. If by “European” you mean “GAY GAY GAY,” then yes, I agree.

Jeff laments that the shorts were painted on and he doesn’t want to see the outline of Trace’s dick. Um, ew. Jeff is worried about Trace getting beat up so he decides to only send him on errands in West Hollywood as long as he’s wearing the dick-outlining, designer short-shorts.

Seacrest and his designer, Deidre, are at one of Brown Design’s renovations. He’s designing an authentic Mediterranean-style duplex. I don’t know what’s “authentic” about doing something in any style, much less Mediterranean since, last I checked, that big body of water on the west coast is the Pacific Ocean. Seacrest brags that he’s making more money than Jeff for the first time and that it’s a big blow to Jeff’s ego. He says other stuff but I hate him and he’s boring so I’m not going to bother.

Jeff is at the Hair Salon Bungalow Colony berating Frank for failing to stake the dog patio properly. I’m not entirely sure but it seems Jeff is planning to pour some concrete and lay some Yiddish flooring (Pergellah?) so the dogs have a place to escape from their busy dog lives. When Kato comes out to see what’s been done, Jeff is happy to tell him that Frank screwed up and didn’t adequately stake the area so Kato has no idea what the dog patio is going to look like.

Jeff grades Frank’s performance and gives him an “F” which I’m sure will go on Frank’s permanent record. To add insult to injury, Kato starts telling Frank how to do his job and it involves string.

Jeff and Jenni are back at Valley Oak when Seacrest shows up. Jenni is wearing a red puffy coat which confuses and repulses me. Seacrest sees wood samples on the office floor and tells Jeff that he has a new wood guy who is ridiculously cheap. Apparently, the wood guy contacted Seacrest and gave him a whole seminar on wood.

Jeff is pissed that he didn’t get an evite to the seminar. They move the argument upstairs for lunch and it’s a very sad lunchtime at Valley Oak today. Jeff is suspicious that Seacrest keeps excluding him from opportunities that Jeff and his clients can benefit from. Jeff doesn’t think he’s paranoid but Seacrest assures him that there’s no conspiracy and that’s he’s not hiding anything.

Seacrest hopes that all of this is a mood that will pass but in the meantime, will forward to Jeff every email that Seacrest receives trying to sell him shit.

Jeff, Jenni, Bubblehead and Trace are in the office planning their day but Jeff is distracted by Trace’s accessories. Is that a bowtie on a necklace? Jeff has never seen something like this! It’s fascinating! Did you buy it like that or did you make it yourself? After much confusion about its origin, we find out that the bowtie/necklace is a collaborative effort between Mr. Marc Jacobs and Trace. MJ bowtie but Trace thought putting it on a chain. All by himself.

The bowtie causes Jeff and Jenni to lose their train of thought but honestly, I’m more distracted by the Hanes undershirt and white suspenders.

Then there’s momentary but all-out chaos when Kato calls Jeff and tells him that Frank forgot to put up the ramps over the driveway to allow everyone to move their cars and avoid the fresh concrete before they all went out of town and had to park on the street and risk getting tickets. Don’t worry – it doesn’t matter. Bottom line is that Frank forgot to do something but it wasn’t nearly the five-alarm fire that Kato made it out to be nor the six-alarm fire that Jeff turned it into. After order was restored by Debra the Accountant, Jeff forced Jenni to draft a letter of apology on behalf of Frank, and had Frank sign it. How does he get away with this shit?

Jeff and Jenni are at Duckie’s completed house and Duckie thinks it’s amazing.

Jeff had expected it to be a simple job and never thought money would be an issue since Duckie lives in a multi-million dollar house and drives a nice car. Because wealthy people always pay all of their bills on time and without complaint. Jeff is convinced that she had the money for the renovation and spent it on something else. Had he known this was going to happen he would have charged more and collected a big deposit up front. Like Seacrest.

Jeff is surfing the interwebs and stumbles onto Seacrest’s website which looks like he should be selling used cars rather than decorating home interiors.

The website is deceptive because although it looks like you’re reaching Jeff and Seacrest, if you were to call the phone numbers listed, you would only get Brown Design and Jeff wasn’t seeing any of that business. Seacrest was also sponsoring links on Google so that if you searched “Jeff Lewis,” you were directed to Seacrest’s website instead. But none of this is important people! I went to check out Jeff’s website and I found this:

Ok. So maybe this is important because Jeff feels totally betrayed by his best friend. It’s not only a slap in the face but also a knife in the back. A slap and a knife. Oh, it’s bad.

Typically, Jeff would call Seacrest if he was facing a major issue but he can’t so he called his dad instead. They go for lunch and Jeff explains that Seacrest is being sneaky and tight-lipped and they don’t talk about business anymore which makes him even more suspicious. His dad’s reaction is that Seacrest made a bad decision about putting up the website and that it’s proof enough that Seacrest is stealing business from Jeff but that they should figure out a way to save this partnership.

I hate to attribute human emotion to a robot like Jeff but he seems really torn up. Seacrest and Chloe are like his family so he doesn’t want them out of his life but he also doesn’t want to have to watch his back. Dad thinks they should sit down to figure this out, hire an arbitrator and have an intervention. Seacrest is just an asshole, not a heroin addict.

And next week all hell breaks loose as Jeff and Seacrest battle it out. It looks like good stuff but I’d like to see a little more Bubblehead and a lot more of the fashion stylings of Trace. Make it happen, Bravo. Until next week.