Last Wednesday I went to Santa Monica to have lunch with a friend.  We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant right on 3rd Street Promenade.  For those of you who have not been to “3rd Street”, it’s Santa Monica’s version of a European thoroughfare – an avenue running several blocks where no cars are allowed, with shops/restaurants lining the entire length of the boulevard.  It’s very cool indeed even though there are no strip clubs for women.

So here we were, eating lunch outside like hip Euros not in Europe when I began to take notice of some really, really out of tune singing.  Just a few feet from us was an African American street musician in a wheel chair, singing classic hits from the 70′s, 80′s, & 90′s.  He was not a gifted singer by any means.  In fact, he was tone deaf and would make William Hung sound like Celine Dion.  Dressed in his finest winter garb and sporting medical-grade glasses for the blind, he would butcher every single song he pulled up on his iPod.  Now you would think that someone who sounds like an out-of-tune, nasal whistle would repel all those within earshot.  But that was not the case at all.  There was a large crowd gathered around him and I found myself eerily drawn to his music.  I wanted to hear more.  But why?  The guy was terrible!  My theory is that he was singing from his heart so deeply and from such a raw, personal place that his passion and charisma entranced the surrounding listeners and trumped his supreme vocal suckiness.  Crazy, huh?  There he sat, singing with tremendous emotion into a 1930′s replica mic as if he was performing in Lincoln Center.  He sang stuff like Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You” and an endless string of other famous hits.  It sounded like shit but people loved it.  I loved it.  Sometimes pure joy can go a long, long way.

Have you ever encountered/experienced anything like this?