Home_____It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Angle Grinder Man
As Andy Warhol Said, Everybody Gets His Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Now It's Angle Grinder Man's Turn.
Some people call him a Clark Kent lookalike. You can tell the difference, however. He has an AGM logo on his chest, not an S. He also helps damsels in distress. He certainly has a sense of humor.
In a 7 October 2003 New York Times article, the masked man gave an interview. Calling himself Angle-Grinder Man, he comes to the rescue of those whose car wheels have been booted by police for illegal parking. The New York Times reporter described him as dressed in cape and gold lamé underpants.
He has become a folk hero of sorts among frustrated South London motorists. He takes his name from an Angle Grinder, a power saw that cuts through wheel boots, Whenever he turns on his loud saw, people know he's around, but he always insures the police are absent. No matter--in less than a minute he can liberate a wheel from the clutches of authority and earn the undying gratitude of drivers who escape their fines.
Just like Superman and The Lone Ranger, he accepts no money for his deeds, as he is merely on the side of the little guy. He hides his identity behind his mask, and the public doesn't know, much as nobody suspected the mild mannered reporter Clark Kent. Like the Lone Ranger, he strides off into the sunset and townsmen turn to one another and ask, Who was that masked man?
A damsel in distress, Petite Tendai, found a boot on her illegally parked car. ("No signs saying `no parking,' " she declared.) She felt the weight of injustice and authority almost bringing her to tears when suddenly Angle-Grinder Man appeared.
Since then, he has become Ms Tendai's hero.
Ms Tendai said of him, "Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and said, `If anyone can, Angle-Grinder Man can,' " She added, "Then he just started sawing it off. It was wicked."
He was brought to his noble duty by a boot clamped onto his own car wheel, and insult was added to injury by a £95 fine (a little over $150) to remove it. He did what any Robin Hood would do, renting a circular saw for about £30. Unemployed, he saved himself a hunk of change.
An extremely sensitive nature
He taped a photograph of the sawed-up clamp to his windshield, along with a note saying, "Please don't clamp me because I've got an extremely sensitive nature."
From that day forward, Angle-Grinder Man had found his calling. "There was so much injustice out there," he said.
A champion of the downtrodden must look the part. He worked hard on his appearance, but finally settled on blue and gold. He bought a fabric roll of gold lamé at a flea market after holding the material around himself to ask the salesgirl how he might look in it.
He spray-painted a pair of cowboy boots gold. The underpants are a pair of bikini briefs covered with the flea-market lamé. The gloves came from a piercing-and-fetish shop. Angle-Grinder Man designed the logo himself, including the letters AGM glued on his costume. "I wanted to have a balance between the political side and the comedy side," he explained.
"I'm a heterosexual superhero," Angle-Grinder Man told the reporter, "although I have no problem being a gay icon."
As he left the interview his gold cape glittered in the afternoon light. Unknowingly he had smitten the heart of another damsel who had been watching him. A sales clerk said she was a great fan of his.
"I think he's extraordinarily attractive," she said. "Especially the golden knickers."
