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JFK Book Reviews - Blow Away · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome into JFK Book Reviews, a division
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of the Lone Guming podcast. I'm your host, Big Bad
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Bob ak rob Ark researcher Extraordinary into the JFK Assassination.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Today we are going to be reviewing this book here,
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  Speaker 1: A Killer's Story by Dean Selmeyer and Mark Cram. All Right,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it's not too not too thick. That's a picture of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Dean sell Meyer and his little person friend writing on
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: his shoulders in Manhattan in the sixties. This book was
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: actually written in nineteen seventy nine, and this picture was
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  Speaker 1: taken in nineteen sixty four near Broadway, and it was
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  Speaker 1: taken actually by Roddy McDowell, the actor Pretty Crazy, Michael Dunn,
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  Speaker 1: the Dwarf, and Dean sell Meyer was strolling near Broadway
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  Speaker 1: during the run of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four. Photograph Roddy McDowell. This book was
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  Speaker 1: published by Viking Press, like I said, in nineteen seventy nine,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy three pages to be exact, thirty chapters.
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  Speaker 1: And this is allegedly allegedly a true story, or so
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  Speaker 1: he says. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Rob,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: what in the hell does this have to do with
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  Speaker 1: the JFK assassination. Well, i'll tell you, folks who didn't
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: watch last Friday show about May Brussel. This is technically
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with the JFK assassination. It
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: tangentially does, It interestingly does. And I'm a sucker for
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a good story. So I heard about this story. May
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  Speaker 1: Brussel to talked about this guy on her show after
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the book came out in nineteen seventy nine. I talked
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: about his story because his story is odd, to say
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the least. This guy, and you can see him right here,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is Dean Selmyer. He's actually a Hollywood actor and Broadway
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: play actor. He acted in plays on Broadway. He was
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  Speaker 1: in several Hollywood films you may have heard of, like
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Patton with George C. Scott in nineteen seventy and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of other films. You've a professional killer who has
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  Speaker 1: decided to go public. It may be the first book
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  Speaker 1: of its kind ever written. Dean selmy Meyer is not
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  Speaker 1: a pseudonym Glee. He kills for a living. Selmyer got
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  Speaker 1: in very serious trouble while serving in the Armed forces.
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  Speaker 1: He was offered the chance to get out of in
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  Speaker 1: long hitch in prison if he was willing to take
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  Speaker 1: on a lethal assignment as a cover. He became an actor.
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  Speaker 1: He he knew though, was to be very much offstage.
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  Speaker 1: He did it and continued to do it. He a
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  Speaker 1: jackal by a long shot. He kills up close, and
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  Speaker 1: he's well paid. This is his strange, unvarnished story. When
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  Speaker 1: asked what he feels at that critical moment, Selmi replies, nothing,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the reader will feel otherwise. He has an author's note
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  Speaker 1: in here before we actually get to the meat of
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  Speaker 1: the book. It basically says that the events and happenings
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  Speaker 1: depicted herein really occur. The conversation is described or create
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: as memory can provide. The characters are at times an
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: amalgamation of more than one jont one person, and the
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  Speaker 1: names of some individuals have been changed to ensure there
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: are The chronology and location of certain events have been
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  Speaker 1: rearranged to protect our safety. Since and Mark cramm h
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  Speaker 1: So again, how I'm guessing this went down? Is it?
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  Speaker 1: Mark Cramp Dean sell Meyer is the storyteller and this allegedly,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's a crazy story. If you're going to
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  Speaker 1: write it in a book and admit to it. But whatever,
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  Speaker 1: especially if you're a somewhat Hollywood actor that's been in
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  Speaker 1: like ten or fifteen movies. I mean, it's pretty crazy.
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  Speaker 1: But Dean sell Meyer was born in nineteen thirty eight
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  Speaker 1: in Indianapolis, Indiana. And let me share with you my
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  Speaker 1: screen here and we'll take a look at some pictures
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  Speaker 1: from his life, shall we. Now, this first one here
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  Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. Let's see here all right, Hopefully y'all
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  Speaker 1: can see that. Here we have a young Dean sel
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  Speaker 1: Meyer growing up on the mean streets of Indianapolis, Indiana,
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  Speaker 1: as a ute a teenager with a massive cameltoe. Male cameltoe.
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  Speaker 1: We call that a moose knuckle. I mean, look at
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  Speaker 1: that thing. Good lord. Now, an interesting story comes up
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  Speaker 1: in the book when he's meeting his love interest in
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  Speaker 1: the book and somehow she correctly guesses that old Dean
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Selmer doesn't wear underwear, and then he only wears a
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  Speaker 1: jockstrap ew because he says he likes the way it
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  Speaker 1: feels you hey, to each the room. You know what
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  Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, Okay, whatever floats your boat, Dean, uh Hey,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not one to judge. Here we have that picture
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  Speaker 1: of him again taking by Roddy McDowell walking with the
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  Speaker 1: the little person around his neck walking down Broadway. People
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  Speaker 1: say he looked a lot like Dean Damn. James Dean
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  Speaker 1: Uh similarly looked like he was like the t move
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  Speaker 1: version of James Dean if you will, Oh, that's terrible.
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  Speaker 1: This is a poster from a movie that he did
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  Speaker 1: called air l paranoidco Uh. I don't even know. I
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  Speaker 1: think it was like a Spanish language film. Lots of
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  Speaker 1: Spanish names down here. I don't know what it's about,
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  Speaker 1: but apparently there's a chick screaming that's on fire. Here
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  Speaker 1: we have another chick in a wheelchair, which is interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Two topless chicks butt to butt, one in a bikini
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  Speaker 1: bottom and one in I don't even know what that
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  Speaker 1: is a very short skirt piers like. Then over here
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  Speaker 1: you have a guy burying somebody alive, allegedly. And then
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  Speaker 1: of course you have Dean Selmyer here kissing passionately his
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  Speaker 1: love interest in the movie. Now, let's take a look
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  Speaker 1: at this. This is Dean sell Meyer's gravestone. He passed
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  Speaker 1: away in two thousand and four. He lived a good
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: long life. Let's see if he died in four and
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  Speaker 1: two six. So he died at the age of sixty six.
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  Speaker 1: And apparently he had many nicknames, including Skip, Hi, Lauren Hall, Cowboy,
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  Speaker 1: Quasi which they spelled wrong here, quas and Warrior. Now
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you may be asking yourself, all right, maybe I can
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  Speaker 1: understand where they get cowboy from a warrior. These are
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  Speaker 1: probably roles that he played in the movies. And maybe
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  Speaker 1: Skip was a character that he played in a movie
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  Speaker 1: or on stage or something. And Quasimoto. There's a story
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  Speaker 1: in the book where he's allegedly playing Quasimoto, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the hunchback of Notre Dame in a play overseas, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: he hides a twenty two caliber pistol in his hunchback
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  Speaker 1: that he later uses to, you know, shoot somebody allegedly. Now,
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  Speaker 1: how does this all tie into the jfk assassination? You
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: might be asking yourself. Well, I'll tell you so again.
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  Speaker 1: I told you we did this show about May Brussel.
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  Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy nine she was a well aware
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  Speaker 1: of this book. I guess it was a big story
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  Speaker 1: back then, and she talked about it on her World
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  Speaker 1: Watchers International show and a couple of years later, in
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  Speaker 1: the early eighties, I believe it was eighty one or
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: eighty two, maybe eighty three, she was helping out volunteering
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  Speaker 1: at the Barnyard Theater, which was a theater that was
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  Speaker 1: close by, you know, like a small community theater type
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  Speaker 1: place that you know, would put on plays from time
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  Speaker 1: to time. Well, this is in the midst of her
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  Speaker 1: getting many death threats. She had quit her show a
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  Speaker 1: couple times over death threats, and then all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: Dean Selmyer comes to the Barnyard Theater to play a
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  Speaker 1: part in a production there. And of course, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they have to practice, rehearse if you will, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it goes late into the night. Sometimes there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people around, sometimes not so many people around.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what may was doing on the set,
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  Speaker 1: whether she was volunteering with set design or costume design
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  Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be. But apparently it spooked
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  Speaker 1: her because she thought it maybe the powers that be
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  Speaker 1: had sent this guy to get close to her and
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: do what he does best, allegedly and offer her anyway,
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  Speaker 1: it spooked her again to the point where she quit
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  Speaker 1: her radio show and started doing the cassette tape thing.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's just the most bizarre story.
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  Speaker 1: It's bizarre. It's very bizarre. Now back to the book itself.
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  Speaker 1: Whoever this guy Mark kram Is, and I can tell
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  Speaker 1: you who he is. He was a reporter in Calumnist
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  Speaker 1: with the Baltimore Sun for five years before spending fourteen
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  Speaker 1: years at Time Life as a or at Time Incorporated
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  Speaker 1: as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. So you can
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  Speaker 1: imagine that the writing style is not that great, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: this book is really logged down with a lot of dialogue, conversations,
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  Speaker 1: characters that come and go in and out of the story,
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  Speaker 1: not a lot of background, not a lot of explanations
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  Speaker 1: about what's going on or about why things are happening,
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  Speaker 1: or why he's going certain places or what he's doing.
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  Speaker 1: And I think I probably got through. Like I said,
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  Speaker 1: it's two hundred and seventy three pages, and he didn't
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  Speaker 1: kill anybody in like the first half of the book.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean despite the first chapter, you know, setting
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  Speaker 1: it up, the trouble he got into the jail, time
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  Speaker 1: that he's facing, the proposition that was made, Hey you
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  Speaker 1: do this, we'll let you out of jail, and then
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  Speaker 1: they just kept stringing him along and blackmailing him and
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  Speaker 1: making him do these things and commit these things allegedly.
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  Speaker 1: How true is this? I don't know. Is this just
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  Speaker 1: an actor being an actor? Or could this guy have
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  Speaker 1: been a legitimate hit man. I don't know. I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: but I will say this. I will say this. Let
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  Speaker 1: me show you guys this. So this is Dean sell
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  Speaker 1: Meyer's obituary. His official obituary from the Indianapolis Star newspaper,
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  Speaker 1: all Right. He died in Las Vegas on June fifth,
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Family and friends celebrate his unique
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  Speaker 1: life almost a year later, May twenty six, two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and five, meet at eleven thirty at Crown Hill Funeral
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  Speaker 1: Home in Indianapolis, then proceed to the Selmyer Plot for
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a graveside committal service. Dean aka Skip, Cowboy, Quasi Moto
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  Speaker 1: and Warrior was an actor, filmmaker, author, and special operative
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  Speaker 1: for the United States and other governments, especially in the
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  Speaker 1: Middle East. Dean is survived by two brothers, Travis and Frank,
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  Speaker 1: a sister, Rose Wesselman, former spouse Candy Lacarro, and many friends,
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  Speaker 1: including Vicky Piper, Robbie Leblank, David Spicer, Laura Gorman, and
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  Speaker 1: Jim Willis. Dean was preceded in death by his parents,
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Edgar and Charlotte Wiseelmer Selmyer, and brother Tomas. Interesting
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  Speaker 1: so in his official obituary they mentioned the fact that
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  Speaker 1: he was a special operator for the United States and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: other governments. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, folks.
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  Speaker 1: So again, I don't know what to believe here. The
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: story sounds a lot more fascinating than the book. Again,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: if this is written by a sports guy, you could imagine,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the penchant for drama and and and you know,
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  Speaker 1: painting a picture for the mind is not really there.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of a dull book, kind of So for
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the sheer fact that you don't know if this is
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  Speaker 1: just a fiction or non fiction, or an autobiography or
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a theater of the mind. I am an actor. I
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: don't know. But uh, I'm gonna give this book blow
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  Speaker 1: away by Dean Selmeyer and Mark Kram. I'm going to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: give it some style points just for the subject matter
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  Speaker 1: and all the eccentricities of the story, not necessarily for
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the book itself. I mean, you could be okay going
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: through your life and not not wasting four hours reading
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: this like I did, and be perfectly fine with it.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, for style points whatever. If you want
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a good laugh, if you want a good ha ha ah,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you know, it's your prerogative. I'm going to give this
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: book a four out of ten guns up. Four. That's
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: all you get, Dean. Sorry. You can find this book
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: on Amazon. I will put a link in the description.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: It's right now. It's running used from about eighteen bucks.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: You could probably find it a little cheaper on a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: books although I don't know how much shipping would be.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Of course, with Amazon, if you have Prime, you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: normally you get free shipping, so it all equals out
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: in the wash. Apparently it don't matter where you buy
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it from. But it's interesting, It certainly is interesting. Now
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: before I go, I just want to take a look.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes they kind of classify the book as
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: being a certain genre, you know, for the Library of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Congress cataloging day. I'm just wondering if it says anything
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: about it being fiction or nonfiction anything like that. It's
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it's considered to be a crime in criminals and a biography,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: so not fiction. Interesting. Interesting, So yeah, for a wild
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and crazy story about a semi famous dude. There's been
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: in a lot of shitty movies and one good one.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: But the one good one, like I said, was Paton
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: George C. Scott. He was I looked up his his, his,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: his IMDb credit. He was in that movie. He was
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: soldiers sleeping on the floor. So probably not his best
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: work movie wise. What sounds to me to be a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: good one would be a nineteen seventy four movie called
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Take a Hard Ride. I'm not sure if this is
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a porno or not. Anyway, it stars Fred Williamson, Jim Brown,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and Catherine Spock. There's also a School of Death, The
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Hunting Party, the Glass Ceiling, The Challenges, The Ring, not
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the early two thousands of movie The Ring, the horror movie,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: but a different one. Murders in the Room Morgue that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: was with Jason Robards, Michael Dunn and Lily Palmer, captain
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: of Lee van Cleef, Men in the Wilderness with Richard Harris,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the Blood Splattered Bride with Alexandra Mestido. So yeah, there's
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: some stuff out there. And of course I remember I
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: told you that this was a love story of sorts.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It's not that good. And the book ends really weirdly,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Like I was like, is this it? Like? The book's over?
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: What the hell do I just read? So yeah, four
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: out of ten from your boy, Big Bad Bob. And
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: if you like this book review, then by golly do
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I have a show for you. It's called the Lone
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: gum And Podcast, and we talk all about the JFK
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: assassination and normally on the book review show here you know, uh,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: we stick with legit JFK assassination books. This is one
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of those tangential ones that I'm only talking about because
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: it applies to the show that we just did and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the show that we're going to do for members only
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night as we get more into the May and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Russell story. And I thought it was an interesting book,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: an interesting story, an interesting premise, and some conspiracy fodder
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: if you will. So with that being said, again, links
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in the description if you want to check it out.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: If not, I don't blame you. I did the hard
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: work for you so you don't have to. But that's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it for me, Big Bad Bob. And like I said,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you can watch our show every Friday night live right
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: here on YouTube on our channel seven pm Eastern. We
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: do it again Wednesday night, seven pm Eastern live for
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: members only. We do a member's only show every week
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: every Wednesday. The Friday show is free for everybody. We
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Like I said, we do book review shows. We have
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: my random research ramblings with rob. Members get those episodes
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and episodes like this the book review early. So if
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you're interested in becoming a member, hey, try it out.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: If you don't like it, just canceled. But trust me
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you'll like it. You like it, so do yourself a favor.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Treat yourself a little bit. Splurge a little bit on
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: some lone guming podcast. You won't regret it. They're bangers.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Until next time, folks, we'll see you. Peace