“In these troubled times,” as a weenie college president would put it today, we need to acknowledge the random acts that make life a little bit brighter for people, especially those acts that might file themselves permanently in an individual’s “thrills and fond memories” collection.
In the video above, the singer/songwriter known as Jewel (her real name is Jewel Kilcher) provided one of those random acts. At 49, she’s past her pop culture stardom prime by about two decades, transitioning into the “Masked Singer” contestant and “Star-Spangled Banner” stage. But she’s sold 30 million albums, and qualifies as a major singing star, if one whose fan base now mostly qualifies as middle-aged.
Jewel was recruited by the website “Funny or Die” for a stunt reminiscent of the old “Candid Camera” show. She agreed to submit to extensive make-up and wardrobe subterfuge to disguise herself, and to visit a Karaoke bar as a mousy, reluctant recruit to go on stage and sing some of her own songs. The results can be seen in the video. First the crowd is thrilled at the spectacle of an unlikely candidate revealing herself as a genuine talent, and later, when she revealed her true identity, joyful in the realization that a celebrity singer had given them an unexpected fun experience they could tell their friends and family about.
I love this kind of thing. Back in 2013, Ethics Alarms saluted Neil Diamond for spontaneously and for no compensation leading Red Sox fans in their nightly “Sweet Caroline” serenade. I have been consistently critical of Mandy Potenkin, but he has revealed in interviews that when a child recognizes him in public as “Inigo Montoya” from “The Princess Bride,” he leans down and whispers in the kid’s ear, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Celebrities can abuse their unique status in our society, or they can employ it to bring a little joy into our hum drum lives, as Lena Lamont so memorably said…
Good for Jewel.
Ethics Alarms 
I love stories like this. Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith fame, is known for acts of kindness as well.
My little hometown of Scituate, MA throws a Heritage Days festival every year. One year, the weather not cooperating at all, the scheduled musical act decided to cancel. Word got to Tyler and he showed up, unannounced to the crowd, with his acoustic guitar. He sat on a wooden stool, under a small tent, with the rain coming in sideways, and played for almost an hour for maybe 50-75 people. No charge. Just did it. But he’s a local boy that way. He can often be seen pedaling around on his bicycle, stopping in for an ice cream cone, or downing oysters at an ocean front shack.
Now, did yours truly see him play this impromptu concert? Of course not. The weather was miserable so I ducked into an Irish pub to wait it out. It wasn’t until the lucky attendees came pouring in the door all hyped up by what had just occurred. * sigh *
Does he still look after parrots?
I have no idea. I’m assuming he still has a place in NH and a place on the South Shore. Don’t know if it’s his Marshfield Hills home, or not. I just know that I’ve missed running into him on several occasions by mere minutes. The universe hates me.
We hear a lot about celebrities canceling or showing up late, I’m glad some still have class. Good for Jewel.
There’s this independent musical group The Longest Johns who specialize in sea shanties, that used to do “undercover” stuff like this on-line in the Sea of Thieves video game. It would usually be one guy playing, and his bandmates would be there in the room in microphone range. He’d ask random players he met if he can sing a song. If they said yes the whole band would start singing:
https://youtu.be/GeMWNvNyV38?si=eKYeKmPTb39a6Ip8&t=55