Our weekly recap of the best feature stories from around the internet.
This week actor Brendan Fraser talks to GQ about why he disappeared from Hollywood. Photo: AFP
What Ever Happened To Brendan Fraser?, by Zach Baron, GQ
“He laughs a small, sad laugh. “This is gonna really probably be a little saccharine for you,” Fraser warns. “But I felt like the horse from Animal Farm, whose job it was to work and work and work. Orwell wrote a character who was, I think, the proletariat. He worked for the good of the whole, he didn't ask questions, he didn't make trouble until it killed him.… I don't know if I've been sent to the glue factory, but I've felt like I've had to rebuild shit that I've built that got knocked down and do it again for the good of everyone. Whether it hurts you or not.”’
Worst Roommate Ever, by William Brennan, New York Magazine
“Yet even after all of this, Frost approached him to try to negotiate a peaceful exit. She offered to return the money he’d paid in November and to help him find a new place to stay. Hearing her entreaties, Bachman just laughed. When Frost burst into tears, Bachman pretended to comfort her, she said. “He goes, ‘You’ve got your whole life in front of you. You’re pretty, and you’re talented, and you’ve got this house — well, you don’t have this house anymore. This house is my house.’ It was like something out of a movie.”’
Last Call: Unplugging the Kings Arms, by Chris Schulz, New Zealand Herald
“Ask anyone who's been to the Kings Arms, and stories roll off the tongue faster than bar staff can pour beer. Buckle in: it gets wild. There's the time Deja Voodoo's Chris Stapp was dared to climb over the venue's two-storey noise-restricting concrete wall just to score a free beer at a D4 show.
"I scaled up their 'Rock N Roll Motherf*****' banner," he says. "I have no idea how I got down on the other side." Why'd he do it? "Jimmy [Christmas] dared me."’
What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns, by Heather Sher, The Atlantic
“I have seen a handful of AR-15 injuries in my career. I saw one from a man shot in the back by a SWAT team years ago. The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat travelling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.”
The fascist movement that has brought Mussolini back to the mainstream, by Tobias Jones, The Guardian
“In those years, Iannone was more rock star than blackshirt. His informal movement was more about music than manifestos. CasaPound’s in-house lawyer, Domenico Di Tullio, was once the bassist and vocalist in a far-right band called Malabestia, “evil beast”. He was introduced to CasaPound when Iannone was teaching Thai boxing in a gym. “CasaPound has always been,” Di Tullio said, “halfway between politics and rock’n’roll.” Iannone was a canny entrepreneur: he co-founded a right-wing music label called “Rupe Tarpeia” – the name of the Roman rock from which traitors were thrown to their deaths.”