America Pulls Out of Middle East (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 2 December 2011)

After a horribly long, sweaty and mutually painful ordeal, America finally pulled out of the Middle East, spilling white-hot democracy all over the tired and bruised Fertile Crescent.

America looked pleased with itself, leaning back and folding its arms triumphantly as it came all over the aching and weak region that it had pinned down. Liberally covered with a gooey veneer of sticky capitalism and shame, the diverse group of nations was thoroughly exhausted and "didn't feel very comfortable with itself anymore." It only added insult to horrible, horrible injury when Iraq was blinded by a stray shot of salty freedom.

The ordeal began years ago when America awkwardly yet brutally forced itself on the region, much like the creepy yet surprisingly stronger older man who refills your oil when your car breaks down on the side of the road and then ties you up in the back of his truck so he can take advantage of you.

The assault continued for years as America continued to slam the unprepared territory with its stiff rod of unrelenting justice.

While the region was said to be "dressed provocatively," "far from innocent," and "totally asking for it," many observers agreed that the assault was completely undeserved.

Once it had finished ejecting its payload all over the sore and helpless Middle East, America wiped itself off and turned to leave. Throwing one last smug grin towards the huddled mass of emotionally fragile Arabic nations, America roughly told the humiliated and defeated region to clean itself up.

Russell Brand Mistaken for Zombie (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 2 December 2011)

Famous British actor Russell Brand, 36, was mistaken for a flesh-eating zombie while strolling through the streets of downtown London Tuesday evening. He was subsequently beaten with a variety of blunt objects in an effort to prevent him from causing people any harm.

Brand was walking out of a local Starbucks in the West End when a particularly paranoid British teenager pointed and screamed that the zombie uprising was beginning. The teen immediately took action, hitting Brand over the head with a large steel shovel from a nearby construction site and loudly insisting that Brand was the animated remains of a corpse with a hunger for human brains.

According to eyewitnesses, Brand dropped his macchiato and cursed.

Other youths in the area then rallied to support their friend, gathering cricket bats and billy-clubs with the intention of stopping Brand's allegedly murderous and mindless rampage. Bewildered onlookers didn't know whether to come to Brand's aid or to attempt to light the soulless corpse on fire.

"I'm glad that those responsible teenagers took it upon themselves to give that foul zombie a good what-for," commented one anonymous onlooker. "It's right scary to think what could've happened if he'd gotten loose."

When asked for comment Brand only said, "Bloody hell, get the fuck off of me.

"Piss off you fucking twats," he added.

Harold Camping Suffers Existential Crisis (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 2 December 2011)

Harold Camping, 90-year-old radio broadcaster and predictor of the apocalypse, recently made another announcement on his radio show declaring that the rapture of our souls from our bodily vessels and subsequent catastrophic end of times will occur on December 21, 2012.

Camping appeared totally shocked when informed that his most recent prediction happens to be identical to the date supposedly predicted by the ancient Mayan calendar.

Veteran of at least two apocalyptic predictions already, Camping has seemed out-of-sorts ever since his botched attempt at predicting Jesus' second coming this last May.

"He used to put so much joy and enthusiasm into telling people the world was ending," said a close friend of Camping who wished to remain anonymous. "He was really passionate about making people panic. Now he barely ever picks up his annotated copy of the book of Job. Just once I want to see him write down every letter again and start putting words together Scrabble-style," she said wistfully, raising her voice a little. "It just pains me to see his slide-rule and abacus go unused for so long."

Out-of-sorts or not, Camping has refused to accept that he might have just stolen this prediction from the Mayans.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Camping said. "I've reevaluated my figures from May and they all point to 2012!" When pressed about the figures, Camping quickly explained that he had forgotten to count the 'P's in the book of Malachi. "P's are a symbol for the ephemeral power of the trinity in the Bible, so you can see how that might've thrown off my calculations," Camping stammered. "Also, in Ancient Israel they--uh--counted differently, so the days of the week--oh just screw it," Camping sighed dejectedly.

"I don't even know what I'm doing now. I'm not even sure if telling people the world is ending is the right to do," said Camping in a rare moment of weakness and sincerity. "My heart just isn't in it anymore."

Chapel Hill Police Limit Halloween (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 1 October 2011)

After several years of slowly putting limits on the extent and duration of the Halloween celebration on Franklin St., the Chapel Hill Police Department has decided to up the ante in order to restrain the festivities and ensure civilian safety.

Charles Pickem, spokesman for the Chapel Hill Police Department, outlined the new security measures at a press conference on Wednesday, taking pains to emphasize that they are all in place "for our own good." The item on the agenda that received the most feedback was the plan to limit all Halloween festivities to the section of Franklin Street between Pita Pit and the Varsity Theater bus stop.

"First of all, I would just like to say that the Pita Pit is a fantastic corporation run by fantastic people, and a more than perfect location for a small group of teens to meet and have nice, safe, family-friendly fun," Pickem explained, eagerly extolling the virtues of the ambiguously ethnic eating establishment. "Ah ah ah, no buts," Pickem quickly retorted after a member of the audience questioned the feasibility of the plan.

"What's more, I want all of you in bed by 8:30 sharp," Pickem added harshly. "You have school in the morning, for crying out loud."

Deliberately ignoring the numerous groans and eye-rolls, Pickem went on to describe the rest of the restrictions in detail, including a strict no-tolerance policy concerning visitors from out of town. "They're loud, they always bring their trouble-maker friends, and I frankly just don't trust them."

It is unclear exactly what prompted this unprecedented increase in Halloween limitations, but UNC students appear uniformly displeased. "Quit babying me," one whiny student exclaimed, "I can make my own decisions!"

Pickem only shook his head and sighed. "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you," he intoned convincingly. "But cheer up," he added brightly, "if you get all your homework done beforehand then maybe we'll drop by Cold Stone on the way home!"

Hollywood Out of New Material, Shuts Down (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 1 October 2011)

Hollywood put a freeze on all film production yesterday after an emergency meeting between all of the major studio executives produced nothing but tears and a drunken night of commiserating. 

The executives were meeting to discuss what insiders have been calling “a decade devoid of a single new idea.”  They mourned the sad state of their industry and eventually decided that what Hollywood needs is a break to recover from the concentrated creative meltdown that has brought filmmakers to their knees, begging for a single original thought on which to base a trilogy. 

None of the executives gave any hint as to how long the shutdown would last, but one executive seemed to think the freeze was unnecessary.  “Hollywood is FULL of fresh ideas!” he slurred emphatically.  “And talent! And err…ORIGINALITY!” He giggled, drooling all over his bowtie.  “We’ll reboot the WHOLE GODDAMN PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN FRANCHISE!”  

The few executives still nearby covered their faces with their briefcases and hurriedly got into their limos.  “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do! We’ll remake it all! We’ll get Tobey Maguire, and Gene fucking Wilder,” He screamed at the sky, waving his umbrella around like a pirate’s cutlass. ”Yeah, THAT’S what people want to see!”

It is unclear exactly what this untimely production freeze means for the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on the film industry, but all of the sober studio executives were confident that this was only option.  One executive was interviewed at a local Burger King after the meeting. “I knew it had to happen as soon as I started getting movie ideas from my son’s toy box.  That was rock bottom." 

He paused to briefly cry into his shitty strawberry milkshake. “ I know it’ll be tough for a lot of people, but it’s our only option.  To keep making movies right now would be to put America through incredible amounts of bland and uninspired torture, and I don’t want to see our movie-viewing public suffer any more than it already has.”

Reflections on a Week Spent in the Best Dressed Country in Europe (The Belltower LCM newsletter spring 2011)

My sole regret about our trip to Germany is that we saw no more than *zero* Germans wearing lederhosen.  I was sorely disappointed, so the "Best Dressed" might have been meant sarcastically. Probably.  Although Germans do have an impeccable sense of fashion.

Now that may’ve been a little disappointing, but the rest of our time in the marvelous land of bratwurst was anything but.  Not only did I have an amazing time exploring Eastern Germany with 49 close friends, learning about Martin Luther, seeing all kinds of historical monuments and beautiful cathedrals, climbing all over the walls of an old castle, and celebrating my 19^th birthday with a 4:00 AM win against Duke, but I also learned a lot about Lutheranism, as well as my own personal faith.  

We toured nearly all of the historic sites from Martin Luther's life, and we gained a lot of insight into Luther's perspective and his ideas about Christianity.  What I got the most out of, however, was not learning about Lutherans in the 16th century, but seeing Lutherans today.  On our first Sunday there, we worshiped at the Augustinian Cloister in Erfurt, where Luther had first become a monk.  Barely any of them spoke more than a few words of English, but I instantly felt a sense of community and kinship with the other worshippers around us.  Even though we came from completely different cultures and didn’t speak the same language, we were all there for the same purpose, and that was more than enough.  This was only one of several times that we got to meet and worship with other Lutherans.

Strangely enough, some of the strongest memories of the week that I have were made in a place not directly related to Lutheranism at all.  This place was the Buchenwald concentration camp, which we visited for an afternoon on our first Saturday in Germany.  There's no way I can adequately describe this experience and what it meant to me in this limited space, but I will do my best.

We arrived at Buchenwald in the early afternoon, after eating lunch in Weimar. Soon after arriving, we watched a short film about the events that occurred there, and then split up into small groups to wander the remains of the camp.  There were only a few buildings still standing, including the gatehouse and its fence, the disinfection facility, the crematorium, and a few other random barracks.  Most of this area, however, consists solely of rows and rows of rubble.  The remains of the many buildings that housed prisoners so many years ago.

Now for a while, I took care to walk around these tall piles of old building materials, but eventually I began to question my reasons for this.  Why walk around these monuments to memory when I can just as easily walk all over them?  I began to do just this, walking directly on top of the rubble.  I didn't try to stop myself from thinking about what these buildings represented as I worked my way through and over them, but instead I made sure to recognize this.  With every step I took, I acknowledged the reality -- the brutal reality -- of all the pain, death, and hate built up beneath my feet.  This was immensely gratifying and thought provoking for me.  I wasn't carefully walking around these memorials, quietly paying my respects; I was taking care to walk on and above them, and I could see much farther and clearer because of that. 

Another powerful experience from our time there occurred at the very end.  Right before we left, the 50 of us gathered near the entrance of the camp, in a circle around a special plaque.  This is a famous plaque, adorned with the names of the many different ethnicities and nationalities of the people who died here, and kept at a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees.  After each of us had knelt down to touch this living memorial to so much death, we crowded together, tightly gathered around the plaque.  Then we all put our arms around each other and said a prayer over it. This was an incredibly powerful and moving experience for me.  I don’t know if it was the sanctity of that spot, the power of the memorial and what it stood for, or the fact that we were a community from far across the sea, coming together closer than ever before to mourn the lives of these people we had never met.  What I do know is that I don’t want to forget that moment, and I don’t think I will.