SECRET BASE BULLETIN BOARD /// AUGUST 2024 (Patreon)

Look, folks, I know we're all excited about the Olympics happening right now, but if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: please do NOT use spent florescent light tubes to work on your "fencing skills" in the game room. I'm sorry to sound like a broken record here but florescent light tube fencing is what the loading dock is for. In fact, it's the only thing the loading dock is for, ever since we had our shipping and intake access revoked because Phil kept receiving bulk orders of live ferrets.

But that's okay, because the only thing we're shipping out these days is CONTENT, baby! And it's all happening on the World Wide Web:

WHAT'S COMING UP AT TOP SECRET BASE

First up, Jon delivers the first of a two-part Pretty Good series just on Kadarius Toney. It's called "The Kadarius Toney Fan Club." Why Kadarius Toney? Good question! Fortunately, Jon made a two-part series answering that exact question. Part 1 drops this Monday, and Part 2 drops next month on Labor Day - and the only way you can see 'em (for now) is to subscribe to our Patreon as either a Content Enjoyer or a Top Secret Agent if you haven't already. And we recommend you do!

Here's what else we've got coming up exclusively for subscribers of those tiers:

• A special bonus extension of Kofie's upcoming Backyard Sports-centric episode of MVP, featuring an interview with the creators of the game

• Episode 4 of our podcast The Annex: 'ORLANDO'

• A sneak peek at a pilot episode for a brand new series we are currently developing right now

Again, you only get these if you're a part of the Content Enjoyer or Top Secret Agent tiers. If you're not, here's what you missed out on last month:

WHAT'S NEW ON PATREON (JULY RELEASES)

• Pretty Good, Episode 15: That's Not Entirely Accurate

• A bonus companion video to Seth's '94 Nuggets-Sonics Rewinder featuring Seth, Will and Ryan in studio talking about what a weird and interesting guy Bison Dele was.

• Episode 3 of The Annex: 'SIX'

• Early access to Joe's 4-and-26 Rewinder about how a shootout duel between Brett Favre and Donavan McNabb came down to a crazy overtime field goal

• Volume 3 of our video mailbag

In addition to all this great Patron-only stuff, we've still got you covered over on our YouTube Channel:

WHAT'S NEW ON YOUTUBE (JULY RELEASES)

• Joey Chestnut's last-second hot dog showdown with Takeru Kobayashi needs a deep rewind (2007 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Rewinder)

• Jimmy Butler beefed himself off the Timberwolves with one scrimmage and one interview (Jimmy Butler Vs. Timberwolves Beef History)

• Did a sixth finger make this pitcher better? (A bonus video segment from The Annex podcast)

• If you can’t beat LeBron James, beef with him (LeBron Vs. Everyone Beef History marathon)

• Mike Piazza's beef with Roger Clemens was so much more than the broken bat fiasco (Mike Piazza Vs. Roger Clemens Beef History)

• One of baseball's biggest fails deserves a deep rewind (Subway Series 2009 Rewinder)

• Carmelo Anthony: savior, loser ... Pure Scorer (Prism)

Wow, that's so much amazing stuff, available to you right this second on YouTube. If there was an Olympic category for Sports Video Content, I'd like to think we'd at least qualify before our inevitable doping scandal (we're old and collectively take too many supplements).

Speaking of made-up Olympic games...

We'd really love to do more Olympic content at Secret Base, but unfortunately the International Olympic Committee is insanely litigious about footage usage on the internet - easily way more than any other league that we cover. With those sports, we're pretty good about using footage in our work by adhering to strict fair use policies - as long as we're directly addressing or describing what's actually happening in the clip you're seeing, we're usually gucci.

Either way, we end up supplementing our work with a bunch of other helpful visuals, like homemade graphics, archival assets and newspaper clippings, and most importantly, incredible photography from services like Getty Images. And since a picture is worth something like a few hundred words, we're practically writing whole essays with our videos. In fact, still photos are sometimes even more useful to us than video footage.

For instance, if I were doing a video on Olympic surfing, I would probably forego trying to work in a clip of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina celebrating after the men's 3rd round of surfing on Monday, and instead just hang on this incredible picture for a good long while, which is easily my favorite image of the games so far:

 (Jerome Brouillet/AFP via Getty Images)

I would have a field day with this photo. It is impossibly cool. And huge respect to the photographer, who managed to capture not just a great celebration (hitting an awesome pose while falling off surfboard) but the exact perfect moment in that free fall to make Medina look like he's not falling but is in fact an otherworldly being whose mission of looking badass in the early round of an earthling surfing competition is now complete and must now return to his home planet.

But there's more! Here's one from yesterday of Andy Murray and Dan Evans after winning match point in the second round of men's doubles against Belgium:

 (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

I think what I love about this photo (and the prior one as well) is not that they're in mid-air - gymnasts do that flippy stuff all the time - but that it doesn't seem like they're in motion at all. They're just kind of... levitating. And that got me thinking of the next evolution of the Olympic games, the perfect and inevitable melding of cutting-edge athletics and technology:

Anti-Gravity Olympics

Sure, there are a few sports for which the implications of no longer being tethered by the earth's pull are immediately obvious, gymnastics, weightlifting and basketball being among them. But think about the imagery we'd get from Anti-Gravity BMX, Anti-Gravity Judo or Anti-Gravity Equestrian!

Ew, actually, I am kind of working out the logistics of that last one in my head and I think it might be better to keep those horses on the ground after all.

Anyway, that's all for this month! Enjoy the Games, and when you get a chance, please pick up all this broken glass. Thanks!