Here's a little short I put together from footage for an AT&T Commercial I did a while back.  Directed by Adam Goldstein, starring the incomparable Camden Singer.  Thanks to Harvest Films!! Great production to work on.  By far the best commercial I've done!

Trailer for "PRATTLE: Your Words Are Empty And So Is Your Heart (now in black and white!)" from Start to Finish Films on Vimeo.

We're screening the film!!!

Saturday, August 6th, at 8:00pm

Admission is free and it's open to everyone. Plus, there's a rooftop (birthday) party to follow! Should be EPIC fun.  RSVP here: INVITATION

Downtown Independent
251 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Beach time!

Pretty sure Kinsley is sitting here.  Or Cosette is a giantess.

Does eating sand hurt a child?  So far, no repercussions.

tickle time.

Morning jog around Tarroja.  Those are rows of vines, hand tended, on old terraces hewn into slate soil.  At sunrise.

off for an outting to more bodegas and then toward the coast.

Looking back on Torroja from across the Priorat Valley

Wine!

Most of the grapes grown in the region are Grenache and Carignan.  The best wines we tasted were a 50/50 mix.  Some from 90 year old vines.  90!

The region was named after a Prior and this monastary at which he lived, worked, and grew grapes. 

drive to the coast.

This is what sending-work-emails-from-vacation looks like in Priorat

Outdoor patio at our bed and breakfast

And then the wine tasting!

The Priorat is covered in hills that are made of slate: the soil is almost like gravel, except made of all these tiny flat stones that retain a small amount of water.  It's very very good soil for growing grapes. 

Fun for adults.

Boring for children.

But in nearly every place we went, the spainish locals were extremely friendly and welcoming to kids.  Even when Cosette or Kinsley started squirming, they never gave us the: oh-you-brought-a-baby-to-a-wine-tasting?? Wonderful people.

On this afternoon, we wandered into a town where we knew we wanted to have lunch - a restaurant called La Coperativa that exclusively uses foods from gardens and farms in the town and surrounding area.  We showed up and the poor couple who runs the place wasn't ready for guests yet, so they asked us to come back in 45 min.  That ended up being a huge blessing because, unbeknownst to us, in this town, was the bodega Sangenis I Vaque.  We wandered in to this family's wine tasting room (slash-bottling-room-slash-labeling-room-slash-wine-shop.  Always a good sign when they produce so little that they use the space for... everything).  It just so happened that we were in a bodega selling one of the - if not THE - top wine in Spain, their Clos Monlleo.  Here's a review:

The 2000 version of Clos Monlleo is something of a collector’s item in Europe and it’s very tough to get. It was rated as the “1st greatest quality wine of all Spanish wines” by Tom Stevenson (who has wide-ranging respect in Europe - almost like Tanzer) and it was also rated in the “Top Ten of all Spanish Wines” by Decanter.

This is what we love about traveling!  Discovering the hidden gems.

Yep. I kind of feel guilty for even posting this photo...

This is Priorat - primier Spanish wine country.

Tarroja, Priorat, Spain

Johnny Stevens - Photographic Partner in Crime.

So now that the photos are over, I'll explain a bit more.

On day 5 we rented a car and drove from Barcelona to Reus - a small airport an hour outside of the city that Ryan Air calls "Barcelona."   Who - if they were operating in the US - would be sued for false advertising.  I mean, come on.  Anyway.  So we drove down to Reus.  Driving in a foreign country is awesome because you see so much of the countryside that you'd otherwise miss.  The driving explains why I didn't take a larger variety of photos this day.  Anyways.  We picked up our friends Brooke and Johnny Stevens (and their daughter Kinsley).  They're missionaries in Slovenia and we always try and connect with them on these trips.  Anyways x 3.  From Reus we drove another 40 minutes into Priorat - a hilly, slate covered countryside that is perfect for something wonderful: growing grapes.

And all of that lead to this ridiculously beautiful setting above.  And wine.

For a good portion of this trip I found myself having a hard time sleeping.  Some mix of jet-lag, insomnia, and angst contributing, I often had several hours in the morning with time to do something better than stare at the ceiling.  Fortunately I'd packed some running shoes - and on day 4 I took a run down La Rambla to the water to watch the sun rise. 

Occasionally, carrying a camera with you pays off with a photo that you can't replicate.  There are lots of photos I miss day-to-day, but on day 4, the one above I got.

"PASHTA!"

her fav.

However, even if it's her favorite, it's sometimes hard to get her to sit and eat it when there are so many fun distractions.

The big girl wants to do the pushing now.  Outside of the Cathedral in the Barrio Gotic on Easter.

And she wants to be the one taking photos.  It's her artistic choice - inverting the image like that.

Top 3 photos I've taken that some how encapsulate my relationship with Cosette.

Eating tapas-style is a great way to go with kids.  We don't have a table - so it's easy to pay and duck out quickly when Cosi gets squirmy.  But we still were able to taste great food!  And how cool is this: it's all on the honor system.  They just count your toothpicks when you're done and charge you for each "pincho" you ate.

I can't remember if this was a post-breakfast, pre-lunch, post-lunch, pre-nap, or post-nap park run.  In Barcelona there were so many little playgrounds, we did all of those.  Oh wait, I think this one was a post-dinner but pre-bath park run.