"static" electricity implies charge on insulating surfaces or insulated bodies. When static electricity is discharged, the must be a flow of charge or _current_.
A human is very approximately one terminal of a 100pF capacitor, with the other terminal ground. On a dry day it is possible to charge this capacitor to 50kV. Discharge this in 1mS, and you have significant current, with perhaps 0.1 watt-second delivered.
I think that a neon lamp would be better as an indicator than an LED. An LED will light with uA of current, even though they are generally rated at 20mA. The neon will do a better job of tolerating all of the high current spikes from the capacitor discharge, and since it operates at higher voltage will probably give off more light for the same amount of current.
-Jon
