Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap Premiers at Ignite Denver (video)

On Wednesday 24 October 2012 at Denver’s Oriental Theatre I joined 14 other speakers at Ignite Denver 12 in presenting 5 minute talks called “sparks.” These highly structured presentations require 20 slides (of one’s own making) that auto advance every 15 seconds (you can’t control them yourself; no running one slide for 23 seconds and a following slide for 7). Preparing for these are very challenging under any circumstance (such as a single presentation thread), so what did I choose to do? Include two major new works within an end-of-life primer:
• Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap, a 2 minute rap about end-of-life craziness
• an early version of Windrum’s Matrix of Dying Terms (it wound up being v2; a fuller albeit truncated explanation of v3, the theoretically final version, is here).

Even though I flubbed my own rap lyrics several times—I had to run the rap a bit up-tempo to time it to 8 slides—on the whole I think it plays well enough. Plus, people attend Ignites for several reasons: to feel the spark of new ideas, and to ride the anticipatory edge of wondering if a presenter will crash and burn; to experience how speakers function in this brief, pressure-cooker presentation format. So here it is…all in all, about the shortest, tightest presentation of complex end-of-life matters possible. And…rap lyrics below.

(Inside joke note: my reference at 4:15 to end-of-life-landings GPS coordinates and a final geocache location that elicited some unanticipated laughter riffed off of an earlier presentation that night on Geocaching.)

For more Bart Windrum videos click here.

Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

Want to die at peace got to die in peace
All of one piece say “pretty please”
Want to go in grace with a neutral face
We’re done this race—no gotta stay in place

Beyond ready to depart
Jump jack your bones and shock your heart
When you’re pickin pickin at the air
No bro ma’am you ain’t goin nowhere

There is an app for that
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

Independent thinker, no one’s rube
Shove in 1 2 3 4 5 tubes
With CDiff MRSA gurgle gurgle
And all I wanna do is cuddle and snuggle

There’s no app for that
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

And: in the annals of stupidity
death panels twist our talkin free
Can’t touch the sky, can’t see or be seen
Ain’t livin ain’t dyin don’t mean to be mean
When death comes knockin my clock tic tockin
Hey everybody: deus ex machina

Rap about that
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

Now it ain’t just medicine in our way
If you don’t talk, you don’t get no say
Call 911 when it’s time to pass
blockin our own path pain in our own ass

Take a number for that
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

Steve Price RN says dyin is dyin
his songs are cool; he ain’t lyin
Chart your glidepath while there’s time
to die at peace with minimal cryin
Study up, make some sense
of 21st century impediments
Time to grow up before we get old
There’s more to dyin than we’ve been told
Wishing won’t help us turn the page
So sixteen new terms to engage

I have a matrix for that
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap
Windrum’s Never Say Die Rap

© 2012 Bart Windrum, Axiom Action LLC, and Bartholomewsic
Danger Zone loop by DJ Buzzword. Additional loop processing and orchestration by Bartholemewsic.
Hear also Awake, Steve Price, RN