Category: Torg Life

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and I share the principles that guide us as we make playlists for our respective runs and walks. We also hope to try and bring to life for y’all where it is that we run and walk. Anne, what walk did you choose for this assignment? 

Valle Crucis Community Park 45 Minute Run:  

1. The park is 7.8 miles west of Boone, North Carolina where App State University is. This is the mountains of North Carolina. 
2. The park is on the Watauga River. There are often people playing in the river and there are lots of people fishing for trout. 
3. There are at least two streams feeding into the Watauga River that also run through the park. 
4. It’s a rare flat valley surrounded by mountains. 
5. The trail I run four times is over a mile long.
6. Also discuss: the trail, who is there, it costs $5 sometimes, paved and grass, playgrounds, basketball
7. Nearby: The Mast Farm Inn, Valle Tavern, Mast Store Annex, Original Mast Store (building constructed in 1882), Pearl’s Kitchen, Valle Crucis Farm, Taylor House Inn. 
8. The park is 1.8 miles from my house. 

Torg’s 45 Minute Run Playlist 

What are some guiding principles of putting together this playlist? 

1. I signed up for my first race in a long time on June 14th. I’m running the 4-mile version. There’s a 10 and 14 mile version too. It starts at The Rock, which is App State’s Football Stadium. 
2. The move from podcasts where I might forget what I’m doing to music. I wanted music because I was trying to tap into the routine that would get my body read to run. 
3. I’ve even added drive over to the park music: Weird Fishes by Radiohead and Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve. I pick these for the pace of the beat that I think could be my feet hitting the ground in rhythm. So for these, I’m getting ready to run. My body hears these songs and thinks, we’re going running. 
4. “Theme from Hoosiers” by Jerry Goldsmith. I have a walk from the car to the starting line. I like having the start and finish line the same to help me remember lap times and see how I am doing. 
5. More instrumentals to get started: 

• “Gonna Fly Now,” the Rocky theme song by Bill Conti, “Training Montage” also from Rocky by Bill Conti. Imagine the Russion running indoors in Rocky IV while Rocky is out chopping wood in the Russian winter. 

6. My list is always evolving according to my pace and how the songs are hitting. I just moved “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine out. 
7. Just keep it going songs: Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People, It’s a Sin by Pet Shop Boys, Safe and Sound by Capital Cities, and “I Ran (So Far Away)” by A Flock of Seagulls. 
8. Now we’re going to get more serious and try and turn it on. I bumped up Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” to kick off this section because it starts slow. If it was later in this section, there’s kind of a lull that breaks the flow. I also have Eminem’s “Till I Collapse” in here and it starts a little slow too and that’s a bit of a problem and I don’t feel like I want those two songs next to each other. 
9. Cake’s “The Distance” works great in this section. 
10. I like to finish, and my favorite song to run to, is the Beastie Boys “Sabotage.” I also like this song better on a run than at any other moment in my life. 
11. If I happen to still be running after “Sabotage,” I have ACDC “Thunderstruck,” and Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train” ready to go.

Bill’s Mountain Run Playlist

Anne’s Los Angeles Walk Playlist

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

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and I are going to talk about the new Noah Kahan album. It’s titled The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs. 

Noah Kahan’s album The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs was released during April of 2026.

Be sure to check out my favorite musical storytellers of all time at the bottom of the page.

Torg Family Updates: 

Mom: 

• tries to call Dad on her phone, asks when she’s going home. She forgets anything I tell her, and I’d have to tell her again. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. 

Septic: 

• it was the seal of the toilet flapper. $5 repair and the yard is showing improvement already! However, about $350 to try and repair the yard with dirt and sod. 

The prom: 

• Our living room turned into Boone’s hottest restaurant serving 20 people Sat night. 

Noah Kahan’s album The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs

A few details about Noah Kahan: 

1. 29 years old born in Strafford, Vermont. 
2. Strafford is half the size of Winamac, population around 1000
3. I watched his documentary on Netflix. It’s called Noah Kahan: Out of Body.  Click here to watch trailer. Quote from his mom: Noah makes our family’s dirty laundry just seem like being human. 
4. His dad won Ironman contests when Noah was a kid and suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bike crash. His parents got divorced. 
5. Two brothers and a sister who seem to figure largely into his songs. 
6. Kahan family professions: 

• Mom has written how parenting guides and taught English
• Dad worked in IT and played the guitar 
• Brother Richard is a firefighter. Documentary said the attention-deficit kids in their gym clothes is Richard. 
• Sasha is a pediatric surgeon in Park City 
• Simon works for a global consulting company based in New York 

7. Wife Brenna: engaged 2023, married 2025. Known each other at least since 2014. 
8. For April, 2026 article in Burlington Free Press, click here. 
9. This is his fourth album and it’s coming after Stick Season. There’s 21 songs on this one, an hour and 36 mins long. 

Favorite or Most Interesting Songs on Noah Kahan’s album The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs

“The Great Divide” and click here for lyrics. 

Why this one? 

• Driving beat about the trauma of a friend who went through something back then. 
• Powerful images like fellow morons’ matching cigarette burns 

The title comes from “You inched yourself across the great divide.” 

Opening lyrics: 

I can’t recall the last time that we talked

About anything but looking out for cops

We got cigarette burns in the same side of our hands

We ain’t friends, we’re just morons

Who broke skin in the same spot

Who is the narrator thinking about all of the time? A friend, a romantic partner 

Important lyrics: 

I hope you’re scared of only ordinary shit

Like murderers and ghosts and cancer on your skin

And not your soul and what He might do with it

This capital He…

Whatever happened was bad enough that it would be nice to just worry about run of the mill murderers and skin cancer. 

“Haircut” and click here for lyrics.  

Opening lyrics: 

Storm took the phone lines down and now your ride can’t call

And you’re bouncing off the walls

I stretched my arms real wide, tried to break your fall

But you got up, mad as hell, and told me that I had it all

A lyric that suggests saying Kahan is the narrator might not be a stretch: Just to say that some small fame ain’t made me someone else

Haircut seems to be a metaphor for more: I’m happy for your haircut, I’m glad you got your act clеan

I think there are two singers in this song. The narrator and someone who plays bass and says the songwriter read their mind. 

It’s a lonely and defeated song. Last line: We were fine without you, baby.  

“American Cars” click here for lyrics 

Interesting bit from Genius.com: 

• “American Cars” is the third song from Noah Kahan’s fourth studio album, The Great Divide, and debuted on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert on April 21, 2026.”

Opening lines: 

I was workin’ on a plan to disappear completely

Gaslightin’ my friends into thinkin’ I was busy

‘Cause if drinkin’ was a day job, I’d be askin’ for more money

Hell, I never take a day off, and I’m always sellin’ somethin’

One of my favorite sounding songs. It sounds optimistic. Good driving song. 

I like the narrator’s plan to disappear. 

“Gaslightin’ my friends” as psychological manipulation trying to make someone else doubt their perceptions. 

The rhyme of…American cars and you are 

• Didn’t know you drove American cars
• Ray-Bans on your face
• You’ve been driving all day
• But you’re here and we’re grateful you are

My observation that Harry Styles sings American Girls and Noah Kahan sings American cars. 

Feels like friends or siblings who need bailed out pulled through struggles. 

“Willing and Able” lyrics click here 

The chorus: 

I’m willing and able

If you wanna kick this rock around

If you’ve got a bone to pick with me

If you’ve got a flag, plant it in the ground

Oh, I’ll stay here ’til morning

Oh, we can fight like we used to fight

Bony-limbed, red-faced, and teary-eyed

Under the glow of the TV light

I’d be willing and able

So it’s “willing and able” to fight, pick a bone, stay up all night. 

It’s a somber song about fighting. Does the fighting seem healthy? Or like there’s a special bond in it?

What do you make of this lyric?

• And I’ll see you again in six months, when you need your next song.  

“Deny, Deny, Deny” click here for lyrics 

A more upbeat guitar rock and roll sounding song. 

The music launches when we get to this line, and the way this works is one of my favorite things about Kahan’s music: 

• I’ll get your house paid off so the feds can’t touch it

The title comes from, When I ask about the past, you deny, deny, deny. 

Doors click here for lyrics

There’s a thumping energetic beat to open and a line, “I’d hurt anyone who got too close and anyone who wouldn’t look. 

Significant lyric: 

I was born into a one-hundred-year storm

Foot of ice across Vermont

And in that dark, and in that frost, a heart was formed

Malcontented and unwarm

You were unsuspectin’, not unwarned

We get a metaphor of opening up doors here. 

Seems like a challenge or even an instruction from Noah to someone else: you don’t want to get involved with me. You have been warned. I am a losing streak waiting to happen. 

• I’m left staring at the ceiling listing reasons you should pack all your shit up. 

What do I make of it all? 

1. Kahan touts the mental health issues. I see that in characters who take or don’t take their medication. I see it in lots of songs about drinking too much. People in the songs have wounds. 

• Exhausted, guilty consciences 
• An unwillingness of some of the characters to open up, talk about the past
• The lyric, “I scream in my sleep.” 

2. Feels like a lot of people feel what Kahan describes in the songs and his music is a balm for their suffering. I like this album as much as anything I have heard for the first time but I like studying it and I like to have it on working in the yard. 
3. I heard Taylor Swift talk about this once: a song is just what I felt in that moment, and the song preserves that feeling. (Noah doesn’t have to feel this way all the time to put it in a song, and it’s something I think through and don’t put into the work because I’ve thought it through, and I think that can be a mistake). 
4. Kahan’s use of the word “you” and all the people that might address. 
5. Using you: Great Divide, Haircut, Willing and Able
6. He has this really emotionally tangled relationships with friends and family that I feel like I never had. 

The rest of the songs: 

1. End of August, the second part of the title comes from this one: Endin’ of August, the bugs are just starting to die. 

• It’s a matter of time until everything dies

2. Downfall: I hope it all goes terrible for you so you come back home. 
3. Lighthouse
4. Paid Time Off: feels like the good choice of the simple life in Sheffield working for paid time off, getting high, playing a round of golf on your day off
5. Staying Still: think I’m going to like this one when I spend more time with it. I can’t keep starting over… Are you good at staying still? 
6. Dashboard: it’s about running away from your problems (driving and the dashboard) only to find all the same problems, the person is still an asshole 

• Kind of a funny song that tells someone they are an asshole. 

7. 23: it’s about if he leaves someone at 23 then they will always be this good thing. If you leave someone then they can stay this perfect vision. 
8. Porch Light: title comes from he tells whoever the song addresses he’ll leave the porch light on. Lyric: I choke on the Poison spreading to my lungs. 
9. Headed North: wishing someone he knows was headed North, funny line about someone with a coexist sticker telling another to go to hell 
10. We Go Way Back 
11. Spoiled – so his children get spoiled 
12. All them Horses 
13. A Few of Your Own – I was high when I met you…
14. Orbiter – 
15. Dan – let’s talk about him. Where do we go when we die? He wouldn’t mind that spot where he’s camping. 

Favorite Musical Storytellers

1. Jim Croce: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Time in a Bottle, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, Roller Derby Queen, Operator, Workin at the Car Wash Blues 
2. Everclear: Santa Monica, I Will Buy You a New Life, Everything to Everyone, Heroin Girl 
3. Liz Phair: Divorce Song, Polyester Bride  
4. Ben Folds: Brick, the couple’s trip to an abortion clinic, Annie Waits
5. Billy Joel: Piano Man, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Captain Jack, The Entertainer 
6. Paul Simon: Address about 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, America, Kodachrome 

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

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!

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and I try to bring to life for you some places we know well.

Bill’s Places He Knows Well 

1. Riverbank behind the house on Plymouth Road in Winamac, Indiana 

• Orient Geographically: Winamac is 100 miles southeast of Chicago and 90 miles straight north of Indianapolis. 
• Give an image: the river bank was steep with concrete steps and broken stone spread around on the bank. We had a silver jon boat. 
• Story from or connection to the place: Brent Herman shot Tank in the calf with a BB gun. We fished for sunfish with a cane pole. 

2. Campus of St. John’s University in Queens, NY 

• Orient Geographically: Queens is across the East River from Manhattan, sits on top of Brooklyn and share the island with Long Island. St. John’s is 5 miles down the Grand Central Parkway from Flushing Meadow. 
• Give an image: St. Augustine Hall sits at the end of a great lawn, is made from gray limestone, and evokes a cathedral feeling that matches the university Catholic’s mission. Built from Indiana Limestone also known as Bedford Limestone.  
• Story from or connection to the place: I didn’t realize how much I would miss walking across a college campus. I remember walking across the lawn headed for Asheville. 

3. Ledges Whitewater Park on the French Broad River in Asheville, NC

• Orient Geographically: The park is north of Asheville, North Carolina that is in the mountains of Western Carolina. Asheville is a 5 hour drive from Myrtle Beach. 
• Give an image: whitewater rushes over boulders with mountains rising up on both sides. 
• Story from or connection to the place: our family rafted the length of the river and Anne did a section of it with us. 

4. Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina 

• Orient Geographically: It’s 83 miles to the northeast running along the ridge line and the Blue Ridge Parkway. 
• Give an image: Lots of red brick buildings, surrounded by mountains, and adjacent to King Street. 
• Story from or connection to the place: It’s year 8 at App State! I visited twice: once fifteen years ago with Tank and Herb. Probably 5 years after that with Klop and always thought it would be an ideal place to live. 

5. Valle Crucis Community Park in Valle Crucis, NC 

• Orient Geographically: it’s 7 miles west of App State and sits on the Watauga River. It’s a little over a mile loop of unique flat land in the middle of the mountains. It’s Latin for Valley of the Cross. 
• Give an image: It’s a valley in the mountains with long green grasses. The river is full of large boulders. A stream lines the side of the park near the Mast Store and the old Valle Crucis Store. 
• Story from or connection to the place: There’s a big loop that’s about 1.2 miles. During the hurricane, I think the water probably reached 10 feet. There’s marks on the trees of the high water level. 

Anne’s Places She Knows Well 

1. Place 1: Point Dume Malibu

• Orient Geographically: Malibu, north of main part of town, just south of Zuma Beach
• Give an image: point that juts a bit out from line of shore, cliff top above beach 
• Story from or connection to the place: laid back beach, drive is fun 

2. Place 2: Griffith Observatory

• Orient Geographically: Griffith Observatory view and hike in Los Feliz
• Give an image: high above LA in SM mtns
• Story from or connection to the place: first neighborhood, city at your feet and huge part up high blocks from apt 

3. Place 3: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland 

• Orient Geographically: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland 
• Give an image: spectacular valley surrounded by mtns/waterfalls
• Story from or connection to the place: hike with cows and bells etc

4. Place 4: Yosemite

• Orient Geographically: Yosemite 
• Give an image: best NP I’ve been too, lush and spectacular
• Story from or connection to the place: steps never ending, crowded start and then became very solo

5. Place 5: Melrose 

• Orient Geographically: a street in LA a block away from my apt
• Give an image: weekend days are crowded with street vendors in front of vintage clothing stores, restaurants, designer stores, sneaker stores, coffee shops
• Story from or connection to the place: walk west and watch as gets more high end

Honorable Mention: 

• Zermatt, Switzerland, Signs, Matterhorn 
• Heavenly Ski Resort, Lake Tahoe view
• Aspen Buttermilk powder
• Lake Como town on hike

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. Today, Anne and I are talking about 5 things we know a lot about. Anne, when I pitched you this idea, you sounded like you weren’t sure there were 5 things you know a lot about. How did it go? 

In my courses at App State, we do an activity we call “Creating Our Writing Territories.” This “Things I Know A lot About,” is one of the prompts I use to help students get ideas about what they want to read and write about. 

The prompt has worked better after I shifted it to Things I Know Something About.

Bill’s Things:

1. Building Community

• I chose this more as a reflection. How does it work? On my teams? In my classes at App State? 
• Sounds silly: finding ways we can talk to each other. 
• Using Donald Murray’s concept of the daybook. 
• The really specific and personal note to each student. 
• With the team, it’s more difficult. Within the high school context, time is much tighter. I think I get buy with a really positive attitude, smiles, fun and competitive practices. 

2. Final Cut Pro X Editing 

• LOL, that might actually out me as not being much of a video editor. I took 4 free courses at the Apple Store in SOHO. 
• The workflow of this podcast is probably pretty strange: Zoom video conference, record the meeting, put the video file in Final Cut Pro X, edit, export, and then drag into the WordPress editor. 

3. Teaching Basketball

• I believe in the concept that players need three exposures to begin to understand a concept.
• I think reps are overrated. For example, I think six jump hooks five days a week for a couple weeks will transfer. 
• Guided finishes or live over “on zero.” 

4. Books by Nick Hornby:

• I’ve read 13 of his books. 
• My favorites ranked: High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, Juliet Naked, About a Boy, and Dickens and Prince 
• The voice. The lists. 

5. Teaching Writing 

• It’s about building and sensing an audience in class and not about finding error. 

Some honorable mentions: 

• James Paul Gee and Discourse Communities, Activity Systems, Coming up with original offensive and defensive basketball schemes, trip planning, moving, applying for jobs, and replacing Simplicity mower belts. I can send you a mower belt video if you need one. 

Anne’s Five Things She Knows Something About

1. Russian/Soviet History

• Vikings played a part in ruling what is now known as Belarus/Ukraine/Russia. Vikings were also known as “Rus”. Ruled around 840. Rus “men who row” Kievan Rus is a federation of principalities that survived for 400 years before the 13th century Mongolian invasion. Orgin of the the word Russia. Russian scholars disagree and consider the rus to be a slavic tribe.
• Stalin killed over 6 million of his own people thru gulags/famine engineered by state/political repression

2. Construction

• Do I know a lot? I would say no, but I do know more than you. You didn’t know what a bollard was (when I crashed my car against it). Spec houses, spec suites, city codes. I can do minor electrical work with book assistance lol even  though I am extremely low in craftmanship abilities.

3. Swedish pop groups ABBA & Ace of Base

• Both groups lead singers had a fear of flying and a general fear/anxiety about the spotlight. Ace of Base lead singer eventually dropped out due to  it. Ace of Base 2 sisters, 1 bro, 1 extra guy; ABBA 2 married couples who would both get divorced from each other.

4. The La Brea to Vine and Sunset Blvd to Wilshire square
5. Sports

• Basketball, Football, Baseball, Golf, Track & Field, Figure Skating, Cross Country Skiing, Alpine Skiing, Soccer

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!