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Suspicious Package on Friday
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Thursday, Oct 09 2008, 7:30AM

I never learned to play a musical instrument. I have huge, widespread hands and should have been a pianist.
One of my real DC letdowns is not figuring out how to get Condi Rice over to my house to play a baby grand piano I won at a Regal Cinema sweepstakes the night Team America: World Police opened. Don't ask me about this unless you have seen the movie, including the puppet sex scenes. I do wonder if Kim Jong Il saw it.
Since I'm so musically untalented, I have to vicariously enjoy the musical talents of friends -- and for those of you in DC -- "Suspicious Package" is the new hot sound.
The seditiously-branded band includes the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist TOM TOLES, the U.S. Trade Representative's hottest bureaucrat CHRISTINA SEVILLA as well as Bloomberg's TIM BURGER, the Los Angeles Times' terrorist-watching JOSH MEYER, and Housing and Urban Development (no. . .he's not the one responsible for the meltdown) BRYAN GREENE.
Suspicious Package, thus far has avoided the more predictable track of YouTubing its performances and launching a fan website -- but is instead relying on guerilla blog marketing to let the world know where it might catch a glimpse of "the package".
Tomorrow night -- Friday, 10 October -- at "The Red and the Black" at 1212 H Street. Show starts at 9 pm and Tom Toles recommends drinking before and after.
I am having drinks with someone on the FBI's watch list (seriously. . .) and then din-din with an Ambassador who is suspiciously cool -- but hope to catch the tail end songs of the band's next flight.
-- Steve Clemons
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Reader Comments (6) - post a comment
Teach yourself to play! You might not get very good, but you can get to the point where you can read music, play some familiar songs, and some "arranged" classical stuff in a year or two of practicing 5-15 minutes a day. There are lots of teach yourself and adult learning books (Bastien series works well enough). Get a kid version and an adult version and PRACTICE!!
You WON a baby grand piano??? wow....
And your DC reputation will be ruined!
I recommend a bass guitar, Steve. It´s the easiest instrument to
learn.
P.S.
But don`t touch that bass while Condi plays Rachmaninoff on
your baby grand. She`ll run out, and never come back!
Dear Steve, you must be the busiest guy in the entire capitol of the
United States. I enjoy but am exhausted from how action-packed
your life and work are. Thanks for sleeping a little less and sharing
what you are doing with us out in middle America. I love hearing
about and knowing how you spend your days. I also like hearing
about those cocktail parties some here razz you about. Any of us
would give anything to be there with you!




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