Salon Takeover With Tabatha: Ba-Da-Boom Ba-Da-Bling!

After only two episodes of this show, I have fallen deeper in love with Tabatha Coffey than I already was before! What is it about searing criticism delivered with a foreign accent that makes it so much more palatable? I don’t know, but I, for one, find it incredibly fascinating… and I think the next time I need to impart an unpopular truth to somebody, I’m going to do it in a Cockney or Australian accent. I’ll probably still get decked.

…LadyTabathaTronâ„¢…

It seems as though dealing with L.A. and the California Girls (Kwanna & Vile Mikey) have made Tabatha long for the sunny shores of New Jersey, because this week she’s back on her home turf and dealing with a more familiar type of airhead… the Italian Playboy.We are introduced to Martino (I’m not gonna give him a nickname because “Martino” is silly enough) owner of the Martino Cartiér At Giovanni & Pileggio Salon in Sewell, New Jersey (Big Hair Our Specialty!) and right out the box he makes me giggle as he admits “Everything I do is over the top… everything has to be ‘wow’! If it’s not ‘wow’, I’m not doin’ it!”

…”How you doin’?”…

I’d bet a blowjob that his real name is just plain Martin (maybe middle initial O). Any takers? Anyhow, his stylists say everybody in their town knows Martino, and that he’s very flashy. He confirms this as he says “I do have a lavish lifestyle… I have a ‘Vette and an Escalade, I like nice clothes, I love taking people out. I have parties for my staff all the time!” ‘Cuz you know, ‘The ‘Vette gets ‘em wet.’ Damn, I want to go to work for Martino… the giant multi-billion-dollar behemoth corporation that I work for gives us one party per year, and it’s a lunch buffet and two hours of bowling and skee-ball at Dave & Busters.

Of course, there’s a itsy-bitsy teensy-weensy downside to all this partying… “Well, I’m $300,000.00 in debt… I had to borrow money from my mom and take out a second mortgage on my house just to keep the salon afloat!” His stylists again chime in with Martino needing to stop spending so much on himself and put some badly needed cash back into the salon…

Apparently their sinks are all old and back up all the time from the pounds and pounds of Jersey Hair that’s been sucked down them over the years. Jeez, how much does a bottle or two of Dran-O cost? But then again… Jersey Hair. Also, it seems that they’re running with 16 stylists and only 12 stations, so the resident drama-queen stylist Donnie says “Tempers are usually flaring, so it always makes for an interesting day!” Martino complains “My salon is run down. We need improvements, and I’m tapped out. That’s why I need Tabatha!” For what? So you can hit her up for a loan? Something tells me Martino is smoking more than Benson & Hedges Deluxe Ultra Light Menthols…

…and he said he likes to have “nice clothes”?!??!…

Well, let’s see how far he gets with Lady Tabatha! She calls him from outside his salon and says she needs to see him. She tells us that she’s actually been secretly watching him along with his staff to see what the problems are… and she thinks a lot of those problems have to do with him and his icky ways. Wait until you see what I mean…

SALON UNDERCOVER

Well, I hope the camera crews were a little better camouflaged this time around. I know I clam up if someone starts waving a boom mike in my general vicinity. Tabatha starts by letting him on the big secret of her “surveillance cameras” and that she was watching him. Martino grins like he’s just gotten inappropriately aroused by this…

…”Soooo, you like to watch?”…

Gross. I bet he tapes himself having sex. Even when he’s alone. Well, let’s see what a typical day is like in Giovanni & Pileggio Salon, shall we? Well, the lack of stations is a bit of a problem, as one of the stylists (“Dana” is apparently her name) is waiting for one to be available, and she decides to yank the blow-drier from Donnie Drama-Queen’s station. Well, what is Donnie Drama-Queen supposed to dry his client’s hair with? Dana just gives him a snotty “I dunno…” Martino watches this exchange and says nothing.

Tabatha asks Martino if his salon is always that chaotic, and he says it is. She counters with questioning if that is the most efficient way to work, and he skates into the Danger Zone as he says “I’d love for you to fit that many clients in that salon and it not be as hectic, chaotic and crammed with people! There are employees that need to work on days that they can’t work because there’s no station available, okay?” Ummm, okay. Whose fault is that? Tabatha retorts, “So what did you do? Come for me to fix up the appointment book and draw out the schedule for you?… is that why I came all the way here?” She’s smiling as she says this, but I wouldn’t trust that… they go back to the surveillance tape…

A stylist is taking coloring down out of a client’s hair… but the dastardly sink appears to be clogging up…

…and Martino insists that there’s no hair in the sink, it’s the hair that’s slipped through the strainer that’s causing these clogs. Tabatha reads my mind and helpfully suggests that he put something in there to dissolve the hair. Martino gets pissed and mutters something unintelligible.

Now we see a woman whose hair has been completely saturated with coloring… apparently her ears have been spackled with it as well. Tabatha asks Martino how he feels seeing that. His response? “She’s not my client.” Exasperated eye-roll from Tabatha, “It’s your salon.” Martino is confused “How does what make me feel?” When Tabatha points out how the color is caked all over the clients ears he apparently doesn’t see anything wrong with that. Maybe she wanted her ear-hair dyed to match? She likes the burning feeling? It takes her mind off of a scorching yeast infection? Looking on in disbelief, Lady T soldiers on…

Oh wow, here’s a lawsuit waiting to happen…

He’s stroking the back of the stylist’s hair, and she asks if he could wipe the sweat off her brow. He asks if he can lick it off! And he does!! Making a big “khhheow!” sound as he gets a tongue-full of Maybelline. Oh, ICK! Tabatha is looking at him like he’s a new and interesting species of ape. He says “What?” Back on video, he’s up in some client’s face kissing on her! He’s licking another client! He has another woman come sit on his lap…

…”You don’t mind if I tweak your daughter’s nipple, do you?”…

T-girl is absolutely aghast at his behavior. Martino think it’s funny. “What? That’s why these people come!” Oh, don’t flatter yourself Marty. I’d bet 7/8ths of them are frantically asking for antibacterial gel within seconds of you leaving earshot. And yeah, so the other 8th are probably turned on, but still, ew! Tabatha point out the obvious, “Martino, it’s disgusting! You lick everyone!” Lady T interviews that Marty is too busy being an idiotic fool to notice his dire situation that could lead to him losing everything.

Mack-Daddy Marty challenges Tabatha, “Why do I have such a large clientele that adore me? Why?” My response would have been one word. Tastelessness. But Lady T takes a different approach, “My question to you would be why do you want me here?” He admits he’s losing a lot of money and wants her to give him a loan for a cool half-mil. Okay, no he doesn’t (although it would have been fun to watch her decapitate him with her bare hands) instead he says he needs suggestions from her. Tabatha agrees, but it seems like ManlyMarty doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with acting like an oversexed middle-schooler grinding up on clients and stylists alike. She reminds him that he’s the owner, so everyone is going to look up to him as the benchmark of their behavior. Well, look down is more like it. Tabatha has reached the end of her tether, and demands his keys. Martino laughingly says “I hate you!” but Lady T will not be denied. Mack-Daddy digs deep in his pocket and produces his keys (probably giving his doorbells a good jangle on the way up) and hands them over. I think you might wanna have those sterilized, Tabatha…

THE TAKEOVER

Tabatha marches into Giovanni & Pileggio and gathers the stylists around. My GOD there’s a lot of hair in there! She introduces herself and announces the takeover is in progress, because Martino has reached out to her for help. She gives them the same line about everything changing, some of them may not have jobs, blah blah blah. I wanna see your ass fire a bitch, Tabatha! I wanna see some crazy! You better deliver at some point, girl!

Sorry, I lost my cool for a minute there. Dana (Martino’s assistant) says that “Martino likes to have his way or no way and I think now he’s in for it! I don’t think he realized what he was getting himself into.” Girrrrrl, you got dat right! Tabatha commands Martino to give her the grand tour…

THE INSPECTION

Their first stop is some kind of weird space-age giant bracelet-shaped hairdryers that Tabatha wipes off the top of with her hands, producing the requisite pile of crud and crap. Cleaning crews beware! You may be asked to start actually dusting stuff off as part of your package-deal. We are treated to Donna, one of Martino’s very experienced stylists talking about how terrified of Tabatha she is…

…”I was tarrafawiyed of huh! TARRAfawiyed!”…

Let me just say that Donna is the embodiment of Jersey-Girl-Toughâ„¢ and if she’s terrified of Tabatha, then you know this is one baaaad bitch. I love her crazy-eyes, too. *mwah*

Little Miss Sweaty Forehead Dye-Job has her station called out for being dirrty as Tabatha runs her hand along the cabinetry and comes away with a dust bunny or twelve. Holding up her filthy hand, Tabatha spits “It would be called ‘cleaning fluid’, my friend!” Erica (Dye-Job) and her giant chest tattoo says she was embarrassed by that, because she didn’t think it was that bad, but she admits it was pretty bad. Well, how can she notice dust elephants forming at her station when she has Martino’s giant lusty tongue coming at her all the time?

Checking other stations, Tabatha is coming up with all kinds of savory stuff… like discarded fingernails and such. Martino says the stylists are supposed to clean their stations before they leave for the day. Maybe they’re fleeing in abject terror because they don’t want to become his next licky-loo? No, actually it seems as though he just lets it all slide. Tabatha is pointing out splashed haircoloring on the walls and various other filthy parts, and the girls are all giggling like it’s funny to work in a shit-shack. “It won’t be so funny if the State Board closes them down.” intones Lady T…

…”Ow mwy GAWD, she tawks sow funnay!”…

Discussing Martino’s retail sales, out of $1.3 million in total sales, only $30,000.00 was made up of retail products, or just over 2%. Tabatha tells him the low-end percentage for a successful salon to sell retail product is about ten times that. Okay, I may be a White Rain kind of boy, but I don’t spend $150.00 on getting my hair cut, colored and styled, and if I did have that kind of money, I probably would buy some of the insanely expensive products they sell at hair salons because let’s face it, if I leave the White Rain on my hair too long it starts to smoke. Then again, I’m also kind of a cheapo who would choose, say, food over conditioner. I don’t keep this fabulously schlubby shape I’m in by having more manageable hair…

Looking into Martino’s office, Tabatha is amazed at the amount of clutter and crap she finds there…

…including Martino’s list of one-night stands…

She thinks he is setting a bad example by expecting his staff to clean up after themselves when he obviously lets his own shit get super-filthy, too. Tabatha dismisses the staff and tells them she will meet with them bright and early the next day… “…and I don’t accept lateness.”

The next morning, she meets with Martino prior to the staff meeting to discuss the finances, and he tells her about how he’s just breaking even, and he owes more than what his house is worth (sounds familiar these days, doesn’t it?) plus he opened up some credit cards on top of that. Nice! He also mentions that he still owes his mom $40,000.00 for the last salon he owned! Huh?!? The last salon? What is he, a serial business murderer? Well, mom probably didn’t need her nest egg anyhow. All told his debt comes up to about $300,000.00. I’d say ouch, but it’s not expensive enough of a word.

Tabatha is eyeing his clothing and asks how much his shirt cost. When he says it cost $400.00 I discover my intestines have knotted themselves in disbelief! Four. Hundred. Dollars.

…maybe it was hand-woven by Smurfs…

Lady T also points out his Little Red Corvette. He offers “Do you wanna go for a ride?” Ignoring this, Tabatha says “It sounds to me like you’re living outside of your means. Your house is on the line, and you have nothing put away to cushion you. That’s a huge gamble.”

Here’s where it gets reeeeeallly interesting. Tabatha asks him about the assistants, and Martino says now that he’s become their “friend-boss”, he doesn’t know how to switch that to be more assertive with them. Tabatha wonders if he has any kind of rules & regs written up (Oooh, Kwanna from Circle Ten could help him with that!) and he says if he tried that they would just laugh at him. He says it’s the bed he’s made over the last year and a half. Tabatha insists that he has to follow through, he can’t just give up on it. Martino is getting heated as he says “I tell them, and it doesn’t change, so you telling me what I already know needs to cha-”

“But you don’t follow through!” insists Tabatha. Oooh, now he is getting pissed as he prays “Jesus, help me! You can say it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, and if it doesn’t change… what do you do??!?” Lady T calmly replies “You need to change… you.” She interviews that Martino is so busy trying to be friends with everyone and getting everyone to like him that he’s ignoring the needs of his business. But there are so many people to be licked, Tabatha! Who cares about staying in the black when you can fondle all that willing Jersey flesh?

STAFF MEETING

Well, all the staff have come together, and Tabatha aims to get their impressions of what Martino is like as a boss… is he a great boss or a great friend. They timidly pick “friend” and admit that it’s hard to approach him with anything because he’s so overwhelmed with all the problems. Apparently he’s afraid to have staff meetings because, as one hard-faced lady puts it, “He thinks it’s gonna be a complete bitchfest!”…

…now why on Earth would he think that?!??!?…

Tabatha points out that they have no leadership in there, and reiterates how filthy the salon is. Apparently this causes Donnie Drama Queen to giggle. Bad move. Lady T zeroes in on him, “Do you find that funny, Donnie?” With an insiouciant head-bob he chirps “Yes!” Right away T-girl shoots back “Why?” Donnie Drama’s brilliant comeback? “‘Cuz it is!” Oooh, I’m skerd of your stiletto-sharp wit, there, Donnie-boy. So is Tabatha as she asks, “So how do you feel about bringing clients into a filthy salon?” Donnie gives her a hard wide-eyed blink and spits “What should I do?” in a truly hateful and insolent tone….

…you can’t see it here, but the scared-looking girl in front of Donnie Drama is slowly moving to her left and away from him in case sharp objects are about to be hurled…

Coolly, Tabatha replies, “How about taking a bit of soap and water and cleaning your station, for a start?” Donnie Drama makes a big frowny face and a combination snort and razzberry (or a snortzberry, if you will). Lady T is not amused and says “Excuse me?” Donnie Drama, who apparently fancies himself both a rebel and a badass (and he’s so wrong on both counts) backsasses her with “No!” This makes Tabatha leap up from her chair and make a beeline for him and his station. Oooh, you asked for it now, Donnie-boi!

Donnie insists that he’s not going to clean the dusty top edge of the mirror because the client won’t see it. Tabatha points to the top of his sterilizing jar, which is caked with dust and crud (and which is at eye-level to the styling chair, which means the client definitely will see it). Even worse, she picks up his round brushes and yanks out some nasty, ratty hair caught in them and says “Look at that. Do you pull those out and put those on a client?” Donnie Drama’s lame comeback to this is “I clean them more now.”

…I think if you were to turn your back right now, Donnie, you’d wind up cleaning a lot more than just old hair out of those brushes…

“You clean them more now.” says Tabatha in a deadly tone as Johnny giggles “Than I used to!”. Jeez, just hit him, Tabatha! No court would convict you. “If you think this is funny, then you’re really fucking disillusioned!” she snaps. “My staff cleans their brushes every day!” Lady T interviews that it’s crystal clear that Martino’s staff have never had anyone lay down the law to them. She’s talking to them about having pride in their salon and in themselves, and some of them are looking bored, and Donnie Drama is rolling his eyes. No matter. Tabatha says that’s all going to change.

THE ASSESSMENT

Tabatha has once again arranged for clients to come in with celebrity photographs… and one of them is of new “Shear Genius”-era Jaclyn Smith! Hi Jaclyn! We miss your show! Mwah! Oops, sorry, I just loves me some Jaclyn Smith… anyhow she’s walking about and thoroughly intimidating the stylists as she listens to their consultations and the outlay of the plans they have… and then she comes to Martino and he has one of my least favorite “celebrities” to work from…

…this is actually one of Vicky’s more intelligent facial expressions…

Posh is clearly a blonde in the picture, but for some reason Martino is talking the client into going with a fuschia coloring job. She just smiles and gives him a wry “Good luck!” as she moves on. Martino is Major!

Donnie Drama is feeling pretty minor, though, as Tabatha points out that his coloring job is uneven, the toner in his client’s hair didn’t go all the way through in his application. Ah, if your butthole is bleeding Donnie, you got no one to blame but yourself. Bitch.

Moving back to Martino, who is making a giant doink on the top of his client’s head with her color-goop-saturated hair, he apparently called her “hon” and T-girl threatens to smack him upside the head if he calls her “hon” one more time! “I’m not your ‘hon’, I’m not your ‘sweetie’, I’m not your ‘baby’, I’m not your ‘darling’, I’m none of those!” she snaps.

…”Soooo I guess ‘sugartits’ is out, too?”…

Mr. Smoove can’t believe Tabatha doesn’t go for that kind of patronizing bullshit! “What planet is she from? 99.9% of the women that walk in this door want you to say ‘There she is, look at that beautiful girl, there’s my sweetheart!’… It makes them feel good, any therapist will tell you that! Maybe Tabatha needs a therapist!”

I don’t know about you, Gasmii, but I personally don’t like to be bullshitted by people in the service industry, whether it’s hairstylists, or waiters, or retail clothing personnel (or especially bartenders). If you gush all over me or call me cutesy names, I’m going to think that you’re bullshitting me to get a bigger tip, and it actually makes me feel worse, because it’s so fake and transparently obvious. Does Marty Hormone seriously think all the women who come into his salon buy his smarmy line of bullshit? Ladies, puh-leeze tell me you’re not sucked in by this insulting and demeaning banter! Whoops! Getting a nosebleed from that damned sneaky soapbox again…

Anyhow, Martino is pissed that Dana didn’t back him up that his clients like to be called all those syrupy pet names. She points out that they don’t care if he calls them by their name. He insists that it’s not that they care, but their husbands don’t call them that, so they like coming to the salon to hear it out of his mealy mouth, and he says that Dana knows that. She is walking away from him as he’s making this point, and suddenly he stops her and commands “Look at me!” and demands that she agree with his point of view. She says “No.” and walks off. Now, he’s pissed, follows her and says that he’s gonna talk to Tabatha about Dana not listening to him in the middle of the floor in front of clients. She tells him to shut up and relax, and he says no he won’t, he’s her boss, and she’s his assistant. She comes back with “Not today.”

Okay, so yes, he’s trying to assert his authority, and she’s not respecting it. It would be less dickish if he weren’t picking such a stupidly asinine thing to fight about and insisting that she blindly agree with him about schmaltzing the clients, cuz I’d be telling him to piss up a rope, too.

Tabatha interviews that Martino only had one client all day, and that it took him literally all day to finish her, because several times he just left her sitting there while he went off to his office to go call his mother, complain to his staff, to go have a smoke, and basically just to bitch about Tabatha! She goes to find him and interrupts him having yet another conversation with his mother…

…”Jeez, I’ll be with you in a minute Tabatha! Mama’s asking about her forty grand again!”…

This makes Lady T sigh with exasperation and Martino pissily says “I’m hanging up so I can tawk to you! She’s tawking in my eah!” This prompts a whip-crack, “You can lose the attitude before you speak to me, would be my preference, thank you very much!”. After some tiresome back-and-forth between them, Tabatha leaves him to finish his conversation and Martino tells his mother “This woman is such a bitch, I can’t stand her!” Ah well. Whaddayagunnadoo?

Back out on the floor, Lady T is giving pointers to Donnie Drama, and for once girlfriend seems to be putting the bullshit on layaway and actually listening to her good advice…. and she actually has good things to say about just about everybody else… although she seems less that set ablaze by Martino’s Posh Spice client and her pink hair under blonde. She dismisses the staff for the day (after admonishing them to clean up their stations, ha ha).

The next morning, Tabatha visits Martino at his McMansion….

…Welcome to Martinirvana!…

Oh my. Talk about Tacky Central. This place should be a challenge on Top Design! Inside everything looks like brass and glass and tons of gold leaf and rococo styling everywhere! He has a white baby-grand piano that plays by itself! Every house needs one! Of course, Martino doesn’t have a clue how to play, but it gives the room that certain “je ne sais quoi” (which is French for “I have no taste.”) In his kitchen, he has two ovens and two stoves, but of course he eats out a lot. He also has a macaw and a giant koi pond (he helpfully offers that he feeds them Cheerios!) and a great big pool, which I’m sure gets a ton of use in cold-ass Jersey.

…”There are whorehouses in Sydney’s Chinatown with more taste than this room!”…

He admits to Tabatha that he does a lot of entertaining with Cristal popping and blah blah blah as he insists “I don’t do the things I do, or spend what I spend so that I can get a pat on the back…. that’s my personality!” Sure, Martino. How about stop doing all those things and see how many of your so-called friends bolt for the hills of New Hampshire? OH, and now they’re in his giant and crammed full walk-in closet, where he has more clothes than Tabatha (and something tells me she’s a bit of clothes horse herself, she seems to favor a lot of black, but also very sleek slinky styling).

Tabatha points out the obvious, that he’s spending so much money on all the bullshit that he’s not putting it back into his business, and it’s making his position ever shakier (and distastefully borrowing money from Mamatino, ugh!). She says he’s living in a fantasy and needs for him to understand how wasteful all of his lavish spending really is… she takes him to an upstairs bedroom and shoves him out the window, shouting “Now you’ve got another $300,000.00 in medical bills!” as he plummets to the driveway and breaks both hips and his tailbone.

Okay, no, she doesn’t really do that (though how she resisted the impulse is beyond my capabaility to comprehend) but she says all this stuff is money out the window, and to illustrate that, she pulls out a giant roll of cash and hands it to him telling him to start throwing it out the window as she lists off all the wasteful things, as well as useful things he could be doing with it… “Dom Perignon”… “Party for the staff!”… “Pair of jeans!”… “Credit card payoff!”… “Your house payment!” Okay, I get it, but really, this seems kinda odd to me… cuz that roll wasn’t his money, it was her money. It would have been funny if he had thrown the roll in the fireplace and turned it on, but then Tabatha would have murdered him and there’d be no more “Salon Takeover” except for the Prison Edition.

…”Lapdances at The Spearmint Rhino!”…

Wow, it actually worked apparently, because Martino says he felt sick by her making him throw her money out the window. She also makes him cut up all his credit cards with a pair of garden shears because, as he said “I am not using a $500.00 pair of scissors to cut plastic with!” Um, what do you use a $500.00 pair of scissors to cut, then? And who has $500.00 pairs of scissors? How about put them on Ebay and then buy another station for your stupid salon, meathead? He can’t believe she’s making him cut them all up (I guess he’s never heard that a 2 minute conversation with the bank and he’ll have a new card within a day or two, and apparently she’s counting on that, too).

Last thing before she leaves, she says “Pick a car.” He says he can’t take either of the cars back to the dealership as they’re on a lease. This doesn’t faze Tabatha as she says he can talk his way out of it. Can he? Can anyone confirm this for me? I have never leased a car, but I imagine that once you sign off and drive off the lot that they’re not going to be too inclined for you to try and weasel your way out of it (not unless you sign on for another lease, preferably for a more expensive car) but whatever, I”ll go along with the idea that Martino can schmooze big burly car dealership finance guys the same way he schmoozes all the desperate Jersey Ladies who frequent his hair salon. Hope he gets his ass beat.

He chooses to keep the economical Escalade (13.4 miles to the gallon) and Tabatha congratulates him for making this choice. How about making him take both of them back and get a Prius, ha ha! Nah, he’d never drive a car that looks so much like a dildo (and I’m not hating on Priii, I think they’re great, but they do look like giant rolling dildoes).

Back at Giovanni & Pileggio Salon it’s time to meet with the Junket of Jersey Gyrls and discuss how to get their hair even more slutty and unnatural looking than it already is…

…I would suggest either lamination, or do what this girl did and buy porn wigs and stack them…

I keed! No, really, they’re getting together to talk about everyone’s favorite subject… retail sales! I hate retail sales. I spent the better part of 2001 and 2002 working a minimum-wage retail-clerk gig for Tower Records (in addition to my full-time tech support gig), and while it was lots of fun to get threatened with death because I couldn’t take back a Tupac CD someone didn’t want (because they had already copied it at home) it somehow left me feeling empty inside and hating most of humanity (especially old men who would buy porno on Christmas Day when I was stuck working that joyous morn… hope you enjoy “Santa Butt-Bangs His She-Elves”, buddy… Merry Fuckin’ Christmas, you dirty old asswipe.)

What I’m trying to say is that I totally feel for people whose jobs wind up combined with having to actually push products on people, it’s a bitch, nobody likes it, but in order for a hair salon to make money, they kinda have to do it (says Tabatha). So Lady T is talking to the Gyrls about their really low retail sales rate, and Martino privately interviews “If Tabatha wants to fix our retail department, she’s gonna have to be a Houdini!” Um, meaning she will need to escape after she’s handcuffed and chained up in the back room of your salon? Martino is a moron. How about pick a more modern magician like Doug Henning or David Copperfield or David Blaine… oh wait! David Blaine doesn’t do magic, he just sits reeeeeeeally still for super-long periods of time in giant fishbowls peeing into a catheter.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Tabatha says the industry average for retail sales is 15-20%, and she wants them to try to bring their pitiful little 3% up to about 10%. Good luck, Tabatha, you’re gonna need to hire some customers to come buy some shit from this place… but she’s still going to let them in on her secrets for successful retail sales…

…”Just remember ‘TIBH’… Threats… Intimidation… Bodily Harm…”…

No, actually she coaches selling product as “an insurance policy”… if they’ve spent all this money having their hair colored and they don’t take care of it with the proper $56.97 conditioner made of crushed starfruit, melted jujubes and essence of elephant pee, then they could potentially ruin the color-job. The fate of nations hangs in the balance!

So they’re going to practice by role-playing as she pairs up the stylists, and basically teaches them to tell as many lies to clients as they can come up with… like how one whiff of Jersey Air will turn their entire head orange and make their hair fall out, or that letting sunlight touch their golden locks will cause them to spontaneously and violently combust. Yay for screwing customers!

Martino is being all Negative Nellie and says that they won’t keep the high-pressure tactics up for him, he’s asked them to a million billion trillion jillion skillion hillion zillion times and they won’t and so he just gives up. Tabatha again has to point out that if he wants to keep his tacky house and his 8 bazillion dollar wardrobe he’s going to need to be firm with them, and maybe lead by example, too. Cha! As if! All his staff is going to learn from him is how to sexually harass people.

Ah well, he promises to try, so I guess that’s all T-girl can hope for. Now it’s time to get his office organized… and look, he’s got matted hair extensions lying around his office… Tasty!

…”Looks like L’il Kim droppings to me!”…

And speaking of droppings, Tabatha notices something on the floor behind Martino’s CPU… he laughs and says “Bella left you a little surprise!”… Bella is his toy dog…

…”Looks like more L’il Kim droppings to me!”…

Tabatha is disgusted. Martino calls out for his cleaning lady to come, and T-bird puts the stop to that with a hefty “Hell no! Your dog made the mess, clean it up! It’s disgusting and it’s a health hazard and it’s been there forever!” Martino isn’t happy about having to get down on the floor and pick up a dried up, petrified piece of poo, and says “You probably planted it here anyway..” Lady T shoots back with a sarcastic “Oh, yeah, because I always walk around with dog crap in my pocket!” Giggles to Tabatha!

She reflects that Martino is an awful lot like a little boy, but that deep down she thinks he’s a good guy, and now that he’s cleaned up his office, she’s going to transform the rest of the salon, so she calls the staff together and sends them home for a few days so she can call in a remodeling team to redo the salon, get some more stations in there and put some color on the walls (instead of just splattered hair-color). All right for free vacations! Tabatha can you send your crack team over to my office so I can have a couple of days off? Pretty please?

THE REOPENING

Martino says he did a couple of drive-bys of the salon while Team Tabatha was working on it and he couldn’t see a thing, so he’s really excited to see what it looks like now… Tabatha opens the door… and the bitches all go crazy!! To tell you the truth, it really doesn’t look all that different, so I’m not going to bother screencapping all the before and afters, it seems more like a furniture rearrangement than anything else…

… *gasp* …”We got some new magazines!”…

Donnie Drama Queen has his hands clasped over his mouth like Shirley Maclaine in “Steel Magnolias” when Sally Field has her breakdown and he is actually crying… Tabatha is incredulous at this and wants to know why…

…My guess is, with so many new workstations, Donnie finally got a good look in a mirror…

Martino is amazed, too, and all the staff is actually getting kinda weepy. So am I, because I’m finally realizing that I’ll never be Homecoming Queen. I put all that Vaseline on my teeth for nothing. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, the new salon! Tabatha added six more workstations so everybody should have their own place now and she retooled their display of retail product (which is apparently REDKENâ„¢ in case you missed the hundred or so close-ups of it). Yay for overt product placement!

So they have a full day ahead of them, and Lady T is giving them the pep-talk (blah blah blah, keep shit clean, don’t let it be chaotic, no licking the clients or each other, etc. etc. etc.)… ah, but before he turns them loose, Martino tells all the assistants that they can’t hang out in the back room any more, he doesn’t want to see drinks and food wrappers anywhere within sight of clients, and he’s actually setting some boundaries! Tabatha is amazed at his new pair! Impressive!

There is a minor glitch as they realize they have no clean towels because their cleaning lady “didn’t show up” but they get through it, and Tabatha notices that Donnie Drama has actually dropped his snippy little attitude and is being helpful and courteous…

…”I so totally did not know that I looked like this!”…

And the stylists are selling Redkenâ„¢ like it’s some kind of aphrodisiac for your hair! Oodles and buckets of product are going out the door! They’re practically rioting to get their hands on Starfruit Jujube Pee-Lectables!

FINAL JUDGMENT

It’s the end of the Reopening Day and Lady T calls the staff together to let them know that their retail sales today went up from 3%… to an incredible 16%!!! Tabatha says if they keep this pace up, Martino could be debt-free within 2 years. All thanks to Redkenâ„¢! And his now fired-up and dedicated staff! ♪We… are..♪. faaa-muh-lee..♪. I gotta bunch-a bitches ♪ with me! ♪

Tabatha recommends that Dana be put in charge of all the other assistants! Yay for Dana! Watch your back, girl, some of these other bitches stopped singing Sister Sledge when they heard that…

…Oooh, girl, you are so gonna lose some MySpace and FaceBook friends over this…

Lady T also calls out Donnie Drama and reminds him that when she first got there, his “attitude ranneth over!”. Donnie apologizes and Tabatha says she can’t stand attitude in a salon, there’s no place for it (unless, of course, you’re Tabatha) but she compliments him on what a “delight” he was today. Yay for Donnie!

Last up, T-girl recommends 25-year hair-industry veteran Nancy to be the head stylist, this way Martino won’t be so overwhelmed by having so many people coming at him all the time, he can delegate some stuff to Nancy. Yay for Nancy!

And with that, she makes her goodbyes and farewells and Tabatha fades into the dirty Jersey sunset…

SIX WEEKS LATER

The second Tabatha gets inside she is accosted by Martino running out and hugging her! I guess he didn’t get the “no hugs” memo on Lady T, but she weathers it well. Martino is so excited to show her that she is now his wallpaper on his computer! Awww, that is so sweet! Sitting down with Marty, she wants to know if he’s acting like a business manager now, and he says that the salon actually comes first now, he puts the partying and shopping sprees aside for the time being and spends almost all his time at the salon! Wow, sounds like he’s taking this shit seriously! And what about retail sales?

He says they’re averaging between 13% and 25% on that, and he’s been able to actually put some money back into the salon, in the form of “Twin Turbo Twenty Hundred” hair-dryers… he bought eighteen of them… and they are so fucking cool…

…they are all mounted from the ceiling, and when you pull them down, they automatically turn on! That is awesome, and I want one in my bathroom! Right over the bathtub in case I ever get asked to recap a non-Bravo-show…

Tabatha is really impressed (and to tell you the truth, she looks just a tad jealous… I’d be willing to bet another blowjob that a whole slew of those showed up at Tabatha’s home salon the week after they finished filming this episode).

Checking in with Dana the Head Assistant, things seem to be going well there, she’s weathering all the jealousy and the employees are starting to take a lot more pride in their salon and their work. Donnie Drama says his retail sales are way higher than they were before (prolly, like, 5%) and that he’s glad he dropped his attitude. They all say Martino is being much more professional boss and owner, too!

The last thought Martino has is “Tabatha left us with this morale that will never end… you know, we’re just so excited in every aspect of the salon and there’s nowhere for us to go but up!” Probably because you couldn’t have sunk much lower, Marty!

…”For realsies?… get me some antibacterial gel… NOW!”…

And that’s it! What did you think of this episode? Would you put up with some smarmy salon owner calling you “honey” and “sweetie” and “doll” and “baby” and “pickles” all the time? Have you ever known an innocent onlicker like Martino before? What is up with people in New Jersey? I only ask, because here’s a glimpse of next week…

…I. Can. Not. Fucking. Wait…

love, J-Mo