2025 Update: Buzz

Pushkin. Hello, Khalila Holt, don't scare me like that. I'm sorry, my god. Welcome to the studio.

Thank you.

So now that we find ourselves at our new home at Pushkin Industries.

Like you're reading it for the first time.

We're celebrating some of our past accomplishments in the form of encore presentations. Encore Ravisimo. Today we're going to be listening to the very first Heavyweight. Yeah, an episode called Buzz and it's.

An episode that's personal to you.

It's spoiler alert, Sorry, yes it is. It is Buzz is my father.

I really enjoy your dad. Whenever I get to hear from him, it warms my heart.

Oh that's so nice. Yeah, my father has well I'm not going to say that my wife married me because of my father, but I'm sure it didn't hurt because she's a very big Columbo fan Peter Falk, and my father sounds a lot like he's of that generation. In fact, he would have grown up in Brooklyn around the same time as Peter Falk. But anyway, Yeah, this was the

Yeah, you thought I'm so good at this that I got to do more.

When you have mammoth gifts like that, I mean you have a responsibility to share it.

Yeah.

So well, without further ado.

Let's listen to the episode and stick around after for an update from your dad.

But first, oh, but first, a word from our sponsors.

Thank you sponsors, Miss Holt.

Before you go, if I could just ask you one more thing. That's very interesting that you wear combs Ye from Gimblet Media. This is Jonathan Goldstein, your old pal.

Is that is that was called Gimblet Gimblet Media.

That's correct. It sounds like giblets, the inside of a chicken, like all the innerds. Well, everybody loves giblets.

You, oh ship, they're my kids.

Hey guys, I'm up here. Do you know what my new podcast is about. I know, I don't know anything about it. Each week, I travel into people's pasts to help them repair something that's been troubling them.

M hmm.

I'm sort of like a therapist, like a therapist, So yeah, do you find out? Do you find that funny? I supportive. That's the laughter of support.

I think it's great.

I think it's great.

Do you have any questions for me about what my show is and what it's going to be, Like, what's the name of your show?

What's the name of your show?

Yes, we're gonna go now, but Johnson's just about tell me the name of his new show. As soon as he tells me, I'm going to bang down on him in five.

Remember to do that.

Yes, to hang up the phone on each other. Okay, ready, Yes, the name of the show is Heavyweight, Heavyweight, you get it?

Two one.

Hello.

Hello from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.

Buzz.

Hello, Hey Dad, Hi Johnny.

Hey, how you doing good?

You good?

Good?

Good? Yum Tivova, what's that?

I'm not sure? This is my father, Buzz. I'm calling him at his home in Montreal. And the reason we're talking crazy talk is because it's young Kipper the Jewish day of Atonement, which seems as good a day as any to talk with him about forgiveness. So I wanted to I wanted to ask you something and I just wanted to gauge your interest. Yeah, how would you feel about paying your brother Sheldon a visit.

I have no feelings, die, I'm not really interested.

You're not no. My father, Buzz is eighty and his brother, Sheldon, his only sibling, is eighty five, and for the past forty years they've pretty much been on the outs. My father lives in Montreal and Sheldon lives in Florida, and the last time they saw each other over twenty years ago, was at their mother's funeral when they had a fight over the details of the arrangements. Since then, they've hardly spoken.

Time's passed. He hasn't shown much interest, so I'm respecting that and I leave alone.

What he did do was he he called you on your eightieth birthday not so long ago, and you.

Felt good about it to him on his eightieth birthday.

This kind of tit for tat accounting is what always gets in the way. There's been a competition between the brothers since I was a kid. I remember how in my grandmother's small New York kitchen, Sheldon and Buzz got into an argument who could do the most push ups, and the next thing I knew, my father was pulling off his shirt and dropping to the kitchen floor in

You know what it is at this point with him, I'll tell you what it is. I don't think it's even anger. He's past anger, and he's passed any feelings of animosity. He's passed that. He just doesn't care. Yeah, you know that's apathy. I mean, sometimes at least hate or love their emotions. Apathy is nothing.

Yeah, you know what.

Johnny as a child, even when I was ten, when I was nine, and I was crazy about him. We had a great you know, I loved him. He was the older brother.

He was hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm listening.

Uh, you know. I just looked up to him, and he had older friends. Sometimes he'd take me along with him and he was good. Hey, somebody trying to somebody trying to call here, binging.

Me here, don't you see, Buzz? It's father time? Who is bringing you here? And Buzz loses track of time. Air Conditioners remain boxed all through July, and expired coupons from the mid nineties make plump his wallet, So I worry he'll put off reaching out to Sheldon until it's too late. The most complicated question, the one I keep coming back to, is how did the bad blood begin?

Said, you always working some kind of an angle. So he got furious. He got furious. He started screaming into the phone, go to hell, drop dead, bah bah bayh. And was that was how that ended. But I feel he's the kind of guy that the gun. He has angles like that, you know, he has angles. I always felt I was on the up and up with him and he wasn't with me.

If you've got a stronger sense that he was interested in seeing you, then would you.

Yes, yes, you would be my g I wouldn't play the house though, that's out of the question.

Okay, quick sidebar. Anytime I've ever raised the prospect of visiting Sheldon, no matter how hypothetical the scenario, my father always makes a point of insisting how no matter what, he would not stay in Sheldon's house, even if he was invited to, which I should point out he never is.

I wouldn't stay at his house. How come you I wouldn't stay there? I mean, not my thing?

How come you always bring that up? I mean, normally, when someone goes to visit someone that they haven't seen in decades, don't stay at a hotel, you.

Know, I would stay at a motel or somewhere near hetel.

Yeah.

No, we'd get a place, you know, with an ice machine.

And uh, you know why you want to You're interested in making a trip.

I mean, I'm interested. Do you think that there's anything to be gained in seeing him?

Hm?

I guess there's something. Then, you know, you share your common experience and talk about the old days, and there are things that only he and I I can remember, you know, yeah, you know you What you could do is you could call him and see what what what what his attitude is? You know, it depends on you, know how how, how how you feel, what kind of receptions you get?

Yeah, I mean I would. I would be happy to do that.

I like your initial suggestion that you call him feel him out and see what he's like.

Okay. I didn't suggest that, but you you suggested that.

Yeah. I like that just because you'll give me an honest you'll give me an honest reaction.

I'm happy to do it. But I mean, what, what what are you looking for from? From? What do you want to hear from him?

I missed my brother. I would like to see him. Okay, that's all. Okay, you understand, and you come back on me with an honest evaluation.

Hello, Sheldon, Yeah, speaking hi that it was quite a shock getting your phone call, you said, Johnath. Yeah, my hearing is not that great, okay. And when I heard the first message, I'm saying, who the heck is that? I don't know anybody by that name.

Sheldon now lives outside of Fort Lauderdale, but my few memories of him are from when he lived in upstate New York. I remember he lived in a trailer. I remember that he worked at a local prison, that he smoked cigars, that he looked a little like my father, but was hunched, like the world was weighing down on him. And he always wore this expression on his face that seemed to say, you gotta be kidding me. You're keeping okay, you're keeping occupied.

Yeah, I read a lot. I going to gym. I go shopping. Hi, you know, here and there, little things here and there, and so.

You still go. How often you go to.

The gym three times a week?

Wow?

And what kind of stuff do you do there?

Well?

I do about twenty minutes of aerobics, uh huh, and then I do a little weight training. I try to flirt a little with the women there.

Oh yeah, my father also goes to the gym. That's a part of his routine. Also, he was happy to hear from you on his eightieth birthday.

Yeah.

Well he didn't call me on my eighty fifth though.

Tit meet tat Yeah, like, so, you know, maybe we could go out for dinner. I don't know that kind of thing.

Uh huh. Well, what kind of time frame are we talking about here?

I don't know.

Our lives have been much different. I don't know how much we have to have in common anymore.

Yeah, we don't have We don't have much in common anymore except the fact that we're elderly and retired.

Other than that, I.

Don't know what we have in common.

You have your past in common?

Yes, I'll tell you honestly, I'm not a very sentimental person, and I think, and I being a pragmatist, I take things the way they are. I try not to dwell upon the past, and I try not to take people the way I remember them, but as they are.

Do you think that makes things easier, makes.

Things easier for me?

Yeah? Do other people around you? Sometimes? Doesn't make it harder for other people around you ever.

To be honest with you, I've been in the last few years, I've been a loner. You would basically almost call me a recluse. I don't socialize with many people, and I really don't give a damn what anybody thinks.

Yeah, and.

Contrary to popular believe, I like being alone by myself.

I get along with myself. Well yeah, look, I don't want to be rude. Yeah, yeah, but I want to go have my lunch.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. It's fine, Sheldon. I appreciate your talking to me, and you would be amenable to spending some time.

Why not. We are brothers.

I mean, we're not closer or anything, but.

You know, we're not going to have a chance to see each other much in the future.

Yeah, is that anything that you think about.

Not much now.

And so I call my father back and let him know that Sheldon is amenable. And because I know that for my father the days tend to pile up like unboxed air conditioners, I have my mother get on the phone to help nail down a firm travel date and Dad he wants to go, if Dad wants to go, if he wants.

To go next weekend.

We don't have to go on the weekend. We can go during the week.

Yeah, comes, as you know, you caught me off. God, how about it. I'll call you Wednesday or Thursday.

How's that today's Monday or yeah, or even if you feel like calling tomorrow, you can call me.

Yeah, okay, I'll probably I'll call you at the latest Thursday, to.

Get the Thursday at the latest, that's three days from today. Okay, all right, you do what you want to do.

You call me, but I'll call you a Thursday.

Coming up after the break Thursday. And so on Thursday, possibly with a little nudging for my mother, Buzz agrees, And then my father and I are off to Florida to visit my uncle Sheldon too.

And then you have an address, Yeah, I do Okay.

My dad and I meet up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I flew from New York and my dad from Montreal. My father's all dressed up, wearing a faux Swaede sports jacket that I've never seen him in. We grab our airport rental and prepare for the two hour drive to Sheldon in the ninety degree heat. It's immediately made clear that faux swayed might not have been the best fashioned choice.

It's like we're on a safariy.

You on the road to Sheldon's. My father will experience a spectrum of feelings as we first set out. There's excitement.

You know, my brother was funny in a lot of ways.

I could laugh.

We're gonna have laughed with him, you know what I mean. He's a very funny man.

A half an hour in and there's bitterness.

We invited him to your baments and he returned a very cold calld. Sorry we will not be attending, you know, so mean, you know what I mean? Even the writing.

An hour in and how is Buzz feeling?

I'm relaxed.

I'm kind of old to get anxious, you know what I mean?

Half an hour to Sheldon's a.

Little bit apprehensive.

Now, yeah, ten minutes to Sheldon's and buzzes feeling all right, Yeah, he's feeling a little.

Uh No, it's gonna be strange.

Yeah, it's gonna be very strange. I mean the man is a stranger to me now, and yet he's my brother.

You understand.

It's a very strange feeling.

Yeah.

I wonder if he's getting nervous, maybe because he's waiting for us, right, yeah, yell set yeah.

Oh it's hot, it's really hot. Sheldon lives in the corner house on a quiet suburban street ring the bell.

I guess is this his door?

I'll double check maybe because there.

Is, Yeah, thank you, I smell the good smell of cigar.

There had become a monk may.

And after all the years and the worry and the dread, things seem to be going swimmingly. We sit down at Sheldon's kitchen table and my father gets right into it.

Now, there's things I want to know.

You said that Rainy died.

The dead are a good place to begin as a subject. They're easily agreed upon and not likely to spark a fight.

The uncle died, The uncle died. He was the youngest brother. Oh, he died long ago.

He died.

Oh you know who died, real prick.

Yeah, I didn't know him that well, he didn't know Yeah, yeah.

Nish.

Shocking. Yeah he was fat.

He was fat, red head.

Red head right, yeah yeah.

Remember remember Johnny, Johnny was a sax man.

Ye, Johnny, he would fuck a dog on the street if you sort of dog. He tried to fuck the dog. Can I get you guys a cold beer?

I'd like a beer, olive beer.

Even though they're in their eighties, Sheldon and buzz Stop possessed voices and temperaments suited to shouting out Brooklyn tenement windows. Well, my voice, olive beer is best suited to asking a waitress if there will be a sharing charge. I forgot about that.

Sorry.

Case in point this is Sheldon accidentally swiping a portable microphone receiver off the kitchen table and me trying to smooth things over.

This off. Well, it's annoying.

You just put it in the in your pocket there.

Just take it off, please, thank you.

Over the next couple of days, my testes will flee like frightened cockroaches, upward, ascending to heights not seen since the bar Mitzvah that Sheldon was not attending. And while we're on the subject of testes, here's Sheldon reminiscing about the time he was examined for a rupture by their family doctor.

Me and Wilie Rosen were joining the weightlifting Yep, say you how to be tested for a rupture? Hey, I remem being put his hand onto my balls. I started left and so hot, I pissed right in his hand.

Hey.

Over the years, I've seen my father in the role of husband, uncle, and grandfather, but I've never really seen him in the role of younger brother. How odd to see it now at eighty he sits beside Sheldon with this expression I've never seen on his face. It's wide eyed, sweet and deferential. But as the day wears on, Sheldon and Buzz began to squabble over their memories, fighting over every little detail.

Remember the hallabaloo we had with the diet, head diet. That heavy set girl a manicurist. She was a head dying manicurist. No, she was a head dying. Here's what happened. She went over to Earth.

They even argue over the death of their grandmother.

I have found her body. My mother was across the street a Greenborough. I remember walk and I knew she was dead. I never saw a dead body of my life, but I knew she was dead.

Sure, so wait till you found her, or you found her.

I remember looking in on the room and see how I said it was awfully I found them.

But let him no, I'm not some credit.

The whole afternoon is like this. Every subject, even their dead grandmother, somehow becomes fodder for another pissing match. They're burning up all this time with small talk, when what they need is some big talk. In particular, they need to address a story that I know who. It's a great deal of meaning for my father. It took place in nineteen thirty nine, on the day their mother left them. I've only ever heard the story from my father, never

Well, I remember that time was when Pop was smacking Iran and she ran out in the hole in her slip fighting in the hole, he was smacking around. She ran out. Yeah, so what happened the next morning?

The next morning, Yeah, look in a closet, her clothes were gone.

Oh, what happened? After this, and my father's telling is that his mother returned soon after she left with a policeman in tow.

And they came back to try to get you.

They wanted you to come back with them, and where were you? I was there, but they were trying to drag you out of the house.

You weren't trying to grin Now, no, no, I can say, with my father and grandma.

And mother, this is the point of the story. For my father, It proves once and for all how his mother loved Sheldon more than she loved him. Sheldon didn't move out with her, and after a year their mother returned, and together Buzz and Sheldon grew up under the same roof in the same bedroom, often sleeping under the same blankets, each knowing who the mother had chosen, and each having to do their best to carry on and live life

I didn't know about it either until you told me. Yeah, didn't I tell you? You didn't know about her? No, we didn't know. We didn't know she was sick about two years. Yeah, Judy, Well, when she got the diagnosis, she was already stage four. What did I know about cancer? So the surgeon, so, he said, So, I said, well, doctor, how did the surgery go? I always show you. I went very well. But the cancer is in her liver. Now, I was spreading.

Canady for dinner. Sheldon takes us to a local outback steakhouse. As people walk by, he provides a running commentary of an elderly couple.

Don't get like that couple. Whatever you did, it's time for the execution.

Of an overweight couple.

People are fat.

It's as though he's sharpening his with readying it for the main event. Teasing my dad about Canada.

I don't know how you could take Canada on your life.

So you got nice neighbors, it's nice, It's okay.

Uh.

I wasn't gonna say, you're living in the same.

Place about thirty five, thirty eight years something like that.

I'm happy here. Yeah. Yeah.

For my father, I know this is a touchy subject, believing as he always has, that Sheldon looks down on him for the dinkiness of his Canadian life and home. It's like a constant reminder of just who is second best. Later, my father will repeat Sheldon's words. You're still living in that same place, He'll say, for how many years? But just then I watch my father clench and unclench his

Two hundred dollars and thirty cent said, I kidd.

Sheldon invites us back to his place for cookies, but my father says he isn't up for it. Thank you, And as we walk through the restaurant parking to the car, my father is silent. I find myself feeling protective of him. After midnight, lying awake in our hotel, my father insisted we stay at one. I lay in bed thinking about that day in nineteen thirty nine when my grandmother came

Is a damn good cigar, he well, Dominican Republican. They make a damn good cigar in Dominical Republic.

Despite the difficulties of last night, the coin is flipped back to the good side. Sheldon offers my father a cigar, and with a cigar, some cigar talk, some pretty foul cigar talk.

We're riding Mount Queens Boulevard. Johnny's in the back seat with the whole He's got his naked ass up in the air and he's hum Well, the funny thing is we had to stop for a light and there's a truck driver sitting in the cab bump high.

So if you guys missed each other, what do you miss each other?

You know? He asked the weirdest question, what is he abroad?

No, I mean, I don't know. That's you know, eager to prove to my uncle Sheldon that in spite of the fact I'm wearing my wife's travel deodorant, I am indeed not abroad. I allow them to return to more pressing matters. They're prostates, that said Jesus.

He says, your prestate feels like the moon craters in there. He said. I said, thank you, doctor, complimenting.

So if I could steer this away from the prostrates, and so my father said that it's significant to him to have come. What do you say?

I agree with whatever he said?

But what about you?

I said, I agree with whatever he said. Do you want to written?

I know it feels like I'm getting a taste of what growing up with Sheldon have been like. So again I make my move. So I have some questions just about because the stories that I know from my father. But I'm curious what your take is because you were older, do you remember what was going on when your mom when your mother left? Originally like what, what?

Why?

And what was going on?

Didn't you cover this ground before yesterday?

But from my father's perspective, the way I understood it was always you were the favorite. Did you did you feel that way? At this point, Sheldon's face suddenly softens.

I always felt that I got the short end of the stick.

Yeah, but you have You were kind of a favorite with my mom.

Yeah. Maybe with mom, of course maybe. Temperamentally we were closer than I was with my father. My father never a me spit. Did you ever get any money from my father? I can't remember. You never got a line? Now, I can't remember you never One time I sprained my ankle so bad. That was that was terrible. I laid in that bed my hand. He was He says to me, you lazy bum. Yeah. Man, he went off on me that time.

He took Sheldon once Sheldon happened to say the word fuck.

He came in with that fucking strap, swinging with.

The bucket, and you know, I can understand leaving a feeling of resentment and dislike.

Hey, yeah, that was his way of communicating with us. Smack smack, and then what a way.

Yeah it was easier on you.

You think, Uh, it wasn't that easy. But he was tough on Sheldon.

Was I know, Oh, you were closer to him than I was a lot of things that went on. You didn't understand really well it did going on, so you had a different take.

Well, are you surprised.

By But I was a kid. I didn't understand it.

But you didn't know that Sheldon was getting it so bad. In Buzz's telling, their father was always a more or less benign, childish figure, incapable of expressing his feelings and so given to temper tantrums. For Buzz, it was their mother who was the manipulator, the woman who played the brothers off each other. But hearing Sheldon's take, it sounds like maybe their mother didn't come to take Sheldon because she loved him best, but simply because he needed more

You know, it said that my father had such a negative impact on him, you know, just awful because he had so much going for me. He was a wonderful son. He worked hard, he was a good boy.

He went to school talking like I'm a failure in life. No, you aren't a fail. That's what I'm saying.

You weren't a faith But all I'm saying is that emotionally he left an impact on you.

It took a long time for me to get out of that emotion. And now I'm at peace to myself. I can talk about him and laugh about it. Yeah, now I want peace quiet. I'm happy living by myself. Are you lonely, Sheldon?

No? No.

The last time my father saw my grandfather in full health, my dad was visiting from Canada. My grandfather asked my father to drive him to the cemetery to visit his parents' grave, and once there, my grandfather wept inconsolably. Later that day he would succumb to a stroke and shortly after be moved to a nursing home. With Sheldon being more local, the burden of my grandfather's care fell mainly to Sheldon. It seems like a lot of the family's burdens fell to Sheldon.

They put a lot of responsibility on him, that my dad should have been taking that responsibility and he shouldered that.

Well, who is going to take Carria, who is going to take you to school? Meet you? I remember one time I was later or something. You stood outside that right I said, mousy, I'm here, I'm here. He was good to meet a lot of times me. You know, you were my older brother.

He used to knock the shit out of me sometimes, but you know that's the way it is with brothers.

Well, yeah, I was good in some way some way that I was mean? Who was not?

Who is not?

Who is not?

So if you feel like you were compelled to see each other now because you knew that, you know it's an hour and never kind of thing, then it means that it was important to you both right to see each other.

You want to take that sure?

I'm easy answer, yes, yes, because we're not getting any younger. I mean, what's down the road.

I'm eighty he's eighty five.

I mean because there was a lot of water under the bridge and we want to close that bridge.

Now.

I want to feel easy. Now, I want to say, now he's going to be eighty six, I want to call him on his birthday and say happy birthday to him. Now, I'm not going to stand any fucking ceremonies anymore.

As my father speaks as per his brother's example, dropping f bombs like he's in a Guy Ritchie film. Sheldon keeps his arms crossed and his eyes shut tight. He's quiet for several seconds, and then he reaches out to pet his cat.

Should I leave you at a cat in my will? If anything happened.

If anything out, I'll take care of the cat.

I'll take care of the cat.

I'm happy I can't to see you.

That I am. I'm happy it came here. That's good, very good. Wherever I want to buy a house.

When it's time to leave, Sheldon walks us outside, but before we get into the rental, he points across the lawn to his neighbor's house. He tells my father that it's for sale, and then he tells him the asking price, and my father says that doesn't sound bad at all, and Sheldon says that, what with Canada being so bloody cold, my father should consider moving to Florida, and my father says maybe he will. They don't get too emotional, they

You take care of sankot this. Thank you, Yeah, thank you, we'll speak. I'll speak.

Turn right on northwest, mad for drawing.

Oh my god, it feels so different now.

Do you know that this has taken a lot off my shoulders idea?

You know, as we ride to the airport, my father says that the thought of Sheldon all alone in that house with just a cat makes him sad. Do you really think he isn't lonely? My father asks. I assure him that Sheldon seems okay with being alone, But my father doesn't seem so sure. After all these years, the burden of having lost his brother has been replaced by a new burden, one that might be heavier to bear now that the Fernuers returned to its goodwill home, now that.

The last month's rent is skeeting.

With damage to pot take this moment to deced.

If we if we too felt from from the.

Things an accident And so you know why I wanted to talk to you.

Yeah, I know you wanted to talk to me, but you know about what I have no idea.

So I wanted to revisit. Do you remember the story that I made about you and your brother? Sheldon.

Sure.

Oh yeah, back then you were in your I think you were eighty and I think Sheldon was eighty four or eighty.

Five, right right right, Yeah, I was eighty.

You just turned ninety Yeah, yeah, December. Did you get a phone call from Sheldon?

Yes, I did, of course. Oh yeah, he welcomed me into the Big nine.

Oh.

He'll be ninety five in July.

So do you guys talk on all of your birthdays? Are just on the big one birthday? Every birthday?

I call him, he calls me, yeah, and we talk a little bit.

Yeah, we just talk.

So what do you guys talk about? Would you talk about when he called you up for your ninetieth.

How he's feeling. Does he still go out to eat? Does he still drive a car? Is you know things like that? Is he getting around and he goes out? He's got got the steakhouse that he goes to. It's like the outback, the outback, and he goes, hey, he has his seat or stool and yeah.

Does he still smoke his cigars and drink beer?

Oh? You know, he said he stopped that because he developed a cough, so he stopped.

Even though you know, you only speak to Sheldon a couple times a year. Do you feel like your life is enriched by having him in it?

Yes, He's important to me in a lot of many ways. Yeah, I feel he's my mortality. In other words, as long as he lives, I'm okay, if do you understand that. Yeah, it's like this is a bond we have in a certain way, that we have this long life, and it's kind of a gift and it's kind of a magic to it. As long as he keeps on living, I'm okay. Wow, you know, he's ninety five. I can go yet, you know, a few more years.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together, We'll be back next week with another encore presentation of Heavyweight, and with it, another update from our guest