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154 Francio Guadeloupe

politician who didn’t want anyone to see him, so he decided to blackmail
the man. Taken aback and frightened, the man offered him US$50 dollars
so he would keep his mouth shut.
Happy as can be he went home and told his mother that just as she got
the tourists to give her nice tips, he got this man to pay him for his silence.
She was not too happy with what he had done and told him that if he
wanted to become a priest he had to go and confess this sin. The following
day while sitting in the confession box he recognized the voice of the man
who had given him the 50 bucks. As it turned out, he was the new Catholic
priest on the island.
Necessarily with such a story the phones began to ring as his fans called
in to engage the matter, and speak about Christianity and carnival. As
usual Clarke took all sides and at the end of the program he went back into
his story telling mode and claimed this time around that he used to be a
Catholic priest. He said that he got fed up with the job because SXMers
did not understand that they had to confess their sins and not their achieve-
ments. The straw that broke the camel back for him was a man whose
supposed sin was sleeping with his neighbor’s wife. Clarke said that if every
man and woman who slept around would take confession there would be
endless cues in front of the Catholic Church. Since he got tired of hearing
about everyone’s achievements, he left the preaching profession and became

Figure 6.3 DJ Clarke’s ideal church: who would not want to preach the Word
of God in this street temple! Photo by Pedro de Weever.