On October 1, the Disney sports movie masterpiece Cool Runnings turned 20-years old with very little celebration, other than a brilliant, thought-provoking piece written by one of the most handsome men to have ever lived. It’s never too late to wish a beloved movie a happy birthday, though, and Cool Runnings is about to be the subject of a lot of new headlines, at the very least, thanks to a Reddit campaign that raised about $30,000 to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“An Olympic fundraiser? Big deal,” I’m sure someone just said out loud to his monitor, followed by some incoherent ranting about how Stephen Colbert already did it and it was so much better. But the unique aspect of this fundraiser is that these enterprising Redditors raised all of the funds through Dogecoin, which is like Bitcoin, except that it features everyone’s favorite Internet meme. If anything, it was an act that serves the best interests of both the Jamaican athletes and those who would like to purchase things such wow.
– the Dogecoin Foundation is launching an initiative to get the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi winter Olympics.
This is a great opportunity to promote dogecoin on the world stage. We also need your help to bring the team’s awareness to the fund by getting in contact with them via facebook, twitter, email, or anything else you might try.
We have transferred to 35 BTC (approx. $30,000 USD) that will be passed on to the Jamaican bobsled team. The way in which transactions are taken out of dogecoin wallets means that it will appear coins have come out of other foundation wallets. We will rectify this in the next 24 hours to make each wallet reflect their true amounts.
As a symbol of how old I am, despite my incredible good looks, I have no f*cking clue what any of the technical stuff about crypto-currency means. I’m terrified of using PayPal, let alone investing in Bitcoin and beyond. But what I do know is a great story, and this year’s Jamaican bobsled team, led by 46-year old Winston Watts, is trying to pull off a real life sequel.
Watts was part of what he calls “Cool Runnings, the Second Generation”, an infantryman from the island’s rural heartland in Clarendon who loved football and could chuck a mean discus but was wooed into joining the military’s quickly celebrated bobsleigh programme only initially to figure he must be insane when he encountered life in the fast chute. “And I was no Usain. I couldn’t sprint to save myself,” he said.
So after losing his job as a wireline operator in the Wyoming oilfields and by now with a new girlfriend and baby, Winston Junior, to think of, he took a risk two years ago which he could not really afford. That is, to go sledding full-time and rekindle the dream of a fourth Games.
For two years, in the sort of sequel Disney might again fancy, it has proved a romantic if chaotic Stateside road trip adventure littered with crashes, funding setbacks, entrepreneurial enterprise and masses of begging and borrowing just to keep their green, yellow and black Honda Accord, styled like some giant road sled, on the road.
“I just about get by financially. Beg, scrape, it’s hard. I’ve got headaches a lot of times man, believe you me,” he sighs. “Sometimes my coach [Tom Samuel, an old Canadian rival who used to outdrive him] says ‘just focus’ and I say ‘how?’ I just trust things will turn over OK. I put God in front of me and just leave everything to him like a father.” (Via the Telegraph, and read the rest of Watts’s story, because it’s great)
Hey Disney movie executives, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), I will write the Cool Runnings 2 screenplay for free. Just make sure you get Idris Elba to sign on with Nick Nolte playing the grizzled old Canadian coach. And because I know it will come down to it, you can cast Kevin Hart, too. Just no Nick Cannon. Please, for all of our sake.
