# One of the Flying Karamazov Brothers has died **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 19, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447 "2016-11-19T17:56:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/1 "2016-11-19T17:56:45Z")
Sam Williams, aka Smerydakov Karamazov, died yesterday while driving a bus. Thankfully, nobody else was hurt. I am a former professional juggler, and the FKBs were huge heroes to me. Juggling is a small community (even more so back then before the Internet) and I was lucky to spend time with the FKBs occasionally. I had only fleeting interactions with Sam, but he struck me as a very gentle, sweet man. Among his credits, he appeared on Broadway (once doing Shakespeare while juggling!) and taught Mr. Rogers to juggle. You had quite a life, Sam. Ho! > **[Metro driver has fatal heart attack on viaduct; passengers take over bus](https://komonews.com/news/local/metro-driver-has-fatal-heart-attack-on-viaduct-passengers-take-over-bus)** > > SEATTLE -- Passengers on a Metro bus had to take over late Thursday night when the driver suffered a fatal heart attack.Metro Transit said a passenger was able to stop the bus on the Alaskan Way Viaduct inches away from the guardrail. Passengers then... ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/2 "2016-11-19T18:30:15Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Sam Williams, aka Smerydakov Karamazov, died yesterday while driving a bus. Thankfully, nobody else was hurt. > > I am a former professional juggler, and the FKBs were huge heroes to me. Juggling is a small community (even more so back then before the Internet) and I was lucky to spend time with the FKBs occasionally. I had only fleeting interactions with Sam, but he struck me as a very gentle, sweet man. > > Among his credits, he appeared on Broadway (once doing Shakespeare while juggling!) and taught Mr. Rogers to juggle. > > You had quite a life, Sam. Ho! > > [Metro driver has fatal heart attack on viaduct; passengers take over bus](http://komonews.com/news/local/metro-driver-has-fatal-heart-attack-on-viaduct-passengers-take-over-bus) Sorry to hear this. I saw them only once, at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and they were amazing. Sad to know that such a talented performer was working as a bus driver. But to be fair, it is a union job with benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/3 "2016-11-19T21:03:37Z")
[The Seattle Times has an excellent article about Mr. Williams. > [@](#): > > Before driving a bus, Williams performed on occasion but mostly stayed at home to raise his twin boys, Joshua and Zachary, after his wife, Barbara Warren, died in 1999, said Joshua Williams. > [@](#): > > With experience in driving tour buses, “he was used to moving large vehicles,” a skill that led him to join Metro in 2010, his son said. > > His personality was “warm, kind, jolly, lovable,” Joshua Williams said. “He always saw the best, and he would never give up in thinking the best.” > > Williams wore a red cap in winter because he looked like Santa Claus, and got a kick out of telling jokes on the bus. A couple of months ago he texted that he’d defused a drunken man with a knife downtown by saying, “Hey man, don’t do that,” in a mellow, patient manner, Joshua Williams said. > > He also wrote a heartfelt essay in the transit-union newsletter last winter, about the need to assure operators of a 15- to 20-minute break between trips — not only for their health, but to improve customer service and above all public safety. “Hurrying + Stress = Accidents,” he wrote. ]([http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/viaduct-heartattack/](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/viaduct-heartattack/))He was even helpful as he was dying: > [@](#): > > Preliminary reports said Williams put his foot on the brake to slow the bus, then told his customers about the heart attack while still semiconscious. What an extraordinary man. RIP Mr. Williams; you done good. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/4 "2016-11-19T22:41:30Z")
Very sad. I saw the FKB many, many times, through many personnel changes, starting before Smerdyakov joined them. At the time, I had recently read Dostoyevsky’s book, and recognized that the first four members had taken as stage names the names of the three brothers (Ivan, Dmitri, Alyosha) plus the father (Fyodor). I thought it was clever that when Sam expanded their number to five, he took the name of the bastard son. (As original members left, and new ones joined, they got other Russian names; they didn’t reassign or reuse them.) Sam was a memorable part of the troupe: he played a sort of befuddled, but always cheerful, childlike character. Along with founders “Ivan” (Howard Jay Patterson) and “Dmitri” (Paul David Magid) Smerdyakov was the most recognizable as other members came and went. I was sorry when he left the company in 1999. I last saw FKB about ten years ago, and Dmitri was the only familiar one left. They put on a good show, with new material and techniques, but I’m not sure they were quite as good as the old days. RIP, Smerdyakov. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/5 "2016-11-19T23:51:19Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Sam Williams, aka Smerydakov Karamazov, died yesterday while driving a bus. There’s a good joke, here, I just haven’t worked out the exact punchline. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/6 "2016-12-01T04:13:26Z")
Any Inhatko memorialized Sam at the very end of the [current _Macbreak Weekly_ podcast,](https://twit.tv/shows/macbreak-weekly/episodes/535?autostart=false)and recommended that everyone watch the PBS production of _The Comedy of Errors_. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/7 "2016-12-01T11:45:27Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > There’s a good joke, here, I just haven’t worked out the exact punchline. I’ve always said I wanted to die peacefully and in my sleep, like Smerydakov Karamazov–not screaming in terror, like his passengers. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/8 "2016-12-01T12:44:03Z")
I saw the FKBs only once, but it was one of the most memorable performances of my life, in any genre. RIP, Mr. Williams. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/9 "2016-12-01T20:17:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’ve always said I wanted to die peacefully and in my sleep, like Smerydakov Karamazov–not screaming in terror, like his passengers. Read the article. He was braking and pulling over to the side while he was having a heart attack, concerned with the safety of his passengers. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/10 "2016-12-01T20:56:00Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Any Inhatko memorialized Sam at the very end of the [current _Macbreak Weekly_ podcast,](https://twit.tv/shows/macbreak-weekly/episodes/535?autostart=false)and recommended that everyone watch the PBS production of _The Comedy of Errors_. I’ll second that recommendation. It’s an amazing production. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/11 "2016-12-01T23:08:09Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Read the article. He was braking and pulling over to the side while he was having a heart attack, concerned with the safety of his passengers. I read the article (and know what I wrote was inaccurate), but he **did** ask for a punchline. I got to see them perform once, at the 1991 Oregon Country Fair, where they juggled filled condoms in an act billed as juggling “the world’s most dangerous stuff!” (They weren’t fans of overpopulation). They were corny and vaudeville and awesome, and I told that hackneyed joke believing that Sam would’ve appreciated it as a memoriam. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/12 "2016-12-01T23:40:09Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > …Sam was a memorable part of the troupe: he played a sort of befuddled, but always cheerful, childlike character… Yes! I saw the FKB a half-dozen times and loved them; he was always especially funny. Once I saw him drop a bowling pin (one of five or six he was juggling) and it rolled away; one of the other brothers asked sarcastically, “You want me to get that for you?” Sam replied in a sleepy-little-boy voice, “Could you, please? I’m all tuckered out.” And kept on juggling. Great guy - talented comic - insanely skilled juggler. May he rest in peace. ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-of-the-flying-karamazov-brothers-has-died/772447/13 "2016-12-01T23:47:15Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] I’ve always said I wanted to die peacefully and in my sleep, like Smerydakov Karamazov–not screaming in terror, like his passengers. [/QUOTE] > [@gaffa](#): > > Read the article. He was braking and pulling over to the side while he was having a heart attack, concerned with the safety of his passengers. [paraphrasing=FKM]My mother wrote that joke and I like it [/paraphrasing] Seriously, I only saw the them once on a PBS program and I think that would’ve gone over well in their act. I don’t have a VHS player anymore, but that was one of the tapes I kept.