From the top
When exactly did everyone in the world I speak to, hear from, read online or pass on the street become a “sleep expert?”
Yeah, I know, like most maladies, I probably brought this onslaught of unwanted advice upon myself. I no doubt triggered the dread digital 'rithm that now runs our lives by doing something ill-advised, like … what, mail ordering some sleep gummies or an eye mask?
The buttloads of helpful “advice” flowing from this are about as welcome as an hourlong conversation with a Premera Blue Shaft insurance bot.
The list of providers of “sleep expertise” that have thoroughly chapped my ass in recent months includes:
Anyone, anywhere, who has ever offered an opinion on which time standard the West Coast should adopt as a permanent one, best lining up with what’s most “healthy and natural” for a human population meant to be hunters and gatherers, not doomscrollers, clockwatchers and featherbedders (see previous BellingHammer rant.)
Anyone with a bachelor’s degree or higher in a marginally health-related field, usually also on the shadow payroll of a major pharmaceutical or supplement conglomerate.
General garden-variety idiots of all flavors on antisocial media.
Actual university employees with PhDs who believe they have figured out the secret of life, which invariably involves treating your nightly sleep as a spreadsheet-complicated process. This, they espouse for people who have little strength to do anything beyond flicking a light switch and collapsing face forward into a supine position.
My goddamn wrist watch, which gives me a “sleep score” every morning based on what seems like abjectly junk science fueled by the unfathomably skimpy data points of time/heartbeat.
THAT LIST also should include, of course, click-whore media folks who spew out endless takes on the Hot New Tip that might help you sleep off that pitcher of margaritas — or worse, actual necessary-life situations — in the least-harmful way possible.
Earlier this year, one of those big reveals made its way into The New York Times, a notable fearless champion of the First Amendment, no-knead bread and Wordle. The paper quoted a buttload of research leading to two completely unstartling revelations:
Most U.S. adults do not have a consistent sleep schedule.
This may be harming their health.
Everyone involved here clearly is a candidate for the hotly competitive Ya Think? category in next year’s Nobel Prizes. Anyway in the interest of TL;DR the article (you can read it yourself if you need to take the edge off) goes on to warn all of us that poor sleep hygiene should be added to the growing list of things that can and will eventually join forces to kill you.
The newspaper, which, with the rather large exception of that Iraq War (see: Judith Miller), is always helpful, offers some tips for golden slumbers from the “sleep experts” themselves:
Set an alarm to go off an hour before your bedtime, every night, to remind you to go to bed. (I am not making this up; apparently what people REALLY NEED IS ANOTHER @#_$(*@#$ ALARM TO SHUT OFF to help them relax into slumber.) They note that this alarm might also remind you to “do something relaxing during that hour,” including enjoyable pursuits such as reading, meditating, prank-calling an ex, or spraying a garden hose at your neighbor’s stupid cat.
Expose yourself to sunlight every morning — ideally for 20 or 30 minutes at the exact same time every day. It is best to go outside and do this, notes a panel of experts, none of whom clearly has lived in places where the rest of the world lives.
Get more REM and deep sleep. (Duh!)
Get a white noise machine. Or read a Ross Douthat column.
OK, THAT LAST ONE is a joke. Sort of. And he (inexplicably) is leaving for the tattered remains of 60 Minutes, anyway. But fortunately, BellingHammer himself, by nature of the fact that he has successfully gone to bed and then risen more than 20,000 times(!) over the course of his largely unproductive, often sleep-challenged life, is as of today also a self-appointed Sleep Expert!
If you’re anything like me — and god help you if you are — the problem is not so much getting to sleep, but staying asleep. Especially as one gets to that magical age when facts and details that seem impossible to summon from the murky mental depths during the day all stand up and dance a Conga line across your consciousness at approximately 3:15 a.m.
The solution is simple: You just need to learn to silence these mental voices.
To get the full story on how to do this, and a half-off coupon for an untested herbal supplement endorsed by The Pillow Guy and others, you’ll need to sign up for BellingHammer’s Deluxe Subscription Nighttime Bliss Package (details soon). But for now, as a public service, he’s willing to part with his list of uninvited random mental subjects that SHOULD BE AVOIDED AND/OR PUT TO THE SWORD AT ALL COSTS:
"How can the prescription drug Tremvaya achieve “visible healing of my intestinal lining” when, aside from rare disemboweling accidents, I usually can’t see my intestines, even from the outside? Can Mark Zuckerberg or Sen. Rand Paul, R-Hallucinogenics, see inside my intestines? Isn’t that a HIPAA violation and don’t I need to sign a waiver for that? What did Dr. Fauci know about this, and when? And couldn’t I achieve the same result by ingesting bleach?
(Note from BellingHammer’s legal counsel: Please DO NOT ingest bleach, or really, anything else, under claims from a Substacker, nor the sitting President of the United States and/or his appointed lackeys, as these have not been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration, which currently is headed by a retired circus clown.)
The man who walks around 24/7with lackeys toting a device capable of launching weapons that would destroy the planet via nuclear warfare is a delusional, low-functioning buffoon prone to temper tantrums based on demonstrable personality disorders and perhaps, sheer insanity. Should I be concerned? (Back to sleep, back to sleep.)
Tomorrow is Friday. Is it the day to schlep the blue-topped Stupidly Oversized Recycling Toter, containing “recyclables” to the curb, or is it the day to schlep the yellow-topped Stupidly Oversized Recycling toter, also containing “recyclables” but inclusive of chicken wings and pizza detritus, to the curb? What happens if I take the wrong one? Will this impact my credit rating?
Why do I have to buy a new lawn sprinkler every single year? Can no one on the planet make one, at any cost, that will keep oscillating for more than six or eight weeks? How did we get to this point? How do we get away from it?
Is the term “white noise” racist? How can I be sure?
Is 1,200 USB cords really too many? Why does whichever one I try not fit until I turn it upside down seven or eight times?
This one cheeky young friend of mine keeps telling me I should will her my home, paying forward the gift of privilege as a form of “generational reparations.” I keep telling her she must be high, but doesn’t she sort of have a point?
Is Four Seasons Total Landscaping still in business now that Rudy Giuliani isn’t?
And so on.
In coming weeks, I’ll share my own tips on ways to push these thoughts back to the craphole place they really should occupy in your brain. As soon as I get rested enough to figure all this out. In the meantime, please direct any emergency questions about sleep patterns, circadian rhythms, Samba rhythms or smoked pork products to the White House Comment Line, 202-456-1111.
Anvil
Small, swift blows for sanity struck here weekly!”
Who’s Next ‘Under the Bus?’ You can count on those three words popping up in any news about the current Trump “administration,” the cabinet thereof having long ago earned the title, (apologies to David Halberstam) of The Worst and the Dullest.
Backseat Banter: At any given moment, someone in the White House Inner Circle of Stench is about to be thrown under said bus, to serve as a pressure-relief valve for the acute toddler-conniption tendencies of the occupant of the Gilded Oval, who has an IQ seven points below a common geranium.
This Week: It was Jeanine Pirro, the pro tem Secretary of Chablis, who reportedly had to grovel, weep and genuflect (all at once) to keep her job after abjectly failing to convict anyone from tampering with the pool liner in the Capitol reflection pond. (Ironically, the “President,” likely having never successfully completed this task himself without assistance, said she “folded like an umbrella.”)
Next Week: Who knows, or at this point, even cares?
Only One Thing is Clear: With two-plus years still to go in the national running nightmare, due to all the buildup of body parts in the undercarriage, they’re going to need a bigger bus.
Or Perhaps: An entire new fleet of Trump-class mass-transit vehicles.
Meanwhile, Let’s All Keep On Fighting: The former Cold War, which as nobody in D.C. noticed, ended in 1989. Latest chapter: The new class of true-relic battleships that Trump insists, like most other inert objects in the nation, must bear his name, now looks like it’ll cost a LOT MORE than originally promised. All to provide target practice for the Russians, Chinese, or any other marginally militarily well-equipped nation in a real shootin’ war.
Trump’s “Golden Fleet:” Now has an estimated price tag of $275 billion for 15 ships, The New York Times reports. You’ll know them when you see them: Serious bulging amidships, equipped with special howitzers with barrels that turn back on the operator before firing.
The First: The “USS Defiant,” now has a projected cost of $23 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Names for the additional ships have not been announced, but rumors on The Hill indicate leading contenders for the additional Trump Class of lumbering drone targets include: USS Daunted, USS Belligerence, USS Duplicity, USS Comb-over, USS False Equivalency, USS Fearmonger, USS Featherbedder, USS Dullard, USS Vapid and USS Bigot. The full battleship package also comes with a hospital ship and tender, designated USS Clorox and USS Cracker Barrel.
Actual, Unedited Rationale for Building the Ships: From the Commander In Chief’s own porcine-pursed lips last September: “I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships. I used to watch ‘Victory at Sea.’ I love ‘Victory at Sea!’”
On the Other Hand: Building the ships would provide temporary seagoing jobs for tens of thousands of young Americans who can one day look back and proudly tell their grandchildren they did a tour of duty on a Blithering Idiot Class naval vessel.
Actual Major Newspaper Headline: From large metro NYC daily this week: “Breaking news: Childhood vaccine supporter confirmed as C.D.C. director.”
Meanwhile in Washington the Greater: Because of two confirmed positive tests, BellingHammer’s local health authorities sent a bulletin to his mobile device this week urging him not to “touch or handle” wild bats. Which is just like something the the killjoys over there would do to ruin everyone’s wild-bat touching and handling plans for the weekend.
Next Week: Those nanny-state health department deep-staters, clearly all Biden Admin admirers, will probably be warning people not to drink the brackish, cyanobacteria-laced algal-bloom water piped into homes ringing nearby Lake Samish.
Oh Wait: That was last week, and it was serious. But you get the point: It’s just another small step toward robbing our individual liberties, which, up until now have ALWAYS included the freedom to touch, handle, caress, fondle, converse, two-step, or do whatever we want with wild bats. Not to mention fetid ditch water.
Excepting of Course: Allowing either to play in high school girls’ sports competitions, which obviously would lead to the downfall of society as we know it.
We Kid: Our friends at the health department. Leave the damn bats alone, people. Like the geriatric heavy metal acts appearing at your local casino, they consume a lot of insects.
Breaking Big Election News: In BellingHammer’s town, with democracy literally on the line (again), nearly two thirds of eligible voters chose not to. Well played, folks.
The Big Local Scandal: Actually a pretty good one: It’s complicated, but apparently involves who was sleeping with whom at the county prosecutor’s office — and who did what, when and why to either deal with it, or allegedly cover it up.
Big Surprise: The only one of four primary election candidates with a solid alibi, outsider and public defender, Ryan Swinburnson, got the most votes. Hot take: If there ever was a local establishment in need of a thorough housecleaning more badly than BellingHammer’s long-neglected Escrow Heights home office, it’s the prosecutor’s office.
Out of Tune: Official legal notice arrived midweek that at least two (of the currently three) members of the duly elected Bellingham Port Commission were planning to attend the otherwise-notable Subdued Stringband Jamboree at the Deming Log Show grounds. It’s unclear if the legal notice was to denote that no official Port bizness will be done there, or just a warning that two of them might actually pick up a banjo and/or attempt to harmonize (unlikely if one is Bobby Briscoe.)
And Ahem, Does This Mean: One of them didn’t get invited? Super awkward.
Workbench
What’s cluttering the BellingHammer’s countertops this week
The Washington Post: Preflight sermon gets plane preacher kicked off Alaska Airlines flight, (gift link) by Hannah Sampson, July 31, 2026. I long ago promised a corporate flack that if Alaska Airlines, the leading carrier around here, ever did anything even tepidly meritorious, I would be sure to point it out. Well, here you go. Nothing is more offensive than a pushy evangelical inflicting their view on a captive audience.
Poynter.org: A community can have local newspapers and still lack local news, by Jennifer Nehrer, July 29, 2026. Demonstrably true. (See: Bellingham, pre-2022, with a big neon newspaper sign atop a downtown building and literally nothing beneath it. Fortunately no longer true, thanks to recent competition.) But the “ghost newspaper” phenomenon described here is very real and remains a clear danger to democracy. (I have long maintained, and I believe have since helped demonstrate, that the appearance of a watchdog press where none exists can be more dangerous than no presence at all.) Note the interesting angle of public supported reporting positions allowing the masquerade to continue as corporate owners install a free employee in place of one or more formerly (poorly) paid ones.
New West Records: Jerry Lee Lewis - Live From Austin, TX (Limited Edition Color Vinyl). Never been a passionate fan, but this record, acquired along with a bunch of other tasty New West vinyl reissues of legendary former Austin City Limits performances (some of us grew up on these, likely contributing to our poor late-night sleep-prep habits!), hits every note, pushing the undeniable originality of The Killer right into your living room in a hair-raising way. Flaming classic rock ’n roll from front to back, meant to be played loud. “Jerry Lee’s got the bull by the horns!” he croons in the midst of “Whole Lotta Shakin’.” On that day in 1983, he clearly did. The disc itself is flaming red. And it’s a keeper.
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Laugh out loud funny all the way through. This one convinced me to switch my free Substack subscription to paid. You're welcome.
Thrilling. Just plain thrilling to get to read and laugh at your stuff again and never has a subscription been more worthwhile. PS: unless you shop at an acoustics lab, those white noise machines don't actually produce white noise. So if you just call them noise machines, you will be both accurate and freed from one persistent 3am worry. You're welcome. It's the least I could do in exchange for the laughs.