To all of you couples now eligible for tax breaks and a bureaucratically-recognized thing for one another, I’m raising the drinks I’m double-fisting. A toast to you, from one of the most awesome – and non-hetero-normative bands ever – The Magnetic Fields.

Also raising the drinks is “This American Life.” On their newly redesigned website, you can find the episode, “81 Words,” a beautiful and fascinating story about how the American Psychological Association decided – because, apparently, a group of old white straight men can just decide this sort of thing – that homosexuality is not a disease.

Here’s a glass raised, from one white married straight man to everyone getting married, be you the same or otherwise. I wish you the absolute best in life.

“Air” Rollercoaster, originally uploaded by nic0.

I bought a new battery for my iBook last night. Which means that after months of eyeing a room’s outlets anytime I wanted to use my computer, I’m finally back to the land of laptop users enjoying the convenience they paid for.

But part of me wonders if my newfound good technology karma was subtracted from NPR’s today.

While I was at work earlier today, I hit a slow moment while waiting on a CD to burn. And so I hit Twitter, only to find the following tweet from Andy Carvin:

Roller coaster today on All Things Considered; the tape machine crashed so they can’t play recorded stories; live interviews only.

By “tape machine,” he of course means a giant computer, but that doesn’t make it any better. Without that prerecorded audio, the entire program is flying by the seat of its pants.

For what it’s worth, I barely noticed any difference. I think it speaks well for ATC – and the staff’s grace – that despite tech calamity, the only hiccup seems to be a bit of verbal hesitation when an interviewee is a little too eager to start talking before a question is actually asked.

Granted, it’s possible that it was fixed by the time I started listening (still going at 7:00 central, via KCRW), because I’m hearing a few stories I’m pretty sure were pre-recorded.

I really expected everyone to sound less articulate or more stuttery – I now realize why they have the jobs they have.

(Especially you, Laura Conaway – I’m really happy to hear you on ATC!)

The Twitter reportage – started, for all intents (and from my vantage point), by your friend and ours, Laura Conaway, via @planetmoney – exploded with such force that by the time my coworkers started to talk about “this amazing plane wreck” that had “just happened,” I had already learned everything about it that I was interested in knowing, had already become bored with the story and moved on to the next thing.

It’s interesting, I have to say, to watch a story form and take shape, as different elements of it fall into place, while your coworkers are getting the same story in a neat package and on an hour-and-a-half delay.

In fact, this whole plane crash seems to be a bit of vindication for NPR’s Bryant Park Project alums. Laura Conaway broke the story, Caitlyn Kenney was quick with more information (like a news-gathering reflex), and Mike Pesca reported for “All Things Considered.”

Even separated within the same organization, it feels like it’s the BPP kids who’re making NPR work the way it’s supposed to work: gathering and disseminating news while using and building a community of listner/participants.

Because, seriously, what is public radio if it’s not brought to you by listeners like you?

And you, Bob Garfield, Brooke Gladstone, if you’re looking for a story for this week’s “On the Media,” here’s your tip: how Planet Money scooped the world on this story, then used social media to distribute it back to the world.

Which sucks, because “Day to Day” meant I didn’t have to listen to classical music or commercial radio on my lunch break if I left my iPod at home.

Lest you think we’re going to get all testy over this one, I want you to know, it’s clear from everything I read that this cut was not made lightly. It’s clear that the decision was deliberate and measured.

And short-sighted, if you didn’t already know my opinion. NPR’s listenership is growing, along with their reputation and cultural caché. Now seems like the worst possible time to risk that by cutting employees, who are – as hippy-dippy as it sounds – the resource that NPR most needs in order to really connect with its audience.

Problem is, that growing audience is probably facing a budget gap not much smaller than the one currently faced by NPR itself. As a result, they’re not pledging their support like they might. Also, have you noticed the major corporate underwriters? Financial corporations, auto makers.

Something tells me that they’re not crazy just now about donating to the world’s greatest resource for news about their own demise.

What NPR needs to do right now is to put is strongest most powerful resources behind…

No, honestly, my opinion right now is meaningless. Rather, not meaningless, but powerless. And I’m fine with that. It doesn’t matter what I think NPR should or shouldn’t do in times of financial crisis; I’m not the one dealing with the real (and limited) money coming in.

What NPR needs to do right now is to tell its staff to gather their friends and loved ones and make with the hugs and comforting.

Also, someone should give David Folkenflik a hug. No one wants to write about how 64 of their colleagues will be jobless, either in January or in March – the two programs end broadcast March 20th, the day before my wedding.

Thanks for the wedding gift, economy.

Too Drunk To Dream – The Magnetic Fields

I’ve been hearing about NPR’s new social networking feature for a while now, thanks to its progenitor, the talented and affable Andy Carvin.

Today, I realized I couldn’t wait any longer. Given that we know that a large portion of our readership is employed by or married to someone employed by NPR, I feel like I’m cheating Andy if I don’t jump in as early as possible.

My first impression: At least it’s better than the “New Facebook.” I know that’s harsh. New Facebook sucks. But it’s still Facebook.  It’s still a major time-drain for a lot of people.

But more to the point, Facebook put a lot of money and time into making something worse than what they started with.

NPR Community is, for the time being, an excessively simple implementation of social networking. And there’s something funky with the layout – headlines butt up to the edge of the browser window, which I’ve always hated.

But if Andy Carvin continues to work the way I know he can work, NPR Community will only expand the functionality of NPR.org in a convenient and easy-to-understand manner, and will do so with limited cost to NPR as a whole.

I’m not saying he’s a miracle worker, but… yeah, I am saying that.

Facebook gets massive money, and then starts sucking. They take a relatively unassuming – and therefore effective – exercise in translating existing communities from the real world to the Web, and transform it into a swollen behemoth every bit as bloated and annoying as MySpace.

The NPR Community, as it now stands, is little more than an account that makes posting a comment easier, and allows you to see what other users are listening to and commenting on. If you have an account on Boing Boing, you know pretty much what this is.

This is Facebook without collegiate drama, without crazy apps. This is good.

Andy Carvin works for an entity that tends to shoot itself in the online foot, but I have complete faith that the NPR Community will only improve from here.

Real social networking seems to succeed only when those in charge don’t quite get it. God forbid Twitter ever starts making money – they’ll probably boost posts to 280 charachters, thereby deleting everything they stand for.

All week, they’ve had a hilarious, heartbreaking series of their regular feature “Best Song in the World  Today” focused on the five stages of grief (those would be denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). In honor of that, and in honor of the work of our friends, I give you the BPP Stages of Grief mixtape.

Onward! First up: Denial.

1. Too Drunk To Dream – The Magnetic Fields

It was tough picking out just one Magnetic Fields track, as Stephen Merrit has written several great songs about denial and bitterness. This one was chosen for the BPP, since (judging from their tweets this week, and the on-air mention of hangovers) they’ve been doing some denial-based drinking. I would be, too.

2. Still Fighting It – Ben Folds

I listened to this song a lot my last year in college because it’s about trying to deny that you’re growing up by fighting like hell against being boring. And even though the show’s cancellation is final and all, this makes the tape for everyone who sent cereal boxes, made phone calls, and tried to find other ways for the BPP to exist. Thanks for helping us fight to keep this great show alive.

3. Stacked Crooked – The New Pornographers

It’s all in the ending – “do not, do not deny me, deny my right to feel.”

Stage two: Anger.

4. I’ll Cry – The Reigning Sound

The Reigning Sound is one of my favorite Memphis bands, and this song is perfect for the BPP. It’s loud, it’s fast, and it’s angry. Also, it’s weird how songs about relationships mirror my feelings about a radio show. There have to be at least a few more people that feel like the BPP community is being dumped.

5. Kiss Off – The Violent Femmes

Three, three, three for my heartache.

6. Jenny Lewis – Rise Up With Fists!!

This song makes me think about the NPR CEO’s response on the BPP blog. And as a person who works in new media, it makes me concerned about my organization’s future when other media outlets are cutting their edgy, internet-based content.

Stage three: Bargaining.

7. Problems – Arrah and the Ferns

If the BPP were going to be around longer, and my favorite Muncie band Arrah and the Ferns hadn’t broken up, I’d like to think that the BPP would have played them on the show.

8. Me and the Major – Belle and Sebastian

This is the song that made me want to make this tape. You’ll recognize the situation – a young up and comer has trouble getting his older counterpart to understand him.  Like this part (minus the drugs):

“He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t try

He knows there’s something missing and he knows it’s you and I

We’re the younger generation, we grew up fast

All the others did drugs

You’re taking it out on us”

9. Bottle and Hotel – Harlan T. Bobo

Come on, baby. Let’s just meet up. Have a drink. We can totally work this out.

Step four: Depression

10. Tiger High ‘85 – The Coach and Four

Ok, you’re probably wondering what a song about the University of Memphis men’s basketball team losing to Villanova in the 1985 Final Four has to do with the cancellation of a radio show.  Like the Tigers, the BPP’s great run ended too soon. Unlike the Tigers, the disappointment I’m feeling isn’t their fault.

11. Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens

A beautiful song about the hope that something will get better, and the sadness when you realize that it won’t. It also has several of the most depressing lines in recent pop music.

12. Custom Concern – Modest Mouse

Life will go on, but it’s probably going to sound a little like this for a while.

Lastly, Acceptance.

13. When Your Mind’s Made Up – The Swell Season

If this week’s broadcast were a single song, it would probably be this one.

14. Changes – David Bowie

15. Over the Cliff – Old 97’s

“Success on someone else’s terms don’t mean a fucking thing.”

To everyone at the BPP, my most sincere thanks for the great show you put on every day. You will be missed. Please stay in touch, and wherever you go, continue being the kids with the eggs.

It’s kind of funny, sometimes, how you can see something mentioned a million times before deciding to pay it any attention, even though it’s something that calls you by name.

Bryant Park Project listener Daniel O’Toole has a can of Gargoyles Spaghetti-Os that’s been sitting on his shelf for God only knows how long a great idea for contacting NPR and driving home the point that the BPP will be missed.

I find myself thinking about the Bryant Park Project staff at random times. I was rebuilding some furniture I had to dismantle so I could bring it back from Indiana, and and just sighed, wondering what Alison Stewart would tell young Issac about what was happening when he was born.

He’ll probably just wonder what it was like to have media that wasn’t primarily Internet-based.

Ooh, burn!

Seriously, I keep thinking that I’m going to still be listening to them next week (and maybe I might dig back through their music features – I saw the performance video from Headlights, and bought the record and loved it), but no matter what the community does, Friday is it for the BPP as we know and love it.

I still want to get in touch with the higher eschalons of NPR and find out if they hear the BPP community’s grief and suggestions.

Maybe we can still change things.

Maybe it’s all just magical thinking.

On his blog, Rob Paterson has at least proposed a solution.

In the new world, we work with our “audience” and with our staff. In this new world, the path to economic success is not clear. If it was we would all go there. But intuitively we all know that BPP has a lot of the new in place. What it is missing is the disconnect from the radio business model. It is not going to be picked up by a whole mass of stations – all of which are themselves reeling from the economy.

I would go public and I would ask for help from the “audience” and the staff to find a way of making this work on the web.

I would make the Bryant Park PROJECT – the community project that would unleash the collective energy of thousands of people.

I like his enthusiasm here, and he asserts that this is a solution not just for the Bryant Park Project, but for NPR – and public media – as a whole.

When he points out that every bit of public media – especially the local stations – is struggling as the nation gets used to a new economy (the web) and a new economic reality (oil-based systems are crumbling), he acknowledges that he doesn’t have the answer, but he knows who does.

By opening public media for comment and ideas, by making public media’s web reality an open-source project of sorts, not only do you get the warm fuzzies of having ‘public’ media become truly ‘public,’ but also the wisdom of crowd-sourcing working in your favor.

But perhaps the most critical question remains unanswered: how are we going to fund this?

I’ve thought for some time that direct donation to specific programs would be a brilliant idea, making more popular programs cheaper for local stations to carry.

Think of it this way: When you buy a Bob Dylan record, Columbia records still gets paid, but your money still goes to Dylan, rather than to Bruce Springsteen. When you buy a Springsteen record, the opposite happens.

But of course, the local stations couldn’t do without the direct donations they receive. So what can be done?

Reader Jaime F., in a comment on the original Forget Ferris post, had some suggestions:

Possibility one – NPR Corporate is convinced that they can’t afford to lose the BPP in terms of future funding AND a nice underwriter is found. I don’t know exactly how underwriting works, but I think it might be the only way for money to go directly to a program.

Possibility two – An NPR member station takes the BPP on in the same way that Car Talk comes from a member station and, I think, get some funding help from NPR Corporate.

Possibility three – Some other company or organization essentially re-creates the BPP under a different name, as it’s NPR’s program (unless, somehow, NPR can sell the program, and I have absolutely no idea if that’s at all possible). So either something like American Public Radio or Sirius?

I really want to hear from somebody high up in NPR about this – I want to know what kind of decisions are being made, whether they’re hearing us raise hell about this, and what of our ideas might work.

 Previous Forget Ferris (save the BPP) Project posts: Day One, Day Two.

We got name-dropped on the BPP today. Which would feel good under happier circumstances.

Some clarifications of credit are due: The lovely “Save Ferris” watertower graphic is mine, and is to be shared. We did NOT start the “SAVE BPP” Facebook group. I was just an early member.

Yesterday’s News, Updated for Today:

Please repost what follows as you see fit.

The Bryant Park Project has been canceled. This doesn’t make us happy.

Of all NPR programs, the BPP has most actively embraced online media (I hesitate to call it “New Media” anymore; it should be universal). We first found them on Twitter, and their blog is one of two news outlets in my RSS reader.

Their use of social networking and blogging and video has allowed them to create, in just a few short months, the kind of personality and relationship with their listeners that takes other programs years to develop.

If you, too, dislike their cancellation, please call the people at these phone numbers, and let them know (politely) how you feel.

• NPR media relations: 202-513-2300
• NPR listener service: 202-513-3232

Laura Conaway, the BPP online editor, posted the following on the BPP blog:

A lot of you have asked where you can write to register your unhappiness with NPR’s decision. Here’s the answer: Go to npr.org/contact/. Click on the “I want to contact a program” option and pick Bryant Park in the drop-down menu. I’ve been assured that NPR has set up a special folder for these so they’ll be separated quickly from the rest of the audience e-mail and directed to the right person. Don’t send it to “contact an NPR office/management,” since it will go into the general pool of incoming mail and will take longer to be forwarded.

You can also write to our Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. She can be reached here.

There is now also a “Save BPP” Facebook Group.

 Blog Reactions:

• Carlo Scannella posted an open letter to NPR Executives.
• John Proffitt is not surprised.
• WBUR and The ConverStation offer some likely explanations (and think we’re incandescent with rage).
• Our friend Zach thinks we’re crazy.
• Another friend, Lindsey, wants to help us help, and has kind words for Laura Conaway.
• Eliz. S. swears the BPP hasn’t taken over her blog. (It has.)
• Beau Yarbrough wonders why NPR didn’t even try to have the BPP raise its own money.
• The ArtsJournal merely aggregated the New York Times story. The link whores.
• The Wikipedia page was updated in a manner best described as “depressingly prompt.”
• The Huffington Post is still processing my account status, so I can’t comment.
• Sky Bluesky knows the show was/is big-time great.
• We never learned what all the damn drilling in the BPP studio was about.

That, thus far, is our call to arms. This post will be updated continually until otherwise noted.

Thanks, and keep ideas and links coming in the comments!