Interview with author Asa Dunnington - The True Story Of Emmett Long

Interview with author Asa Dunnington - The True Story Of Emmett Long

What's up, people?

How are you doing?

• It's a great day.
• Yay!
• And this is the author's edition.
• Oh, yes.
• I have a live one on the show today.
• For the author's edition.
• We have Asa Dunnington today, and he's going to be talking about his book, Selectively Lawless.
• Now, I want.
• I wanted to say this, and I didn't want to say anything, but I remember riding a horse named Lawless, and he bit me.
• So I'm kind of skeptical about this book.
• I'm kind of skeptical about this book.
• It's called the true story of Emmett Long and american original.
• Welcome to the show, Asa.
• Thank you.
• I did.
• I was young.
• We went on a camping trip or a horseback riding trip with my school, and they gave me this horse named Lawless, and he bit me.

So whenever I hear Lawless now, I think of that horse.

• Probably long gone by now, but.
• Oh, my gosh.
• So, tell us about yourself.
• Thank you.
• Tell us about yourself.
• I'm retired.
• I had a 30-year career in sales management and then a 15-year career at FedEx.
• I got tired of white-collar politics and decided to do a blue-collar job for the rest of my life.
• Wow.
• That says a lot.
• Excuse me.

I'm sorry about that distraction.

• That's
• That says a lot.
• Wow.
• Anyway, he was my ex-wife's uncle and the black sheep of his family, and I met him when he was 65 years old.
• We spent a week together at a motel that he had bought in New Mexico.
• And he knew I had a writing background.
• When I was younger, I was a sports writer in Southern California for a daily newspaper.
• So I think he had reached the point in life where he wanted to share his life story.
• The week we spent together was all about him sharing his life story with me.
• But he told me I couldn't write it until he passed because he killed four people.

Oh, wow.

How did that make you feel?

• Well, he was the most fascinating character I ever met.
• And not all of the people that he killed.
• I guess a couple of them deserved it, but he regretted killing the other two.

Anyway, I couldn't write the story until he passed.

• After he passed, I sat down and in ten days, I wrote 12,000 words.
• I was able to recall everything he had shared with me.
• Then I got a ghostwriter, Bill Maddox, and together we expanded the 12,000 words to 60,000 and republished it.
• Wow.
• Yeah.

How was that?

• All those years, carrying that secret with you.

What was that like?

It was.

• I couldn't wait to tell the story because I knew the story would be so fascinating to people.
• And it's a bit of a
• Marikana tells a story about a guy who survived during the prohibition and did it his way.
• A lot of people are probably thinking, yeah, ask the question that is on everyone's mind right now.

Were you scared when he told you he had killed four people?

I mean, was he married to your sister?

I mean, how did that make you feel?

• I mean, seriously, like psycho.
• Like crazy.

Crazy or what?

• No, he was my wife's uncle, and he was an imposing figure.
• He was six foot, 215 pounds, and part Native American.
• But we just had good chemistry, yeah, from the time that we met, and I was never fearful or worried about being in his presence.
• Wow.
• That is crazy, though.
• That is absolutely crazy.
• So let's get into the book, because obviously, this is a true story about him.
• Emmett Long.
• Tell us what we can expect just a little bit from the book, because this is fascinating.
• He was the son of a lay minister and a sharecropper.
• And the family, to survive during those days, did a lot of fencing in the southwest, in Oklahoma and Texas, and they did a lot of picking cotton.
• And he was on a cotton field with his family when he was 14 years old, and he told his brother, my ex-father-in-law, I'm not picking cotton anymore.
• And he walked off the cotton field.
• He had a cousin who was a card shark.
• He went and spent a couple of weeks with her, and she taught him how to cheat at cards, and he used that skill to go on the road.
• And he returned to his family 18 months later with $18,000 in a brand new Buick roadster.
• Wow.

How many 14-year-olds could accomplish that?

• No.

Wow!

• My goodness.
• He seems like he had a really interesting life.

The question remains: you holding that information and then giving it up at his passing, how did that feel for you?

And did it feel criminal in any way?

• No.
• Even though I know that he had a past on the other side, if you will.

I was.

• Well, let me put it this way.
• Where he came from in Oklahoma, he grew up in Cash, Oklahoma, which is the Comanche headquarters. And where he grew up, it was a link to the old west.
• And I looked upon Emmett as a character out of the old west because he bridged the way things were done in the old west and managed to survive in bad times.
• Wow!
• Wow, what a story.
• What a story.

If you could go to the book and get out your favorite part, what would that be?

• My favorite part is that in 1966, Caesar's Palace opened in Las Vegas, and Emmett received a call from Benny Binion, who owned the Horseshoe Club in Vegas.
• And Benny was connected to the mob, so to speak.
• And he told Emmett, the mob's getting ready to open this casino.
• He said, 'I think we can rip it off.'
• Emmett went to Las Vegas, checked into Caesar's Palace when it opened, and on the first night there, he won $25,000.
• Oh my gosh!
• But Emmett told me that he never sat down at a poker table to play.
• To play poker.
• He sat down to win.
• So he stayed there for two weeks and accumulated half a million dollars.
• Wow!
• The mob knew that he was cheating them, and he knew that they wouldn't let him leave with the money, but he managed to get the money out of there and split it with someone.
• Got it.
• Oh my gosh!
• That is absolutely crazy.
• And the way he got it out of there, I'm not going to share with.
• Of course not.
• You would be giving away the book.
• Yeah, I know.
• I'm not going to share that with you.
• But I'll just say this about Emmett.
• He was a good judge of character.
• He had good common sense, and he had guts.
• He had to have had some guts.
• Now I'm telling you.
• Oh, my goodness.
• This book is just getting juicier by the moment.
• I'm telling you.
• Oh, my gosh, Asa.
• Goodness gracious.

So what do you want people to get from this book as they read it?

• Emmett's life was colorful from the beginning, and the way he copes with the challenges in his life is worth reading.
• For example, he was a bootlegger, and he was able to function free of the law in Oklahoma because he paid the Comanche Indians a dollar a piece to vote for his sheriff.

So he controlled local law.

• But he did get caught by the feds, and he did go to Leavenworth federal prison when he was in his early twenties.

Oh, my gosh.

• You've got to get the book, guys.
• This is juicy.
• This is juicy, Asa.
• This is juicy.
• Well, it gets better.
• Yeah, because when he was in Leavenworth, he met William Hale.
• Now, if you're familiar with the movie that just came out, 'Killers of the Flower Moon' with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Emmett met William Hale in Leavenworth.
• And Hale.
• And he connected to the extent that Hale asked Emmett to help seven prisoners escape from Leavenworth while he was there.
• Oh, man.

Oh, man.

• This is in the book.
• It gets to be a movie.
• It has to be a movie.
• You're kidding me.

Is this in the book?

• It'll be a sequel to Killers of the Flower Moon.
• Oh, my gosh.
• Asa.
• Oh, man.
• Oh, man.
• Guys, we can't talk about this anymore.

You just have to go ahead and get the book because this is just like, what?

Asa?

• This could be a movie.
• I'm trying.
• Oh, yes, well, try harder.

Goodness gracious.

So, Asa, where can people find this juicy book?

• Well, my website is asadunnington.com.
• It's also on Amazon and Barnes Noble.
• Awesome.
• Well, we're going to have the link in the description.
• Five stars on Amazon.
• Yes, I know.
• I see that.
• And five stars on Barnes and Noble.
• Well, all I have to say is we're going to have the links in the description box below so that it'll be easy for you guys to go ahead and go check that out, that book for yourself.
• Just check it out.
• It's juicy.
• It just sounds like one of those books, like popcorn and a drink, curled up on the couch, going, that's me right there.
• I can already see it, Asa.
• I can already see it.
• I can already visualize it.
• I'm a visual person here.
• I can see it.
• Asa, thank you so much for being on the show.
• Wow.
• And wow, that book.
• Oh, my gosh, already.
• Thank you already.
• And I haven't even read it yet.
• Thank you.
• And thank you guys so much for tuning in.
• Don't forget to dare to be different.
• Until next time, guys.
• Bye.
• Go read the book.
• Go read that book.

- Selectively lawless.

• The true story of Emmett law.
• It's been a pleasure.
• Oh, the pleasure is mine.
• Thank you.
• Wow.