Justin Bieber in 2015, courtesy Lou Stejska/WikiCommons.

I noticed Justin Bieber’s face has been leading the news the past day or two.

Like all his devoted fans, this saddens me to (no, it doesn’t; not really).

Bieber said in a video Friday he’s postponing tour dates because he has Ramsay Hunt, a virus related to shingles and chickenpox that his doctors say is likely temporary. I wouldn’t wish facial paralysis on anyone … almost anyone.

I honestly don’t really care even the least bit about Justin Bieber’s face. If you’re my age and care about Justin Bieber’s face, may I suggest you try getting a job as a judge on a ridiculous major network dance show. There’s enough of them.

I have my own kids with issues. I have a 20-year-old daughter who worries I’m not presenting the cat his food in a way that will maximize his consumption frequency. Sadly, the following is the absolute truth: I found a plastic knife near the creature’s food bowl this morning. In my experience, this indicated that sometime after I went to bed at midnight, my intelligent, cosmopolitan daughter was lying on the floor, cutting up and mixing smelly cat food into what she believes is an acceptable cat-kibble-to-wet-Fancy Feast RPM (ratio per mouthful). I also know, believing there might be a temperature problem, she tried refrigerating it earlier that evening.

 

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That was right before I came home to a TV nature show blaring in an empty room that she switched on because the cat “looked bored.”

She does this so the poor abused kitty – which bit me three times the past 24 hours – will find his free food presentable enough to bother eating, adding to his caloric intake to give his body a better opportunity to covert calories into energy, therefore providing him enough strength to keep biting me into next week.

I repeat: The food is free. He doesn’t even offer to pay.

I have another daughter who currently also has a very serious problem: She’s tired from graduating middle school, getting awards, going to parties, and being whisked off to Washington, D.C. and New York City with 70 of her closest friends the past week.

The kid is absolutely exhausted from too much fun.

The girl—whom I’ll call Lucy, because that’s her name—did, however, buy a book for her history-loving father about Abraham Lincoln in the theater in which the famous vampire hunter actually got shot. So, for now, she’s my favorite daughter.

But I must admit if half her face was paralyzed, I’d be threatening doctors to unfreeze it as soon as possible or I’d let my angry, starving cat loose in their office. So I sympathize with Justin Bieber’s face.

The story I initially saw about Bieber’ face said: “Justin Bieber shocked the world on Friday showing a video of his Ramsay Hunt syndrome condition that shows half of his face completely paralyzed.”

Well, not the whole world.

Now, my first inclination was to immediately draw a contrast between a pretty, 28-year-old pop singer who hasn’t had to clip his own toenails since he was 14, and all the absolute misery in the world right now. And, yes, quite often that’s just me … but not right now.

Why? Because I’m just like you. My kids and their cats say they don’t want what I feed them, I tell them what I was told: “Find me a box, because we’re shipping your dinner to India.”

We have this annoying habit of minimizing the suffering of others to make us look better. And we LOVE when the suffering is among those richer and better-looking than us.

Sure it’s an annoying juxtaposition when ruminating on gunshots recently becoming the leading cause of death (in 2020) for children a year old and above for the first time since the CDC began tracking such data, while “public servants” dumber than cat food – not the cat; the food – change the subject.

The fact of the matter is this: The guy can’t move his face. That is probably scary. If I had a face like Justin Bieber’s – and this is no joke – I’d be worried about it not working right. What the world really needs – beside fewer easily bought moron politicians – is empathy and compassion. At least it feels that way today.

So without saying I hope your music goes away (because how annoying is it when screaming children actually like good music?), get well, Justin. Like judges on ridiculous dance shows, I’m sure you’re needed somewhere.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.