Touring History 6-11-25

TOURING HISTORY PODCAST SCRIPT

June 11th, 2025 - Episode 48

 

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DAVE: Welcome back to Touring History, where we prove that literally every single day in the past was somehow both completely predictable and absolutely insane. I'm Dave.

LANE: And I'm Lane, and before we dive into today's collection of "how did humans survive this long," we need to talk about something that actually makes sense in this world—BAVA Brothers sopressata from bavabrothers.com.

DAVE: You know, Lane and I have been doing this show long enough to realize that throughout all of human history, during wars, plagues, political upheavals, and celebrity scandals, people have consistently done two things: made terrible decisions and made excellent cured meats.

LANE: The BAVA Brothers represent the second category. Their sopressata is made using traditional Italian methods that have been perfected over generations—the kind of craftsmanship that survives empires, outlasts governments, and makes you remember why humans invented civilization in the first place.

DAVE: Which is perfect, because today we're talking about June 11th, a date that includes everything from royal weddings to prison escapes to one of the most famous movies ever made. So grab your favorite Italian cured meat—preferably from bavabrothers.com—and let's see what humanity was up to on this particular day.

 

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BIRTHDAYS: A VERY SPECIFIC TYPE OF EXCELLENCE

LANE: Let's start with birthdays, because June 11th apparently decided to specialize in people who are really, really good at pretending to be other people.

DAVE: Hugh Laurie, born 1959. Most people know him as Dr. House, the brilliant, misanthropic doctor who solved medical mysteries while consuming dangerous amounts of Vicodin.

LANE: But here's what gets me about Hugh Laurie—he's British. Like, really British. He was in Cambridge Footlights, he did comedy with Stephen Fry, he's basically the embodiment of British wit. And then he comes to America and convinces everyone he's a grumpy American doctor.

DAVE: It's like if Gordon Ramsay moved to Italy and everyone believed he was authentically Italian. Except Hugh Laurie did it so well that most Americans had no idea he wasn't actually American until they heard him speak in interviews.

LANE: And then there's Peter Dinklage, born 1969, who took the acting world by storm in Game of Thrones and basically redefined what it means to be a leading man on television.

DAVE: Dinklage is interesting because he refused to take the typical roles that Hollywood offered actors with dwarfism. He was like, "No, I'm not going to be your comic relief or your magical creature. I'm going to be a complex, intelligent character who happens to be the smartest person in the room."

LANE: Tyrion Lannister was basically the moral center of Game of Thrones, which is saying something, because that show's moral center was... complicated.

DAVE: And speaking of complicated, we've got Shia LaBeouf, born 1986, who went from Disney Channel to Transformers to... performance art pieces where he watches his own movies?

LANE: Shia LaBeouf is what happens when child stardom meets existential crisis meets art school. He's like if someone took a normal Hollywood career and put it in a blender with a philosophy degree.

DAVE: But you know what? I respect the journey. He could have just done Transformers movies forever and bought a mansion in Malibu. Instead, he's out there doing weird performance art and making people question what celebrity even means.

LANE: And then we've got Joe Montana, born 1956, who is basically the reason why "clutch" became a thing in spor