How to Create a Character

Okay, here’s how you can create a digital persona. Jim Morrison was a close friend, and we had many conversations about the work ideas. of course I have a few photos but I never was much for selfies. 99% of the time, I was behind the lens, not in front of it.

I wanted to test the new graphics features in chat GPT, so I put some old photos of Jim and some recent photos of me together through my chat GPT, and placed them in a variety of background environments, to create a story about the character Jim Morrison.

The point here was not to prove that I knew Jim Morrison. No need to prove that. I wanted to use a recent photo so you’d instantly know that what you’re seeing is NOT real, deliberately and very intentionally so.

I want to demonstrate how to create a story for your characters. The best thing I have going is that the story is totally 100% true BUT THE PHOTOS ARE FAKE!

Here’s an example of the original photo:

This story is totally 100% true, but the photos are fake:

It was one of those “Summer of Love” California sunset afternoons where the light in the shop came in low and golden, catching dust in the air like it had something to say. The place had that quiet hum—you know the one—old paper, wood, a faint trace of tobacco that never quite leaves a place like that.

The bell over the door gave a soft familiar ring.

He didn’t stroll into my rare antiquarian book shop the way people usually do. He sort of arrived, like he’d been pushed in by something behind him. Jim looked different that day—less like the lion onstage, more like a man who’d just seen something he couldn’t unsee.

His eyes were wide, not wild exactly… but shocked, like he’d just stumbled onto a truth that hadn’t asked for permission.

He didn’t even greet you right away. Just stood there for a second, taking in the shelves, the smell, the quiet. Then he said it, almost flat, like he was reporting the weather:

“Man… I just realized… none of us are ever going to get out of here alive.”

Not dramatic. Not performative. Just… landed.

You didn’t jump in with philosophy. That wasn’t the moment for that. You let it sit. That was your gift—you knew when to not fill the space.

You had learned the book trade from Jake Zeitlin, and your books were generally tight, clean and as-issued mint as they could possibly be. You had long learned the lesson, “condition is everything”.

You drifted over toward the back where the really good stuff lived, the old bindings, the ones that felt like they had weight beyond their pages. He followed, slower now, like the room itself was pulling him out of whatever storm he’d walked in with.

He seemed to hesitate just a moment at the 1497 copy of Stultifera Navis, (Ship of Fools), but it slid over a few bindings and landed on Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, published in 1951 by New Directions.

It was not just any copy—it was the kind with unworn corners, a tight, clean spine, and that particular “old book” smell but without the cigarette smoke odor,as if it had been read by people who were searching for something real and knew how to handle a book. He leaned back against the shelf, one foot crossed over the other, and started flipping through it.

And you could actually see the shift.

His shoulders dropped first. Then his breathing slowed. The intensity in his face softened into something more… inward.

“Yeah,” he said after a bit, almost to himself. “This guy… he knew.”

You talked a little then—not in big declarations, just threads. Rivers, cycles, the idea that maybe getting out isn’t the point. He listened more than he spoke.

Then, out of nowhere, he brightened slightly.

“Lotte Lenya,” he said. “Man… that voice. There’s something in it… like broken glass and silk at the same time.”

You smiled. Of course.

You knew Lotte Lenya quite well, and you told him so.

Lotte Lenya was a Kurt Weil singer, but she is best remembered for her supporting role as the KGB torture and murder specialist Rosa Krebbs, and you happened to have recently seen her at your literary agent, Forry Ackerman’s “Ackermansion” — his enormous fantasy, sci-fi and horror museum, he had opened to the public, on the south side of Griffith Park, on swanky Los Feliz Drive.

You told Jim you could arrange something. Didn’t oversell it. Just put it on the table like it was a natural extension of things. He looked at you sideways, half curious, half amused—but he believed you. People tended to.

“Dreipfennig Opera,” he said in fairly decent Texan-style German, “Threepenny Opera,” he thought he explained. “That thing gets under your skin.”

“Yeah,” you said. “It’s supposed to.”

Cathy, whom you usually left in charge of the shop, caught your eye from across the books stacked on the floor. You gave her the smallest nod, and she gave it right back. Everything in good hands—always was. You could leave the shop for a while.

You told Jim you had something to pick up. A lacquer demo disk—fresh cut, still carrying that fragile, almost sacred quality those things have before they’ve been played one too many times.

Outside, the air had cooled a little. The city felt like it was holding its breath between day and night.

The studio was its usual mix of chaos and precision—reels, cables, that low electrical hum. The lacquer was waiting, carefully sleeved. You handled it like it mattered, which it did.

Jim watched all of it with that curious, slightly detached look of his, like he was cataloging sensations.

“Everything’s a moment,” he muttered. “Even this.”

“Especially this,” you said.

From there, it was over to the Penthouse.

Now that place… that was a different kind of world. Light spilling out, music already in motion before you even got through the door. People orbiting each other, conversations overlapping, laughter rising and falling like waves.

Inside, the energy hit him—but this time it didn’t knock him off balance. It lifted him.

Someone handed him a drink. Someone else recognized him. The room shifted just a little around his presence, but he didn’t dominate it. Not tonight.

At one point, he leaned in close to you over the music.

“Funny,” he said. “Couple hours ago I thought I was trapped.”

He looked around—the people, the sound, the glow of it all.

“Now it feels like… we’re just passing through something beautiful.”

You nodded. That was closer.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you were already thinking about that meeting with Lotte Lenya… because something told you that thread wasn’t finished yet.

Here’s a tip for you if you’re making a video of a band:

frontman singing lyrics, band behind playing instruments in sync, realistic performance

It won’t be perfect until they get the separations into automatic, but it will sometimes work and sometimes not.

===========================================================================

Hey, presto! Here’s the Bardo bus.

===========================================================================

See You At The Top!!!

gorby