Now Entering Nerdist.com.

Well, howdy, folks?

I'm Leonard Malton.

This is Malton on Movies,

and I'm joined today by my daughter, Jesse.

Hello.

And we are joined by one of our favorite people, the ambassador of Americana, a man who is

elevated kitsch to new levels of respectability, but always with a twinkle in his eye.

I'm speaking of Charles Phoenix.

Welcome, Charles.

Thank you.

I've never heard it quite put that way before, Leonard, but I like that. Elevated Kitch. Yeah, you know, I take it very seriously. What I say that I do is I celebrate classic and kitschy American life and style. So I can throw in some of the stuff that isn't kitchy, you know, along with the kitch. But, you know, to me, I don't really look at it as kitsch or whatever. I just kind of overall look at it as retro Americana.

Sometimes to like a 25-year-old, they say, you know, what do you do or whatever?

I say I'm a vintage culture vulture.

And so they kind of like can get that.

It's like, you know, retroamericana.

What's where, what's Americana mean exactly? You know, what does Americana mean?

So I'm the guy who's come along that's trying to redefine and kind of pull Americana into the mid-20th century era, pop cultural era.

And you're dedicated to it and you do a wonderful job.

Now, if you haven't seen or heard of Charles, this will be your introduction,

a verbal introduction. I wish it was a slideshow. A verbal introduction that requires you to go

check him out online because simply magnificent. You have to not only go to his website and try to

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