Cycling - General & Miscellaneous, Employees - Biography

Immortal Class, The

Name: Immortal Class, The
Author: Travis Culley
ISBN: 9780375760242

by Travis Culley

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Overview

Travis Hugh Culley came to Chicago to work and live as an artist. He knew he'd have to struggle, but he found that his struggle meant more than hard work and a taste for poverty. In becoming a bike messenger, he found a sense of community and fulfillment -- and a brotherhood of like-minded individualists. He rode like a postmodern cowboy across the city's landscape; he passed like a shadow through its soaring office towers; he soared like a falcon through the roaring chaos of the multilayered streets of Chicago. He became an invisible man in society, yet at the same time its most intimate observer. In one of the most dangerous jobs on dry land, he found freedom.

In The Immortal Class, Culley takes us inside the heart and soul of an urban icon -- the bicycle messenger. In describing his own history and those of his peers, he evokes a classic American maverick, deeply woven into the fabric of society -- from the pits of squalor to the highest reaches of power and privilege -- yet always resolutely, exuberantly outside. And he celebrates a culture that eschews the motorized vehicle: the cult of human power.

The Immortal Class, Culley's vivid evocation of a bicycle messenger's experience and philosophy, sheds a compelling light on the way human beings relate to one another and to the cities we inhabit. Travis Hugh Culley's voice is at once earthy and soaringly poetic -- a Gen-X Tom Joad at hyperspeed. The Immortal Class is a unique personal and political narrative of a cyclist's life on the street.

Synopsis

Travis Hugh Culley went to Chicago to make his name in its thriving theater scene, yet found in his day job a sense of community and fulfillment—and a brotherhood of like-minded individualists—that he encountered nowhere else.

In The Immortal Class, Culley takes us inside the heart and soul of an American urban icon: the bicycle messenger. In describing his own history and those of his peers, he evokes a classic American maverick, deeply woven into the fabric of society—from the pits of squalor to the highest reaches of power and privilege—yet always resolutely, exuberantly outside.

Culley’s voice is at once earthy and soaringly poetic—a Gen-X Tom Joad at hyperspeed. The Immortal Class is a unique personal and political narrative of a cyclist’s life on the street.

Christian Science Monitor - Joshua S. Burek

What's so refreshing about Culley's work is that he overcomes the temptation to hold his graduation from the school of hard knocks as an advanced sociological degree. He doesn't hesitate to point fingers (especially at brutal police and backward laws), but suffused throughout his book is a genuine spirit of modesty. Immortal Class intrigues, and its vignettes of life on two wheels make it one heck of a good ride.

About the Author, Travis Culley

Travis Hugh Culley, a director and playwright, has worked as a bike messenger in Philadelphia and Chicago, where he currently lives.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

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Culley's personal and political memoir details his stint as a bike messenger in Chicago and brings surprisingly clear observations of societal class distinctions to the fore. Arriving in Chicago after college to explore his interest in theater, the financially destitute Travis stumbled onto the world of bike messengers. It was one of the few jobs for which he found himself actually qualified, as he already owned a bike. But Culley quickly realized that amazing skill was required to perform his new job, and that the profession had its own unique language. Flying through the streets of Chicago, a city he came both to respect and resent, velocity became his mantra. Through Travis, we meet his biker peers, a cast of quirky characters: messengers, dispatchers, a talented mechanic, and Travis's various girlfriends. Despite a bad knee, accidents with taxis, and biking throughout the relentless Chicago winters, Travis rose through the ranks to become his company's fastest messenger and highest earner, gaining pride in his work and the respect of his colleagues. He began to play an activist's role, standing up for the rights of cyclists everywhere -- but when a messenger he knew was killed, everything formerly unclear snapped sharply into focus. With heart-stopping, action-packed biking sequences and a sprinkling of crazy messenger lingo, The Immortal Class is a vivid commentary on urban culture by a bright young man on the outside, peddling furiously, and looking in. (Spring 2001 Selection)

Joshua S. Burek

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Puck, the scabby roommate from MTV's The Real World, remains the archetypal bike messenger: hyperkinetic, crass, hygienically challenged. But as Culley demonstrates in this exciting memoir of his years spent on two wheels, there's much more to the world of bike messengers than the stereotype. Many are artists, writers or revolutionaries--Culley himself is all three. He got his start as a messenger in Chicago in the late 1990s by answering an ad in the newspaper after his small theater company went belly up. "The below-freezing winds burned my wrists and forearms," Culley says. "Thick bloodless cuts would open up along the lines of my fingerprints." He persevered and soon became (by his own description, at least) the fastest, best bike messenger in the city. Culley evokes the dangers of his profession, from careening taxis to yuppie road rage and broken bones. But there were also rewards, principally freedom from the cubicles of the corporate "wage slave." Culley's book is not just a memoir; it's also a political tract about the evils of the consumer economy and car-based capitalism. "The bicycle is a revolution," Culley says, "and I am using it like a hammer to change the world." Such statements may seem to many to veer toward the lunatic fringe, but to the bike messengers living on the edge of the system and constantly in danger from four-wheeled competitors, they'll make considerable sense. Offering a rare inside view of a maligned but ubiquitous urban subculture, this kinetic memoir--which is supported by a four-city author tour and ads in alternative weeklies--will appeal to younger readers who admire Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and his magazine, McSweeney's. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

When unpublished playwright and director Culley found it difficult to earn a living in the creative arts, he took a job as a bike messenger. This is the story of his adventures on the streets of Chicago. The author's descriptions are so vivid and apt that it is easy for the reader to imagine himself pedaling at breakneck speeds through crowded intersections and along sidewalks. More than a mere joy ride, this book is a window into the bizarre and cultlike world of the bike courier and, more significantly, a passionate plea for more sensible city planning. Culley calls for revitalizing public spaces that have been destroyed by our car culture and for developing urban designs that respect the needs and safety concerns of bicycle riders. This powerful and poetic work should establish Culley as an important new critical voice. Highly recommended for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/00.]--Andrew Brodie Smith, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

Immortal Class is an engaging memoir which reflects on urban bike messengers and their activities, and blends an autobiography of Culley's work in Chicago as an artist/bike messenger with a reflection of the status and role of the bike messenger as an outsider/observer of American society. An intriguing study evolves.