​Comments Of The Week is back! We're resuming our post giving away a free t-shirt to commenters who supplied us with our favorite comments, which range from the helpful to the "we have no idea what's going on here, but it amuses us." Email Web Editor Francesca Stabile (fstabile@villagevoice.com) to claim your prize if we have deemed you worthy. After the jump, this week's comments:

More >>

C.S. Muncy

​Today's Pride parade starts today at noon. After the state's passing of gay marriage, this one should be big. We will be in our usual Sunday position -- blogging -- but grab a rainbow flag and a flask and get out there. There are oiled-up gyrating men to ogle! The march starts at 36th and 5th and wends its way down to Christopher and Greenwich Streets. The Voice will be hanging out at the end of the route, so drop by for some contests and prizes! More info here.

[@_rosiegray]

Paul Quitoriano

​ Whenever we tell people what we do for a living we always get the same thing: "You must know what's going on in the city all the time," and "You must get invited to the best events." Well, yes and yes. But recommending events every freaking day of the year to you eccentric New Yorkers is not as easy as it sounds. We go to great lengths to preview the funniest comedy shows, weirdest art exhibitions, and craziest parties, which means we do end up going out a lot, and if that means taking off our pants in public, then so be it. More >>

​Before Carrie Bradshaw's ballerina skirt and Blair Waldorf's slutty/Stepford Wives silk blouses, there were Punky Brewster's ripped "boyfriend" jeans. In honor of the Metropolitan Museum's "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity," which explores the style evolution of American women from 1890 through 1940 (and opens today), we'd like to pay homage to an era that's had a special influence upon our fashion psyches -- the '80s. Here are 5 TV shows that laid the groundwork for the hipsters of today. More >>

There is not much with which we could possibly ornament what the New York Times said, in its article on that Facebook "Doppelganger" thing, about one of our most esteemed colleagues:

Wayne Barrett, the investigative reporter behind two probing books on Rudolph W. Giuliani, saw in himself a mixture of Robert Duvall and a bit of James Taylor. Mr. Barrett doesn't have a Facebook page, so the option of switching his picture to one or the other was never there. But his subject, Rudy, does. And who does Mr. Barrett see as the former mayor's doppelganger? "He always likes to play the godfather, Marlon Brando," he said, adding that "Rudy didn't just impersonate Marlon as godfather; sometimes he liked to be him." "As he's grown heavier and lost the comb-over," Mr. Barrett said, "it was no longer an audition."

Barrett doesn't have a Facebook page? So that's why he never answers our friend requests.

​Just got a few calls telling us that President Obama, during a meeting with Senate Democrats, referred to the GOP's recent Massachusetts Senate victory and quoted our headline, "Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate."

Per TPM, the President said, "There was apparently a headline after the Massachusetts election. The Village Voice announced that Republicans win a 41-59 majority. It's worth thinking about. We still have to lead."

"Good scolding!" says the American Prospect's Ezra Klein. Not everyone is pleased. "The President just quoted the far Left Village Voice," says Sean Hackbarth Online Communications Advisor to the Senate Republican Conference. "But he isn't an ideologue."

Hackbarth fails to mention that we're not just communists: We also run ads for dominatrices and a dating service for homosexuals. Some Communications Advisor! But we're sure someone will update.

And now, to the tape...

We've long been of two minds regarding the Reverend Billy -- is he a self-promoting shyster or a genuine visionary? A craven scam artist or a breilliant performance artist? Last winter we did have a delightful time shopping with him in the East Village -- he's a guy who's very hard not to like in person -- and this season, what with the spectacular downturn in the economy, his message of "Stop Shopping! "(which we hate) seems, alas, more prescient than ever.

Which is to say: Instead of going to department stores on Sunday, you might consider joining Billy and his 40-voice Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, who, according to an email missive, "Will fill your heart with holiday buylessness," at Dixon Place. Hear their new hit single: "Not A Lotta Shoppin' Goin' On!'"

The event is in honor of Jdimytai Damour, who was trampled to death on Black Friday at Wal-Mart.

From Newyorkology we learn online retailer Moss offers Gone But Not Forgotten finger puppets representing public figures who passed away in 2008 -- specifically Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jesse Helms, the Maharishi Maresh Yogi, Yves Saint Laurent, Charlton Heston, and Heath Ledger. We find some of the representations puzzling; the Maharishi is clearly identifiable, but is Solzhenitsyn the one dressed as Farmer Brown, or the grey figure with white wisps in his beard? And YSL looks like Milhouse Van Houten on prednisone. Perhaps children are meant to imagine these worthies in Hell, with their hideous deformities part of their eternal punishment. Well, it's never too early to teach kids about the wages of celebrity.

Christmas, with its charming folk tale of the Virgin Birth, offers an excellent opportunity to teach your children about religion. Little Moshe is playing with a top and listening to Adam Sandler, you can tell them, because of the magical tradition of Hanukkah; and little Webster is attending an Ethical Culture lecture on December 25th because his divorced parents celebrate the newer tradition of Atheism.

But how old is old enough for Cthulu? Amazon has for sale several gifts honoring the dark lord of H.P. Lovecraft stories, including plush dolls, a wreath, and the "Mini Secret Agent Cthulhu by Toy Vault." Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, which package should make for memorable bedtime reading. "The liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom." Night night! For curious children, we also recommend this companion volume.

Unlike us, reporting legend Wayne Barrett is no reflexive anti-Bloomberger, and admits the current Mayor's the best New York city or state official "I've covered in 31 years at the Voice."

But, says Barrett, "he's also the worst" -- that is, after a heroic first term, he became addicted to self-promotion and political intrigues. "Now, he's decided he wants a third term," says Barrett, "even though he still owes us a second."

Read Barrett's story here, and while you're in the Voice loop read Graham Rayman on the vicious killing of a teenager at Rikers, and Michael Musto on Ken Russell, Dan Savage on why a reader's dominatrix ended their relationship mid-session, Lynn Yaeger on Comme des Garcons at H&M, the latest "Indie Cribz" video with Amazing Baby's Will Roan, picture galleries, and whatever else catches your eye. It's all good and it's all free.