By now I hope some of you have seen at least one of the Dark Path webisodes.  I’m sitting here listening to Zombi  and hoping that people will dig the music video format. I had a great time working with my music supervisor, Toddrick Spalding, listening to all kinds of cool stuff and trying to understand why some music supports the story and some music will fight the story and some music is just pure sensation that calls up imagery for me like dialing 911.  (And of course some music is more like a stray cat that will go home with anyone.)  I like to leave my music videos open to some interpretation, because music moves people in different ways and I’ve always thought that the images that accompany the music should allow the viewer some emotional and narrative leeway.  So those of you who know my work, know that I revere ambivalence as the road to truth. (ha!)  But I also love stories and Vampires in particular tend to have a lot of back story because of their age.  So if you’re interested in histories of my vampires, read on.

Jurgen (played by Carson Aune) was a reluctant soldier of the Third Reich.  He was made a vampire towards the end of World War II by his Kommandant, Lucas Schmidt (played by Joseph Gatt)  War and chaos create evil and it should come as no surprise to learn that there were vampires working openly with the Nazi Army.   As the German army retreated in front of the Russian army, Jurgen made his way to the Baltic coast and managed to find his way into a coffin on a troop ship returning to the United States.  The boat landed in  North Carolina and his coffin was loaded onto a train to Los Angeles, California.Los Angeles is a character in The Dark Path Chronicles. I chose it as a location because it’s a damn good place to sell your soul.  There’s that crossroads in Mississippi where Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil, but after that, L.A. is first choice for most serious sellers.  A lot of the humans who live in Los Angeles are living out some kind of fantasy if not an outright lie regarding their true identity.  And of course that’s true for the vampires who live here also.Here is Jurgen’s description of what it was like for him in California: “Vampires have certain powers to read minds and to learn quickly, but I was a young vampire and my skills in everything but the Dark Path were limited. I quickly learned that feeling against the Nazis was strong in America and my thick German accent made it difficult to blend in or seduce victims.  In my grief and exhaustion, I resolved to bury myself in the ground, perhaps forever.  I dug a pit in the hills above Los Angeles and went to sleep.Immediately I began to dream of Enid. In those first years of sleep, my dreams of her were like a necessary torture.  Without them, I might have dreamt of those final weeks in Memel.”Luke and Jurgen have been enemies since World War II but Luke and Enid have been together for centuries. Enid, (played by Elena Caruso) is strikingly beautiful and it will seem at first like all she wants to do is drink blood and have fun. She interacts well with humans and she owns the Alucard Bar in Hollywood, which closes at dawn.  In fact, even though she is a babe, she is actually the oldest vampire in the story. Legend has it that she was fathered by Taras Bulba, in the 16th century, but she claims to be one of the favorite daughters of Genghis Khan, which is way before Vlad Dracul terrorized Transylvania in the 15th century.  Most vampires believe she is exaggerating, which she has a tendency to do.  Her name in the old country was Anna Ivanova.  If you think that Enid has an attraction to Jurgen, you’re right. She can’t help being drawn to younger men.Samantha (played by Amanda Bauer) told you some things about herself in my last blog, but sometimes it’s interesting to hear another point of view.  Here’s what her sister, Lisa (played by Lisa Lambert) has to say:Mom isn’t around much.  She sends money but not every month and sometimes it’s not very much.    She’s in Arizona right now with her new boyfriend.  So I take care of my sister, Samantha, pay the rent,  make sure food is on the table and all that.  Samantha is alone most of the time, because I have to work and she couldn’t cope with school. She’s working on her high school equivalency at home right now and she studies all the time.   She’s really smart, but also really naïve.  And oh yeah, she hears voices.  The school psychiatrist said she might be bipolar or even schizophrenic so now I try to keep her away from people like that who judge her harshly.  Sometimes she makes me crazy.Copyright Mary Lambert 2008