Alec Benson Leary Phone Call 7
Alec Benson Leary Phone Call 7 is the seventh and last of the available phone conversations between Chris and Alec Benson Leary, the creator of Asperchu. They discuss the locking of the CWCipedia on 6 February 2010, as well as Chris's apology video from the previous day.
The conversation is extremely one-sided, with many long pauses and silences following Alec's comments. Chris has very little to say except when goaded, and even then his answers are sullen and short. While Alec makes a dogged attempt to reason with him, he fails.
Summary
As the conversation begins, Chris is predictably unhappy about the locking of the CWCipedia to edits. Supposedly, he was planning to get back to answering Mailbag entries after a long period of computer trouble.
Alec presses Chris on the subject of doing away with his infringing character Simonla and publishing a written apology to Evan in the pages of his comic. Chris is obviously resistant, and indeed admitted in a later video that he never wanted to give up Simonla.
The topic then moves to Chris's second apology video. Alec argues that Chris was merely going through the motions and didn't actually understand or care about what he was apologizing for. Chris lamely attempts to claim otherwise, but it's obvious that Alec is correct. At around this point in the conversation, Chris becomes increasingly withdrawn and doesn't seem to be listening to much of what Alec has to say.
Alec rouses Chris briefly by challenging him on his misconception of what the term "biological clock" actually means, and also gets a reaction by claiming that Chris doesn't actually care about his comic. Chris blames his broken-down computer for his failure to publish more pages and updates. Apparently, it was disabled by a power outage for a few days in early February. When Alec points out that Chris could easily have spent some of his massive video game budget on a more reliable computer, Chris has no response.
The conversation finally ends when Alec lays into Chris for the massive amount of time he wastes on video games and flailing around at invisible enemies on the internet. While Alec attempts to dish out some valuable advice regarding Chris's total waste of his life, Chris hangs up.
Video
Transcript
Chris: Hello?
Alec: Hey, Chris, it's Alec.
Chris: Hello, Alec.
Alec: How are you? You're good?
Chris: I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay.
Alec: Cool, cool. Ah, just calling to see how things are going with...well, I know that Evan went forward with freezing the CWCipedia on you.
Chris: Yeah.
Alec: Yeah. So, uh...what are you thinking about that?
Chris: What am I thinking about that? I can't edit it, I can't edit squat!
Alec: Well...
Chris: I was gonna answer some more Mailbag letters!
Alec: Well...
Chris: I finally got my PC back and running after a weekend of not having it after a power fail- after a power failure. [sigh]
Alec: Well, you know, um, I think the thing here is you did kinda drop the ball on getting the pages up, you know, as quick as possible.
Chris: I am gonna get the pages up, and Simonla will be, Simonla will be killed.
Alec: Um, well, that's good, I'm just...you know, Evan, he got kinda impatient, because he was waiting a long time for this. I talked to him about it, but he's, he wasn't keen to move on it. He just wanted to. Do you have them finished? The Simonla death page and the apology page?
Chris: And I'll, and I'll have them, I'll have them upload...either tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever the thing is un-frozen.
Alec: I think Evan wants you to show them to him first, just to make sure they're good.
Chris: [heavy sigh]
Alec: Well, you know, can you blame him? He just wants to see the product before he un-freezes the site. 'Cause if it's not what he wants then he's going to re-freeze the site, and that's a hassle for him. He's gotta make sure you're good on your word.
Chris: Yeah. Alright, yeah. I'll, I'll send them to him, I have them sent to him tomorrow.
Alec: Alright. Well, you know, that's between you and Evan. I'm going to, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm just not satisfied with your apology video, and I don't think I'll be asking you to make another, because it's...it's become apparent to me that...I don't think you really even understand what you did wrong. 'Cause that video, well, first of all, the call last time, you were just aching to get off the phone with me. You were just trying to hurry the call along. And then the video, you just read off a list. It was rather apparent that you didn't put any thought into why I wanted you to say those things at all. And that was really the point, Chris, it wasn't about getting you to read things off a list, it was about getting you to...
Chris: [interrupting] Well, I mean, yeah, actually I did, actually I did get the point behind everything.
Alec: There was even less emotion in your voice in that video than there is normally, when you apologize for something. I mean I've seen apology videos you made before and they're all pretty lackluster, but this one was just like a slap in the face. You didn't say Sonichu was a failing franchise, either. That was part of my list. Sonichu can't make money. And you said you would say it, but you didn't. You know, you weren't actually sorry. You said those things that I asked you to say because you thought that reading them off a list would get my ads off of your site. I took my ads off your site for the moment, just because I don't really want Asperchu associated with your perennial legal troubles, but if you do get CWCipedia back up, then my ads are going back, because I'm not satisfied. That's if you get it up, Chris, because as far as I can tell you don't really even care about Sonichu that much.
Chris: Oh yes I do!
Alec: Well...
Chris: I have to [garbled] in the pages.
Alec: Chris, I warned you numerous times, over the past several weeks, that someone was targeting you for a lawsuit over problems you were causing with Sonichu. If I was warned that someone was targeting me for a lawsuit, and they had grounds to sue me, I would deal with it right away. I would drop what I was doing. I mean, you had time, Chris. You had all the time in the world.
Chris: Hmm.
Alec: Doesn't that seem reasonable to you? You don't go to school. You don't have a job. You know, I asked you what your day was like, last time I talked to you, and you said that you were sleeping in 'til eleven in the morning. I mean, eleven, Chris? That's ridiculous. I would kill to be able to sleep in all day. I have to get up early every day because I have things that I need to do. I mean, you could have slept in 'til ten instead and then used the extra hour to make the apology page, or make an apology video, or both.
Chris: Some days...
Alec: I mean, I don't understand what this whole "biological clock" thing is that you keep falling back on. Are you even listening to me right now? You weren't listening last time. I think you said in...
Chris: You know what, look it up, do you know what, look it up on Wikipedia.
Alec: Look up what?
Chris: Biological, biological clock!
Alec: Biological clock?
Chris: Now I'm...
Alec: "Biological clock" is a phrase that women usually use to their most fertile reproductive years. I really have no reason, no understanding of why you would apply that to yourself.
Chris: It means, it, it reference to, to sleeping schedule.
Alec: [sigh of his own] You know, I don't have problems with sleeping, any sleeping schedule. I think maybe, I think, you know, what happens with a lot of people when they have absolutely nothing to do with their days, that's when their sleep schedule gets messed up. See, I have a routine, I have to go to work, and I have to go to school, and I work on my comic because I care about my comic. You don't have a job or school and you don't care about your comic, therefore your body...
Chris: I actually do, I actually do care about my stuff! I care about my stuff!
Alec: Your actions say otherwise. You know, you don't upload any pages, how many times have I told you, you have to start uploading pages? Not just when I wanted you to make the apology page, I just mean in general. But you don't, you didn't listen.
Chris: Well, I have been working on the pages, and I will be uploading them as soon as the thing gets un-frozen! And I had to go through my, without a PC the past weekend, because I was on a power failure!
Alec: Power failure?
Chris: Yeah!
Alec: Like the power was knocked out all weekend? That doesn't stop you from drawing...
Chris: It was actually knocked out, it was actually knocked out for about 40 minutes, but then it took me a lot longer for me to get my computer back up and running.
Alec: Um, I have blackouts on occasion and my computer shuts off, and then when the power comes on I just press the power button. My computer comes back up in a minute.
Chris: You know, for me, it can't, it, it came, I tried powering back on and then, and then the farthest it had gotten was just the introductory HP Pavilion blue screen. And then it would go into looking like one of those color bars where the station's not broadcasting.
Alec: So what you're saying is you don't take care of the equipment that you need to do your comic.
Chris: I admit I need a new computer.
Alec: Why can't you buy one? I've seen...
Chris: I can't afford one right now.
Alec: I've seen videos of you in your room, you've got a fancy, you've got like a 40-inch HDTV in there, you've got your PlayStation 3, you've got a wall full of video games, but you can't afford a basic computer? Nothing fancy, costs maybe a couple hundred bucks. I could go buy myself 10 new computers right now if I wanted. Good computers. I wouldn't do it because I save my money, but the fact that I'm capable is proof of that. How many video games do you own that you don't play, Chris?
Chris: I play all my games in, within my lifetime, for your information.
Alec: How many of them do you currently play? I've played a lot of games in my lifetime, but I own very few right now, because as soon as I'm done with them I usually sell them. You sure have a lot of time on your hands, Chris, to play all those games, for that matter. I've never come close to owning as many games as you have. Chris, how many hours a week do you spend on video games right now?
Chris: [heavy sigh] I dunno, I'd say about...maybe two or four a day?
Alec: That's an awful lot of time to be spending on video games per day. And that is time that you could be using on your comic, if you cared about your comic, but obviously you care more about video games.
Chris: I do care about my comic, it's just I have, it's just I use that, it's actually between drawing, drawing page, between drawing and coloring.
Alec: But you could use that video game time to upload them. And you never did that.
Chris: Oh yes I do!
Alec: How many days have you missed since you promised you would upload two pages a day? You don't care. Your actions say that you don't care. Actions speak louder than words, Chris. I don't even consider you competition anymore, do you know that? Because you, you obviously, my competition are artists who actually care about their work, and you play video games all day. And then you sleep in, because you have nothing to do. And then you, when you do actually take time to do something, you don't actually work on your comic, you just attack me. And then when I'm nice to you, you continue to attack me. And then when I get mad and yell at you, you back down right away, because you can't stand up in a fight. And then when I'm nice again, because I think to myself, "I don't wanna keep yelling, because I'm not that kind of person," then you become disrespectful again. Do you have anything to say, Chris?
[total silence]
Alec: He hung up.
| ⇐ Chris and Alec Call 6 | Alec Benson Leary calls | Final ⇒ |