RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

Wait a minute. I thought the Inc. article specifically said that Bob 
opened the gun/video shop because he had tried to run the drive-in 
full-time but wasn't able to make enough to live on during the winter. 
That says to me that the gun shop is a secondary business that is 
nonetheless necessary to keep the whole enterprise afloat.

Let's say I'm a freelance writer, but I don't make enough freelancing to 
pay my mortgage, so I get a dull retail job for 16 hours/week to have a 
steady second income. Would you say that my freelancing income was 
"supporting" my retail job, or the other way around?

The word "support" is certainly a funny/slippery thing in this context, 
but it seems clear to me that if you're running a gun shop in the 
concession stand of a drive-in, and you've been on record in multiple 
places as having been a drive-in nut since you were 12 years old, AND 
that it's sadly not possible for you to make enough $ to live on 
year-round from the drive-in, then the gun shop that you start as a 
secondary business to supplement the drive-in could be said to be 
"supporting" you in your dream of running a drive-in.

Your "which is supporting which" question is the real disingenuous 
statement here, Duncan. If I were in the freelance/retail situation that 
I outline above, I would not hesitate to say "the retail job is merely 
supporting my real love, writing." Wouldn't you? So why are you 
pretending that it's impossible to reach a similar conclusion about the 
Starlite?

Ross

Duncan Murrell wrote:

> So after all that kvetching and discussion and name-calling of last 
> week, Morman decides Ruby S. hasn't had enough, and so he throws down on 
> her again in his blog today ( www.monkeytime.org), which at least proves 
> he has some faith in the "semaphore-signs-on-mountaintops" method. 
> What's surprising is that he's still criticizing her "because she didn't 
> seem to know that the gun shop supported the drive-in, rather than the 
> other way around." Not only does the Inc. magazine article he links 
> specifically _not_ say that about the relationship between the gun shop 
> and the drive-in, but it's pretty clear from other articles already 
> posted to this group, as well as from the Save Our Starlite website 
> itself, that the drive-in was Mr. Groves' main source of income, and 
> that it carried the business during the months he could operate it full 
> time (most of the year). If one business supports the whole business 9 
> months of the year, and another one carries the business for three 
> months, which is supporting which? I've been self-employed for two 
> years, and I do a variety of things (different "businesses", you might 
> say) to make a living. All of them support each other, and I'd be in 
> trouble if any one of them failed, whether it's the business that earns 
> me 60% of my income, or the business that earns me 20%. This meme that 
> that the "gun shop supported the drive-in," coupled with a refusal to 
> acknowledge that the drive-in also supported the gun shop, is 
> disingenuous at best.
>
> (I suppose some folks think that a couple of display cases of handguns 
> sitting in the middle of a concrete wasteland in a relatively isolated 
> part of town is a real profit generator, especially with business hours 
> of 5-10 p.m. only. Come on.)
>
> d
>
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