[Shotimes] (OT) NYTimes.com Article: Car Owners' Hero Dresses for the Job

[Scott]

The London parking puds sound alot like Milwaukee's, ruthless.
 
More power to this guy, but you know he is going to get busted and busted hard.
 
-Sweeney

Ron Porter <ronporter@prodigy.net> wrote:
This is pretty bizarre! A guy in a Superhero costume with a big saw who cuts
off "boots"!

You probably can't get the link below the text to work unless you (1)
already are, or (2) become (it's free), a member on the NYT online version.
The link basically just gives you his picture in his outfit, holding the
saw!!

Ron Porter 

\----------------------------------------------------------/

Car Owners' Hero Dresses for the Job

October 7, 2003
By SARAH LYALL 

LONDON, Oct. 2 - As is so often the case, the trickiest
part came when he had to explain himself to his family. 

"I got kind of a lukewarm response," said the masked
Englishman who calls himself Angle-Grinder Man and who has
been trawling London for four months dressed in a homemade
superhero outfit, complete with gold lami underpants and
cape, removing the security boots from people's illegally
parked cars. 

"Any parent who gets a phone call from his son saying, `Oh,
you might see me in the newspaper; I'm a superhero wheel
clamp vigilante' - it might take them a little while to
formulate their views," he said in an interview. 

As a one-man vigilante force, Angle-Grinder Man, who takes
his name from the boot-destroying circular saw he wields,
has made only a modest impact: by his own estimates, he has
freed about 20 cars so far (he does it only part time). But
his campaign against the city's effort to immobilize cars
for parking violations and other infractions has touched a
nerve in a city of strict parking regulations, zealous
traffic police officers, ubiquitous speed cameras and car
owners increasingly aggrieved at what they believe is
mean-spirited law enforcement. 

Although he hardly melts into the background, particularly
when he switches on his noisy machine, Angle-Grinder Man
has so far managed to elude the authorities by a mixture of
luck, cunning and quick work: once he gets going, he can
liberate a car in less than a minute. He does not accept
money and says his main motivation is "anger at how
politicians in this country treat people in general, but
particularly in regard to motoring regulations." 

Needless to say, the police are not amused. "Both
Angle-Grinder Man and the owner of the vehicle could be
charged with criminal damage if the driver admitted they
consented to the act," a Scotland Yard spokesman told The
Evening Standard. 

Interviewed in the London office of The New York Times,
Angle-Grinder Man was coy about his civilian identity. He
said he had been threatened and harassed, mostly by private
outfits that charge for removing the clamping devices. He
is currently unemployed, but living on the savings he has
accumulated from jobs that have reportedly included office
clerk and entertainer at children's parties. 

Long-haired and lanky, he is becoming well known in some
parts of south London. About a month ago, 25-year-old
Petite Tendai arrived home to find a boot on her illegally
parked car. ("There were no signs saying `no parking,' "
she declared.) She had barely begun to rail at the
injustice of it all when Angle-Grinder Man suddenly
appeared. 

"Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and
said, `If anyone can, Angle-Grinder Man can,' " Ms. Tendai
said in a telephone interview. "Then he just started sawing
it off. It was wicked." He was gone almost as quickly as he
came. "It was just a `good luck,' and what-not, and then he
was off," she said. 

Angle-Grinder Man was spurred to activism when his car was
booted and he was told that it would cost #95 (a little
over $150) to free it. "I was fuming inside," he said. He
rented a circular saw for about #30 and did the job
himself. 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." 

The sign proved a hit, although he had to remove it, he
said, "when a guy on a motorbike in traffic nearly fell off
his bike, he was laughing so hard." But Angle-Grinder Man
knew he was on to something. "There was so much injustice
out there," he said. 

It took him some time to hone his look, and he rejected a
number of color schemes before settling on blue and gold.
"There's no school you can go to to learn how to be a
superhero," he said. Perhaps most crucially, he found the
perfect roll of gold lami fabric at a flea market ("I had
to hold it up and ask the girl how much did she think I
would need to make a cape," he said). 

For the boots, he spray-painted a pair of cowboy boots
gold. The underpants are a pair of bikini briefs covered
with the flea-market lami. The gloves came from a
piercing-and-fetish shop. Angle-Grinder Man designed the
logo himself, proudly gluing the letters "AGM" onto the
costume. "I wanted to have a balance between the political
side and the comedy side," he said. 

His Web site and his hot line for distressed car owners
have drawn hoax messages, threats and dozens of fan notes,
including one from a man who noted approvingly, "It's time
we had a gay superhero." 

For the record, "I'm a heterosexual superhero,"
Angle-Grinder Man said, "although I have no problem being a
gay icon." 

After the interview was over, Angle-Grinder Man strode into
the street in full regalia, wheeling the suitcase full of
civilian clothes he planned to wear on the train home
later. Watching his gold cape glitter and swirl heroically
in the afternoon light, Judith Smith, a sales clerk who
said she had been following Angle-Grinder Man's exploits on
his Web site, pronounced herself a big fan. 

"I think he's extraordinarily attractive," Ms. Smith said.
"Especially the golden knickers." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/international/europe/07LOND.html?ex=106654
3189&ei=1&en=5a5353c7f7b025f6
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