The Portholes Mixtape
THE logline
A world famous rock band is cancelled for accidentally killing the last living sea turtle on earth, so they are forced to take the only gig they can find as the house band on a cruise ship run by a tyrannical failed lounge singer who is always plotting their demise.
Think Archer meets Spinal Tap, on The Love Boat.
THE SIZZLE REEL
Self Produced on the cheap.
SONNY HICKS
Chaotic Good
The frontman
Sonny Hicks, brother of Ray Hicks, and ex husband of Ellie Rigby is a chaos grenade often unaware of how much shrapnel he imbeds in those close to him when he goes off. Starved for attention from an absent mother and a father who left at birth, he will find a way to to get all the attention, either by outrageous behavior or misplaced people pleasing. At first glance he seems like a bottomless pit of charm and charisma, but in reality it’s just his masterful masking abilities from a lifetime of substance abuse and undiagnosed and unbeknown to him neurodivergence . He drew the short straw to sign Levi’s adoption papers but the weight of never meeting his own father makes it feel more like a calling. He generally means well, but is best in very tiny doses. He doesn’t help load equipment because his instrument is always with him.
Ellie RIGBY
Lead, lead, or lead in the way
The GIRL
Ellie Rigby was named after The Beatles song and hates it. She will make you feel stupid if you ask her if that’s where her name came from. She is strong and well adjusted considering the giant amount of bullshit she has had to go through in her life. She was briefly in the military during her self described “patriotic era”, though politically and philosophically she is mostly just a member of the church of common sense and intellect. If Sonny plays to the crowd, she plays to the song with an intensity and drama few guitar players in history have been able to achieve. If she weren’t a woman, she would have placed much higher on the Rolling Stone top 100 guitarists of all time list. She sees her placement at 79 as an affront to her identity and a challenge to break through. She was married to Sonny shortly after the band’s formation and initial success. It was an intense, passionate, and short ride. She later married Ray years later, and although they lasted a few extra months, their relationship shared the same fate. She is a quick tactical thinker, with a fierce energy. You want her on your team or else you will probably lose. A natural born leader although often underutilized as just band mom which eats away at her. Instead of speak her mind and complicate an already massively complicated dynamic, she usually just pushes it down and drinks, although she is much more functional and way better at hiding it than Sonny.
RAY HICKS
Has a "this is not a pipe" tatoo.
ThE "GENIUS" ARTIST
Ray Hicks, brother of Sonny Hicks, and ex husband of Ellie Rigby is the under appreciated genius artist of literally no ones dreams. Although he has a demonstrably high IQ and techically is even a member of the MENSA foundation, you would have your doubts upon meeting him. This is also his greatest weapon as his low key and often whiny behavior makes you least suspect him as a worthy adversary. He listens to a lot of Brian Eno but secretly doesn’t “get it” and would be devastated if anyone ever knew that. So he just keeps trying. His ramblings about high concept art and true expression are often cast aside or mocked, but when what is happening inside Ray’s brain actually comes out in practice it usually is a truly profound masterpiece.
LEVI HOBBES
Diamond in the Rough
The KID
Raised in an orphanage in Brooklyn, NY. He picked up the drums at school, and was quickly asked into the local university’s gifted youth program. Of course he wonders about who his parents were, but he truly does not know any better and is surprisingly resilient and optimistic about life. The only one in the group who truly never had any privilage to excersise and maybe the only one with anything real to complain about, yet still his innocence and wonder are very much intact. Originally the orphanage could not legally release him to play on the ship with the band as he was still only 17, but with international waters and a “quickie adoption” from Sonny, he joined the band after the sea turtle disaster and the original drummer another one of Ellie’s ex husbands) Cliff’s death.
LYNN MOON
Eats other narcissists for breakfast.
ThE stone cold bitch
Lynn Moon is a bad person. Sure, she had to endure the middle to late century as a woman, and sometimes you just might catch a glimpse of humanity from her, but she was born this way. Rotten. Charles’ attempts to find the good in her were always futile from the start. Her brain simply cannot process things in a way that puts people other than herself in the equation. She is cold, calculating, and intelligent. The only thing that stands in her way is her own hubris.
CHARLES MOON
Yes, dear.
The OWNER
Charles is a proud Korean American that comes from a long line of men in the ship or merritime adjacent buisiness. The business unfortunately declined into obscurity with not many assets left when it was Charles turn to take the helm. His father’s ship, the last one in the family, sunk in 1945 on september 1st. A day before world war 2 ended, it was struck by a uboat as it was being used to transport goods and weapons to the allies in europe. In the early 60’s he spent almost everything from what was left of his family fortune and raised the wreckage of the ship, repaired it, and christened it the S.S. Second Chances and opened Moon Cruise Lines. To this day it is the only privately owned cruise line on the seas. He met his wife Lynn as she was one of the original cast of the main stage aboard the ship. He’s done everything he can to help her accomplish her dreams and truly believes in her, even though she continuously always bites his hand or squanders any opportunity he’s set up for her.
Jenny Maclain
Jesus take the wheel.
ThE bartender
The first in her family to leave the country doing anything other than mission work for the church. Hailing from a very small town in southern Illinois, she was raised as conservative as it gets. Although she still holds those values very strongly on the surface, she always felt like there was something more outside of her little town and it’s way of thinking. Now a bartender on the S.S. Second chances, she has the opportunity to see people she would have previously been afraid of or thought less of as human beings.
THE EPISODES
