Welcome to the Atelier
Album of the Day: Saturday August 30, 2025
Tom Waits
Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)
Nighthawks at the Diner is the third studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 21, 1975, on Asylum Records.
(Opening Intro)
Emotional Weather Report
(Intro)
On a Foggy Night
(Intro)
Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)
(Intro)
Better Off Without a Wife
Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)
(Intro)
Warm Beer and Cold Women
(Intro)
Putnam County
Spare Parts I (A Nocturnal Emission)
Nobody
(Intro)
Big Joe and Phantom 309
Spare Parts II and Closing
Creature Double Feature: Saturday August 30, 2025
Zombeavers
(2014)
It started, like most beaver-related incidents, with a truck spilling toxic chemicals into a river, which happens more than you think. Enter three college girls go to a cabin in the woods for what they thought would be a relaxing weekend of gossip, sunbathing, and bad relationship decisions. Instead, they got beavers… get your head out of the gutter - radioactive ones. And not the kind you can trap with peanut butter and a two-by-four. These were bigger. Hairier. Hungrier. Like regular beavers, only they had glowing eyes and the work ethic of a chainsaw factory on double overtime. Pretty soon, the cabin was under siege. The girls fought back with shotguns, axes, and a level of upper-body strength I didn’t see coming. From there, we have college students, poor decision-making, and weaponized rodents. A nightmare of fur, teeth, and small wooden dams being built at an alarming pace. As these zombeavers attack - they chew through wood, doors, and boyfriends with equal enthusiasm. The infection spread quickly. If you were bitten, you didn’t just get rabies or splinters - you turned into a beaver-human hybrid. All of this is a reminder to keep our rivers clean, our cabins locked, and for heaven’s sake, avoid rodent-based horror weekends - and if you see a beaver with glowing eyes and a hunger for flesh… don’t try to pet it or learn why the hard way.
Directed by Jordan Rubin
Written by Al Kaplan, Jordan Rubin, Jon Kaplan
Staring
Rachel Melvin as Mary
Cortney Palm as Zoe
Lexi Atkins as Jenn
Pontypoll
(2008)
Pontypool is a movie about a deadly outbreak in a small Canadian town. But unlike most outbreaks, it isn’t caused by a virus, bacteria, or even expired poutine. No, this one spreads through words. The story follows a radio DJ and his team, trapped in his station as chaos erupts outside, discover that the English language itself has gone rotten. Not all of it, just the dangerous parts. Certain words start acting like viruses, infecting people’s minds until they turn violent. The outbreak spreads fast. Ordinary townsfolk suddenly go berserk when they hear the wrong word. Imagine if saying “syrup” or “hockey” turned you into a lunatic. To stop the infection, they discover they need to scramble language itself. Change what words mean, twist their definitions, confuse the virus until it has nothing to hold onto. The message is clear: language is powerful, Canada is scarier than it looks, and if someone starts repeating the same word over and over, don’t correct their grammar. To summarize: it’s a movie about zombies, but with verbs. And adverbs. Possibly dangling participles.
Directed by Bruce McDonald
Written by Tony Burgess
Staring
JStephen McHattie as Grant Mazzy
Lisa Houle as Sydney Briar
Georgina Reilly as Laurel-Ann Drummond
Midnight Movie: Saturday August 30, 2025
Motel Hell
1980
Motel Hell is a heartwarming film about family, small business, a touching story of Farmer Vincent, a man who runs a roadside inn with his sister, and the importance of eating locally sourced food. Farmer Vincent and his sister run a quaint little motel on the side of the highway. To the untrained eye, it looks like any other roadside stop—clean rooms, reasonable rates, and a meat smoker out back. They make their own brand of smoked meats. The slogan is simple: ‘It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.’ What they don’t mention is that sometimes the critters are… people. The process is fairly straightforward. Vincent kidnaps travelers, buries them in his garden up to their necks, and treats them like crops until it’s time to harvest. Then he turns them into sausage. Not exactly farm-to-table—more like interstate-to-table. You’ve probably stayed at motels before where the breakfast was questionable, but never to this degree. Things get complicated when Vincent falls for a young woman he rescues after a motorcycle accident. Between the romance, the secret garden full of buried heads, and a showdown involving a chainsaw and a pig’s head mask, it’s safe to say Motel Hell isn’t listed on AAA’s most recommended lodging. In the end, Vincent admits on his deathbed that his real crime wasn’t cannibalism, kidnapping, or mass murder. No, it was using preservatives. A shocking revelation, and one that makes you think twice about reading the ingredients on a package of sausage.
Directed by Kevin Connor
Written by Robert Jaffe & Steven-Charles Jaffe
Staring
Rory Calhoun as Vincent Smith
Paul Linke as Bruce Smith
Nancy Parsons as Ida Smith
Drink me: Thursty Thursday August 28, 2025
They’re Coming To Get You Barbara
Muddled berries and blended whiskey
blended whiskey, sweet vermouth, muddled blackberries, cranberry juice, and bitters
Alchemy: Saturday August 30, 2025
Urban Legend Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pop Rocks
Give it to Mikey, he’ll eat anything. Is it fancy? Is it candy? It’s like dreaming about eating champaign and strawberries at Willy Wonka’s. But if Robert Englund shows up with a Pepsi go for a nice glass of milk instead before you turn into Violet Beauregarde.
Alchemy: Friday August 29, 2025
South Park Elementary Fish Sticks
Yo, yo, hold up, hold up. Everybody keeps talkin’ ‘bout this fish sticks thing like it’s funny, like it’s a joke. Nah, see, y’all don’t understand the vision. Fish sticks ain’t some late-night cafeteria food - fish sticks are art. Golden. Crispy. Dipped in the sauce of creation itself. When I bite into a fish stick, I’m biting into destiny, into genius.
But every time I walk into a room, somebody wanna say, ‘Hey Kanye, you like fish dicks?’ NO. No, I don’t like fish dicks. I don’t even know why y’all keep saying that! I’m a creative prophet, I’m the voice of a generation, and you think I don’t know the difference between sticks and-? Man, stop playin’ with me!
Book of the Month: August 2025
The Daily Bugle, November 5, 1982 — Special Edition
"MUTANTS IN THE CROSSHAIRS”
TRUTH BEHIND Stryker’s CRUSADE
By Eddie Brock, Daily Bugle Staff Writer
In a chilling display of zealotry masked as faith, Reverend William Stryker—former military man turned televangelist—stands at the center of a rising wave of anti-mutant violence. Under the banner of his so-called “ministry,” Stryker has unleashed a campaign that’s part sermon, part witch hunt, and entirely dangerous.
Sources confirm that Stryker’s private forces—armed, trained, and disturbingly devout—were behind a series of coordinated abductions and attacks on known mutant civilians. His goal? Nothing short of genocide, carried out under the guise of "divine cleansing." This isn't a fringe movement…
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills
by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Brent Anderson, Frank Miller