VITAL’s predictions for 2009

By VITAL Source Staffers JON ANNE WILLOW – CO-PUBLISHER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF No matter how hard Wall Street works to lure private investors back into the market, ordinary citizens will go back to saving the old fashioned way: stuffing cash in their mattresses. By June, Verlo will offer an all-new custom model, The Saver 3000, which will include a hidden chamber accessible only with a card and PIN number. Sure, they’ll be uncomfortable as hell to sleep on, but Verlo will sell scads of them to freaked-out Baby Boomers, not only securing their own financial future but providing hundreds of jobs right here in Wisconsin. The Obama Administration’s new motto will be “A windmill in every yard.” AMY ELLIOTT – MANAGING EDITOR In 2009, the stupid but prevalently held idea that “deaths happen in threes” will take on a whole new level of mystical garbage meaning when a trio of prominent world leaders – Kim Jong-Il, Fidel Castro and, in a “freak accident,” Vladimir Putin – kick the bucket. Somali pirates will take over Cuba, Moscow will be annexed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and North Korea will allow Kim Jong-Il to rule from the grave. Also meeting their demise in 2009: million-year-old and long-presumed-to-be-already-dead Structuralist philosopher Claude-Levi Strauss; actors Sidney Poitier and Peter O’Toole; former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca and the already mostly decayed Amy Winehouse. James Brown, on the other hand, will be crowned the Funk Messiah when he unceremoniously rises from the dead on Christmas day. BRIDGET BRAVE – PRODUCTION MANAGER After its victorious parlay into the national consciousness via the New York Times, the Journal-Sentinel’s “Wasted in Wisconsin” series will continue to spread, resulting in a five-part BBC series, MTV True Life Special (“I Drink in Wisconsin”), and several obscure Family Guy references.  Milwaukee will celebrate by doing a shot every time the city is mentioned by name. RYAN FINDLEY – ADMINISTRATOR/FINE ARTS EDITOR Gas will make a head-spinning ricochet back to astronomical prices. This ricochet will bring the boomerang back into style with a vengeance. And speaking of vengeance, God will hold off on striking us dead because, in electing Barack Obama, Americans have bought ourselves a few years with which to prove we’re not the awful human beings and wretched global citizens we appear to be. So, no plagues of locusts or rivers of blood or any of that stuff. Which is kind of a nice thought. ERIN LEE PETERSEN – CALENDAR EDITOR Unsatisfied with the Bronze Fonz’s lukewarm reception but still high on patina chemicals, VISIT Milwaukee will collect funds to bronze other pop culture icons loosely associated with Wisconsin. By year’s end, visitors to Milwaukee will be able to take souvenir pictures with Laverne & Shirley, the gang from That ‘70s Show and the entire cast of former TGIF fave Step by Step. The city’s main attraction, however, will be a life-sized depiction of that scene in Wayne’s World where Alice Cooper explains the Algonquin origins of Milwaukee to Wayne and Garth. Erin Lee Petersen […]