Steve Carell stars in HBO’s Rooster. Is it worth watching?

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Have you heard about HBO’s television show The Rooster? On this episode, Anne and I discuss episode 1 of the show that stars Steve Carell as the writer Greg Russo. He’s a bumbling, gold-hearted author who says he writes the kind of novels people like to read at the beach. The show follows Greg as he heads to an elite East Coast college under the guise of a doing a reading. In reality, he’s there to check on his daughter Katie, whose life has spiraled after her husband Archie (played by Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster) cheated on her with a graduate student.

The episode, titled “Release the Brown Fat,” introduces us to a quirky cast of characters at Ludlow College, from John C. McGinley’s eccentric, sauna-obsessed President Walter Mann to Danielle Deadwyler’s aggressively forward and hilarious poet, Dylan Shepard.

We compared the show to another Bill Lawrence project, Ted Lasso, noting the show’s massive heart and 80s and 90s infused soundtrack. While it shares that signature Lasso warmth and a focus on the wages of divorce, Rooster carves out its own identity through Carell’s portrayal of social discomfort and use of his “shot in the face” metaphor for heartbreak. We cover the “Hot House Rules” of the sauna and that shocking ending involving a first-edition Tolstoy and a house fire.

Is this show worth a watch? (Spoiler: at least for Bill Torg, it definitely is!)

Thanks for checking out the episode!

NCAA Basketball Final Four Podcast

NCAA Basketball Final Four Podcast

In this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast, my sister Anne and I discuss the men’s and women’s basketball Final Fours. It was a Big Ten takeover as both Michigan and UCLA won national titles, though the headlines were just as much about some of the coaches as they were about the games. We dive into the physical battle between South Carolina and UConn, Geno Auriemma’s controversial exchange with Dawn Staley, and how Michigan’s was able to secure their first championship since 1989.

Beyond the box scores, we discuss the mass exodus at Tennessee on the women’s side to Mike Malone’s move from the NBA to the ESPN studio to UNC. I also share a few stories from my own trip to the 1997 Final Four in Indy and reveal my updated list of coaches I admire.

Thanks for checking out the episode!

NCAA Basketball Tournament: From the Sweet Sixteen to Final Four

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and will talk about the second weekend of both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments. But first Anne, I received some good news!

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Promotional image for the film 'The Valle Crucis Community Park' by Bill Torgerson, featuring a scenic view of a park with a river and trees, along with an award badge for the Indie Vegas Film Festival 2026.

My (very) short film titled The Valle Crucis Park was accepted to the Indie Vegas Film Festival.

Bad news: we have a septic tank situation. I diagnosed with a neon green dye I poured in the toilet.

Thanks for checking out this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!

Men’s and Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament First Round Reactions

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and I look back on the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament first rounds and look ahead to the second. Anne, by my count there were 96 NCAA tournament games televised in the last five days. That’s a lot of basketball! 

Where does the NCAA tournament rank in your overall rankings of sporting events you most like to watch? For me…

  1. NCAA Tournaments (should we separate the weekends?) 
  2. Super Bowl 
  3. Masters
  4. NBA Finals 
  5. College Football Championship

What if I separated out the weekends? 

  1. Final Four Weekend because the women’s match ups are so much better. 
  2. First round of NCAA tournament. 
  3. NFL conference championship weekend. 
  4. Super Bowl – for everything that surrounds it
  5. Masters Final Round 

Let’s say you love college basketball and you are going to be a freshman next fall. Where do you want to go to school? 

  1. Duke – one of most iconic venues, playing ACC teams. Concern is walking distance good stuff to do from campus; do I need to go out after the big win? 
  2. Indiana. Passionate support, really good college town, great conference 
  3. Texas for great town, heavily invested in programs, competitive teams
  4. Carolina for good teams, great college town, and the conference  
  5. Kansas for iconic venue, competitive teams 
  6. Tennessee for good conference, sports town 
  7. UCLA – main concern crowd passion and lost in LA 
  8. UConn – the coaches would be entertaining, very good teams, weak competition, not sure I’ve seen the best of Storrs  
  9. Kentucky – really good college town, passionate fanbase, feels like same choice Indiana is 
  • Honorable Mention: I might really go to VA Tech so I could cheer for Kate starting next year. I am a Lees McRae women’s basketball fan! 
  • Wonder about LSU, I’ve never been there. Sorry Purdue. Why didn’t I pick you? 
  • Who did we miss? 

Thanks for checking out this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!

A Marital Affair Story: Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog”

On this episode we’re discussing Anton Chekhov’s marital affair themed short story, “The Lady with the Little Dog.” We’ve got the NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments coming up and we invite you to join the Torg Stories Bracket Challenge. We’re doing that through the ESPN website, and I’ve got links on the post for this podcast at TheTorg.com. 

Anne, we have snow on the ground here in Boone. I heard you were in the 90’s today in Los Angeles. 

NCAA Bracket Challenges: Just for fun, we’d love to have you join our groups. If you are a leader in the pool, we will mention you on the podcast as we update each week through the end of the tournaments!

Anne, a lot of this story is about an affair. I asked you if you could think of any other affair stories whether that was in books, in the movies, or on television. Did you think of any? 

A few things about Anton Chekhov: 

  1. Chekhov was a physician. He said, Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.” 
  2. A quote I have hung on to since graduate school around the year 2002: The role of an artist is to ask questions, not to answer them. 
  3. Tolstoy called Chekhov an impressionist, inventing a new kind of story, a slice of life kind of story. -from the Introduction to the book we read this story from: Anton Chekhov Stories. 
  4. Chekhov’s gun rule for telling stories: “Chekhov’s gun is a narrative principle in which every element introduced in a story should have a purpose that contributes to the plot, character development, or tone of the piece. The idea is that writers should not mislead the audience by including unnecessary details that are not a part of the story’s climax or conclusion.” from Backstage click here

What else was being written around the time this story was published? 

  • Paving the way for modernism, which explored disillusionment, fragmentation, alienation, and the chaotic inner workings of the human consciousness through innovative techniques.
  • 1898 War of the Worlds
  • 1899 Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”

Anne, I asked you to learn a little about this time period in Russia and anything if you could about these translators. 

Let’s talk our way through the story. 

Additional discussion questions besides what I wrote on the text: 

  1. Whose perspective is this story written from? 
  2. What seems of the 1900 time period and what seems like it fits in fine today? 
  3. Why is “little dog” the title? 
  4. What do we think happens after the end of the story? 
  5. The private vs the public life. Social media? s

Click here for an article by Chris Power titled “How Chekhov Invented the Modern Short Story.” 

Thanks for checking out this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!