Tonight is the last night that you’ll flip by NBC to avoid ER. Hey, I used to like it. And I loved that they did the show in Chi. But there’s only so much drama you can take. The kid dying, the old man dying, the kid getting abused, the old man dying, the love stories, the kid losing his parents, the old man dying. Does George Clooney come back tonight as a ghost? Please tell me he does. SHOOTING THE S$%# I got here a little early today and had the great fortune of the time honored tradition of shooting the s*&^ with the morning reporters. Tony Arnold was in to debrief for Eight Forty-Eight and we just talked about the debate last night, then about story ideas and of course, funny stories from the newspapers. The one that caught our eye was the “ironic” item in Sneed’s column. North Dakota didn’t vote for Obama but Obama still gave them flood support. Ironic? No. That’s called being the President. Also, what was with the black/white text on the cover of the Sun-Times yesterday? ALDERMAN ED BUS IS REAL! Eight Forty-Eight aired a piece about a 53rd Ward Alderman taking the IOC on a tour of real Chicago. It started an interesting debate here in the City Room about whether or not we should tell the listener if the Alderman is fictitious or not. Some go the Andy Kaufman route and don’t care if the audience gets it or not. Others want the joke to play so they think letting the audience in is a good thing. The Alderman is the brainchild of Schadenfreude, a comedy group in Chi which I am a member. We used to have a show here on CPR from 2003-05. If you are dying to see what Alderman Ed Bus looks like, well, here’s a video of the good Alderman giving real Alderman Scott Waguespack the rules of the road. See, I told you he was real.