The Shuttles

David Hamelin and Richard McDevitt met on the first day of the eighth grade in Whitehorse, Yukon. Their school was known for its vicious fights, random beatings and prevalent abuse of drugs and alcohol. The two quickly bonded over their love of music and concocted schemes while skateboarding in Hamelin's garage to buy guitars with the deposit money from their empty beer bottles. By the summer they'd given up skateboarding and were working out songs and honing their musical abilities.Soon, the pair formed the punk band The Garage Hill Band, and rounded out the lineup of bands like Spacestar, The Village Green, and Beta 1. When high school ended the pair separated but agreed to meet in two years and begin collaborating on a new musical effort.McDevitt crossed the Atlantic on a steamer and took work fishing along the coast of Spain. While living in Pedregalejo, he studied classical guitar under the tutelage of the flamenco elite. Then one day his ship, the Barco de Pesca, was attacked by pirates. The crew fought back, but they were slaughtered like sheep. McDevitt managed take out what local authorities believe must have been at least a dozen vicious criminals. He survived five days at sea before he made his way to shore. Either by the grace of god or some other miracle a beautiful French woman found him floating in a bay outside the port of Marseilles, France. She nursed him back to health and sang him old French folk songs until his strength returned and he could once again continue his quest.Suspicion soon fell on McDevitt as to exactly how he made his way to France. He was held in prison for two weeks as various fascist pigs tried to persecute him for fraud and extortion. As luck would have it, the French woman who saved McDevitt came out of hiding and brought the justice system to its knees.The true story emerged concerning the pirates and the time McDevitt spent lost at sea. It is now believed that a pod of Bottlenose dolphins kept McDevitt from drowning and protected him from sea monsters until they felt he was close enough to shore to be saved by the human race. Authorities say it was a miracle he did not get torn apart by Tiger sharks.After McDevitt spent three months traveling France, he settled in Nice where he met musical geniuses and virtuosos from various parts of the musical spectrum. Once it was time to leave, he took work on a Cunard Line cruise ship as resident shark expert and Crow's Nest specialist. After a strange telegram reached McDevitt's ship, he demanded to be let off in Seattle. Fearing that Hamelin might have been taken prisoner by guerrillas, he sent a secret agent to South America to find his lost friend.Once McDevitt made it to Seattle he searched out all the local music venues and bars that the two had frequented many times in the past. McDevitt finally got in touch with the agent searching for Hamelin. The only information he could get was vague and filled with confusing details. To McDevitt this could only mean one thing. He raced to the Owl 'n Thistle Irish bar where he found Hamelin in the company of the agent and 12 girls from Texas.Hamelin was in a very meditative state. He found it difficult to re-adjust to the ways of modern civilization. It took McDevitt two bottles of Wild Turkey and round after round of Kilkenny before Hamelin told the true story of his adventures in South America.In searching for a deeper meaning to the empty way of life that plagues many North Americans Hamelin found himself wandering the mountains in search of ancient Mayan ruins. After meeting a group of shaman, he joined their league and told his story to the elders. They became very concerned for his safety and decided to prepare him for a spiritual journey into the deepest and darkest parts of his mind- with the help of some the most potent hallucinogens in the known universe. During the two weeks of preparation leading up to the event, Hamelin met a beautiful girl and fell deeply in love. But there was no time for romance. The shaman took him deep into the wilderness to a river that came up from the base of a mountain and exited through a massive cave. They prepared the supplies and then left Hamelin to figure out the rest by himself.To this day Hamelin refuses to speak of his time on the other side. By his estimate he was in a delirious state for three weeks and survived by catching fish and eating small fruit. Still the image of the girl he had fallen in love with could not be shaken from his mind. He awoke from his journey in a pile of leaves on the forest floor. Looking up at the sun he saw a strange figure moving in the trees. Suddenly a large coconut came flying at his head. He swiftly caught the fruit and launched it back at the figure. It turns out that this was actually Conrad Gryba, a fellow Canadian and the agent that had been searching for Hamelin over past four months.The three decided to head to the Central Saloon to hear some music and continue celebrating the day. They got outrageously drunk, searched high and low for a plane they could commandeer, realized that they were too intoxicated to fly and also none of had them flown a plane since they were 16. So they headed off to the docks to find a ship that would take them North...