* Daily Mail UK: Elton John could turn us gay, says archdeacon.

* ABCNews.com: Tobago deacon: Ban Elton John: He’ll make you gay.

* Reuters: Tobago Christian leaders want Elton John banned.

* BBC Entertainment: Tobago clergy urge Elton boycott.

* VH1’s Best Week Ever: Performance anxiety.

* Miami Herald: Clerics oppose

Elton John performance.

* New York Post: Temptation Island.

The last headline was especially tempting. T&T has walked in the valley of temptation nuff times, but has feared no evil. Bombs go off in Port-of-Spain, little girls get beaten and killed by their fathers, mothers go missing and fathers get decapitated, but we march on fearlessly—in fearless self-righteousness.

We too nice.

Pentecostal PR

CCN TV6 first broke the bacchanal with glee a couple of weeks ago, knowing born-agains would feel nice, liberals would get vex, and the rest of us would follow the soap opera with the raptness of an ODI at Sabina (or, for Elton fans, any given beauty pageant).

A black man smiled broadly for the camera in his finest black suit under the blistering Tobago sun and called John’s “lifestyle...questionable.” I found it questionable to wear all black in the sun.

Then he boldly went where no Pentecostal had ever gone before, saying: “His visit to the island can open the country to be tempted toward pursuing his lifestyle.”

Judette Coward have nothing on this black suit. What a great PR move. His flock must now have certainly found its shepherd. Can you hear what the angels do sing? Ca-ching!

Indeed, Elton John’s is one hell of a lifestyle. If he sings on the Jazz Fest Sunday we’ll all be gay by Monday. John has worn more costumes than Juliet De La Bastide, although, being a lady and all, they were more Marie Antoinette than Rio ho. And his collection of suits rivals those of bitter philanthropist Jack Warner, pastor/politician Ian Alleyne and the late humanitarian Dole Chadee. (But give Jack his jacket for his eye for colour, mostly greens and purples.)

I mean, who is Elton John to Tobago? That is one man (“man” being debatable) to a whole, gargantuan, 116-square-mile island. Don’t test cuz Tobago is the best. (They rip off the “S” off a-Superman chest.)

Tobago, after all, is known across the globe for white-sand beaches, Kinesha Thom and tolum. Everyone in the world knows Tobago, especially after Ring Bang.

Or do they? The comedians on VH1’s Best Week Ever didn’t quite know how to pronounce its name. And then they made fun of their own ignorance (as well as the island’s) for the whole 20 seconds of the clip.

Every calypsonian, comedian and caricaturist in this country makes fun of people and things, mostly Bas, but also Bush and Blair and Paris Hilton.

But a posting from a Trini on the VH1 Web site said “shame on you, VH1, shame.” Kristy Ramnarine wrote in Tuesday’s Express that the show “made a mockery of Tobago” using much “ridicule.” And almost every young person who saw the clip on the Internet or on TV hoisted a manicured finger and said, “How dare they?”

To-bay-go, To-bah-go. I felt flattered we get a mention.

Maybe if we’d said something right it would have been nice.

Pussy Jaw

Perhaps, just to be fair, the brilliant writers at VH1 should have done their homework and found out we’re really not that averse to allowing all sorts of performers to come here: cussbuds, convicts and strippers.

Chippendales and Thunder Down Under came multiple times, as did the women they entertained. Buju Banton, Elephant Man, Sizzla and Vybz Kartel, all well-respected for their advocacy of violence and hate, are coming over the weekend Christ was killed to conscious-up the joint. And DMX was arrested five times in one year, the fifth being in Port-of-Spain.

But a line has to be drawn somewhere. And that’s where the Tobago intelligentsia got it right.

The aforementioned three are permissible individually. The last represents a release of self-expression (cussing); the second, release of opinion (“Faggot fi get copper to de heart” in Vybz Kartel’s lilting ditty Pussy Jaw); and, the first, a release of vaginal fluids.

Then in comes big, fat, open, gay Elton John. Lord have mercy: he represents all three.

But it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, and I’ll be there to witness the homosexual perform.