Located in the heart of Dubai’s Arts hub and district Al Serkal Avenue, The cARTel is a boutique concept featuring wearable art and Avant Garde fashion design. Designers are curated from around the world for their experimental style and progressive approach to contemporary fashion.

From The Cartel web site:

The cARTel is under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Fatima Bint Hazza’ Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the UAE Royal Family and an avid artist and supporter of the arts and culture. Her highness’s vision is to support the arts scene and provide a platform for emerging talents in arts and fashion. The cARTel is a gallery of wearable art, introducing a unique concept of retail based on curating selected fashion designers under the same roof.

http://thecartel.me/

Facebook Page for The Cartel

Facebook Page for Hello Middle East

Friday night during a photo shoot at our studio, a friend randomly mentioned the court suicide story headlining the news and asked if I had heard about it. A millionaire adventurer and former banker from Wall Street once owned a Picasso collection, an airplane, a Rolls Royce and a mansion that he tried to raffle off for charity. When that failed, ironically, the mansion caught on fire with the man inside.  The guy cleverly escaped succumbing to smoke inhalation by using the scuba air tank from his scuba gear and climbing out the ladder from his window.

Fire officials had never seen such a thing.  Why would a man climb down the ladder of a burning mansion wearing scuba gear?  How could he have been so prepared?  They were suspicious from the beginning. Then they learned that he was having financial problems.

Michael Marin was charged with arson.

The media nicknamed this the case of the “Burning Man.” Almost every “Burning Man” story mentioned his Picasso’s, I suppose, because it symbolized that he was a man of privilege.

I knew Michael Marin.  In fact, I was with Michael when he bought the Picasso collection.  It was summer 2000. We had a business lunch in Beverly Hills, and afterwards Michael took me for a walk down Rodeo Drive.  It was like a foreign country to me. The luxury boutiques, the designer goods, and the prices were out of my world. Not Michael. He could afford $3,000 alligator shoes. I could afford a bagel, maybe, if I got less gas.  I felt out of place even walking down the street.  Michael owned the street.  I wondered what it would be like to be him.

He wasn’t out searching for art. We just happened to step into one of the art galleries and there they were. They weren’t Picasso originals like the media sometimes implies, they were the Picasso-signed proofs for the lithographs.  Still, they were valuable, collectible, and historic, and I was awestruck.   Michael knew about art, he knew what these pieces were, and he bought them on the spot.  He was so overwhelmed with joy he got tears in eyes, almost like a spiritual experience.

He was on top of the world then.

Here’s a video of what the news reports about him now.

It had been years since I’d seen or talked to Michael Marin.  Our business dealings didn’t work out for various reasons, and he wasn’t my favorite person on earth, but I still respected many things about him.  He was a brilliant, Yale-educated attorney, former general counsel to Salomon Brothers, a bass in the church choir.  He made a fortune in exotic derivatives – whatever those are.   He was a devoted dad; his kids were smart, fun and talented; my kids like his kids. He was a pilot, he was building his own airplane, and he had a macaw named Sunshine that he adored.   When it came to business, he was a shark. Nothing about Michael was run-of-the-mill.

He was an adventurer who climbed the tallest mountains in the world, yet he was also a philanthropist. For years he was actively involved in helping underprivileged children on an Indian reservation, and hardly anyone knew.  He was deeply committed to making a difference in the lives of children.  That’s what I loved that about him the most.

Here’s the actual email.

From: MICHAEL MARIN <mjmarin@***.com>

Date: Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 4:28 PM

Subject: Arizona Dream House Raffle

To:

Dear Christine,

You may as well get in on this too.  I’ve been coping with the grief over the recent loss of my father by throwing myself into two giant-size undertakings.  One is a huge house raffle I’m doing to benefit the Child Crisis Center, a local charity here in Arizona that works to prevent child abuse and neglect. (Check out www.ArizonaDreamHouseRaffle.com and by all means buy some tickets.  Make sure you spread the word to all your friends too, because it’s for a good cause, and someone is going to end up with a $3.5 million house for only $25!  Why not you?  There’s also an art gallery page on the website where you can see some of the art I’ve been working on.

I’d love to know what you think, even if it’s “I hope you can get a day job to fall back on.”) The other thing I’m keeping busy with is once again preparing to climb Everest.  I was supposed to do that last year, but for political reasons the Chinese pulled the plug on all expeditions approaching the mountain from the Tibet side.  Hopefully, things will go better this year, although 2009 does mark the 50th anniversay of the Dalai Lama’s exile, so the political situation might still be a little unstable.  Wish me luck!

How sweet was that? I was amazed.  Looking back on it now, I wonder if he was hoping it would generate press, stimulate hundreds of thousands of people to jump in on the raffle, generate more than enough money to pay his bills and benefit the Child Crisis Center in the process.  Had it worked, it would have been an ingenious way to solve the financial problems that only he knew he was about to face.

Apparently, the state stepped in and stopped his raffle.

The next time I heard from Michael, he just got out of jail.

Below I have pasted parts of his letter. (I assume he sent this letter to everyone he knew.)

This was not the confident, charming Michael Marin that walked with me down Rodeo Drive.  This was not the arrogant Yale attorney business shark that would win at any cost.  This was a broken man crying out for help. I was in shock.  It shows Michael’s side of the story, something the media has completely ignored.

From: MICHAEL MARIN <mjmarin@***.com>

Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 5:12 PM

Subject: Help!

To: Christine Marie

Dear Christine,If ever I’ve ever needed a favor from you, this is the time. With an urgency that defies the power of mere words to express, I desperately need your help…On Wednesday, August 19, 2009, I was wrongfully accused and arrested for arson in connection with a house fire on July 5, 2009 that came perilously close to claiming my own life. (Who sets a fire and then traps himself upstairs to make the escape more challenging? I was hospitalized for several days.) The prosecution’s case is very weak, not a surprise since I am completely innocent, but that did not keep me from spending 10 days in jail, virtually cut off from the outside world, a truly harrowing ordeal in a very violent place. I was released early in the morning of Sunday, August 30, 2009 on a $200,000 bond, and now my most urgent task is raising the money I need for my defense. In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not okay, not by a long shot–the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail system here, is extremely adept at waging psychological warfare to demoralize, dehumanize, and break you down in every possible way–but I look forward to my day in court.My attorney is extremely confident that we will crush the prosecution’s flimsy case, …

I’m facing 7-21 years in prison if convicted, and I’ve got to raise at least $100,000 to pay my attorney’s retainer, hire expert witnesses, and mount a successful defense.…Alternatively, perhaps you (or someone you know) might like to take advantage of my situation and purchase one or more of my remaining assets from me at rock-bottom, fire sale prices (if you will pardon the unfortunate metaphor). How would you (or someone you might know) like to buy a Picasso on the cheap?  Or an airplane? …I’ve exhausted all of my other options. I am literally at the end of my rope. If all you can do is send positive energy and best wishes my way, I would be deeply grateful for that too. You can reach me by e-mail  or by telephone. If I don’t respond, there’s always the possibility that the authorities have re-arrested and jailed me on another trumped-up charge, in which case please contact my lawyer Richard Gierloff.

Read the entire letter HERE.

I did what I could. I networked for him a bit, sent him some referrals, and when I discovered a fresh CNN article discussing the flawed science that overturned arson convictions, I passed that along too.

I hadn’t heard a peep about the case in a long time. Even when I searched online, there was never any news. On June 28, 2010, I received an announcement where he sounded like he was back on top of the world. I assumed the case was dropped.

From: MICHAEL MARIN <mjmarin@****.com>

Date: Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 12:09 PM

Subject: New e-mail address

To: Michael Marin

On Friday morning my husband said, “Christine, there’s a Michael Marin in the news.  You should see if it’s the one you know.” Sadly, it was.

He was found guilty of arson.  Afterward, he committed suicide in court by taking a poison pill.

I’ve been thinking about Michael ever since. There was a reason I chose to keep my distance from Michael, and we weren’t exactly close friends. Still, I wonder if I should have communicated more, if there was any thing I could have done to have saved him from such a horrible ending.   I feel sad. I wonder about his kids, I wonder how his macaw will fare without him.  I can’t get him out of my mind.

I even wonder if he was wrongly convicted.

It strikes me odd that the prosecution used the fact that he climbed out of the window on a rope ladder – against him.  That’s why people have rope ladders in their homes.  I even had them in the 2nd story bedrooms of my old farmhouse.  That’s what they’re for:  escaping fires.

Plus he was LDS, or Mormon, as was I.  Mormons are trained to be prepared for emergencies – every year they have training events for emergency preparedness. The fact that he was prepared for an emergency is hardly a sign of guilt. The media also reported that firefighters were shocked to see Michael climb out the window wearing a scuba suit – they had never seen that, so surely it was another sign of his guilt.  The image conjured up in my mind included a wet suit, scuba tank and fins. But the photo I saw primarily shows a scuba tank, not a scuba suit.  If you were a diver, and you had a scuba air tank that you knew how to use in a house filled with smoke, is saving your life a sign of guilt, or resourcefulness?  If anyone was resourceful, it was him.

And then there’s even more evidence of guilt: he wasn’t panicked when he was on the phone reporting the blaze.  Wow.  I rode in his private airplane once when it started having problems, he didn’t panic then either.  But I did.  I can’t imagine Michael ever panicking.

The big fat piece of evidence the prosecution had, though, was that arson was indicated by the multiple points of origin and flammable material.

Even that was disputable.  Furthermore, even if it was arson, that doesn’t mean Michael did it.  He had his enemies too.  Which rich guy from Wall Street doesn’t?  I’m curious about the defense that was mounted in court. Michael said setting fire to his house would have compounded his financial problems, not solved them.

Michael explained his lack of incentive to reporter Paul Rubin of the Phoenix New Times, “If you bore into my finances, this was the worst thing that could have happened to me. Not only did I not have any incentive personally, I totally had a counter-incentive.”

“To hammer that point home about my finances,” Marin told New Times, “the biggest thing in front of me was the one-year, interest-only balloon payment. I had a $2.3 million bill to pay. So I refinance or sell or I am totally screwed. If I were to burn it, that’s slitting my own throat. I lose everything.”  (New Times, Aug, 27, 2009)

Michael Marin would not have even been the recipient of the insurance money; it would have gone to the lenders. He could have collected insurance on the lost furnishings and personal contents in the house, but he did not have much in the house.  In other words, financially he stood to gain absolutely nothing.  Furthermore, the lenders were prepared to work with Michael to help him get back on his feet.

Occupying a house that is set on fire doesn’t make a person an arsonist.  But for arson to occur about 6 months after he tried to raffle off his house to charity – that definitely mucked things up.  However, if Michael had an enemy who followed what he was doing, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

Questioning the Guilty Verdict

With the few facts shared by the media, I can see why it might make sense for the jury to deliver a guilty verdict.  But if you knew Michael Marin, a guilty verdict doesn’t make sense for one main reason: He’s far too cunning to not have known how to cover his tracks had he been trying to get away with a crime.  He was an attorney.  He was a litigator.  He was a formidable chess player.  Would Michael have set his house on fire using multiple points of origin combined with evidence of gasoline and think he would get a way with it?  That’s a tough pill to swallow.

He was far too brilliant to leave an overwhelming amount of obvious and incriminating evidence like that.  Mind you – we’re talking about the man who is headline news today, sadly, because he planned ahead for a contingency, outsmarted court security, and accomplished something no one else has ever done.

I chose not to have Michael Marin in my life for personal reasons, but I’m not buying that he was a bumbling arsonist. I’m horrified by his final moments.  Watching the video made me cry.  None of it makes sense to me.

In the last few communications, Michael seemed to be a changed, caring, humbled man.  On his facebook page, people shared their stories, called him an inspiration and a hero.  In memory of the bright side of Michael, I decided to share a few of those tributes.

Mike will be remembered as one of the best Sunday School teachers ever. He took the class with him to the highest elevations of thinking and reason mingled with spiritual insights, even to the tops of the Mt. Everests of the human mind and soul, so to speak. Mike, we love you and we miss you. May peace be yours forever.    – Rich Nibley

I met him when I was a journalist in Arizona. He was brilliant, fearless, funny, kind, generous and a consummate gentleman. I am stunned, and very sad for him and his family. He lived a remarkable life, and I’m sorry it ended this way. I will most definitely remember him as being on top of the world. – Amanda Kingsbury

I knew Michael for 42 years. We were in the “gifted” class at Clover Valley Elementary in Oak Harbor, WA, where he grew up. He fascinated and inspired me throughout my life. RIP.  – Robert Morgan Fisher

I can still hear your calming voice talking me down the final rappel in el cap. when I was injured, and I will never forget how you helped carry me up the steep path back to the road that day. I didn’t know you well or for very long, but the gifts you gave to me have changed my life and I will be forever grateful. Thank you for you patient teaching and for believing in me. You are my mentor and my hero.  – Teresa Baldridge

I don’t know whether Michael was innocent or guilty.  All I know is that I feel sorry, and I can’t stop thinking about this complex man who lived an uncommon life and crossed my path years ago.

Michael had a Leonardo da Vinci quote listed as his favorite on his facebook page.

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

Good bye, Burning Man.

Enjoy your freedom.  The sky is yours.

———–

A more detailed version of this article can be found on my personal blog

http://christinemarie.com/good-bye-burning-man/   Comments are welcome in either place.

His name is C-P. He’s from DC949.

When I saw this, I stopped the car and dashed out to take a picture on my cell. It’s a hair sword, a hair fin, a hair skyscraper that did not tip or bend, but stood tall and proud like tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai. It’s shaped similarly too. This mother of all Mohawks must be a world record when it comes to Mohawk height. It just must. I couldn’t help but wonder how he got it to stand that erect for so long. But then again, he’s a hacker.  A.K.A. just because we can’t figure this out does not mean he can’t figure it out. Kudos to this cool C-P dude. COMPARE TO BURJ DUBAI HERE.  (Notice John Draper in the bottom left of the photo.)

If his hair is really stiff, I wonder how many times people joked that it could be used in self-defense?  Or as a lock pick.  Who needs Kevin Mitnick’s business card when you have an updo like this? He probably heard jokes like this all day long. Or maybe not. He seemed like a super tough, manly kind of man and I doubt anyone would mess with him.  I do wonder how he sleeps and drives though. Sun roof maybe?

What does purple hair say about the creativity and daring nature of a person? I asked if he colored it just for Defcon and he said no, he always wears it like this. I love it. I would hire him as CEO if he came to my office wearing hair like this; it’s proof he thinks outside the box and takes risks.  It’s Easter Bunny purple.

In fact, now that I think of it, I’ll ask him to send me the trimmings each time he gets a hair cut.

I can use the purple hair like Easter grass in an Easter basket . I can hide chocolate bunnies and jelly beans in it for Tolga. Wait. Make that Mountain Dew.

This is Klepto, spelled K13PT0 (sort of) from Cincinnati, Ohio. He got on his knees in front of me while a small crowd watched – just so I could take a picture of the top of his green Mohawk. It was a powerful feeling, seeing Klepto kneel at my command. I wished I was a queen so I could knight him or something.

Afros, but they’re not brothers. I think they became friends though as a result of hair bonding.

Meet the brilliant Joshua Merrill, also known as VJ Psyborg. He has a FRO to die for, doesn’t he? I discovered him in a club room managing a complex piece of video DJ software he architected himself to make a room dance with colored lights. It looked more complicated that the cockpit of space shuttle.

If it were me working that software, it would have fried my brain. For him, I guess it only fried his hair. (Just kidding.) A truly awesome guy.

I don’t know the name of this lovely bun-wearing female with the long front locks. But if I had to choose a name based on her hairdo, I would pick the name Gwenevere.  It’s the name of the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. She seemed worthy of that.

The woman is “Ed Word”, one of the sweetest people at Defcon I was told.

The Mohawk lady is actually doing a service to humanity. When people get a Mohawk, money is donated to the EFF. Now I have to find out what the EFF is. All I know is that these Mohawks are more than just a sign of cultural defiance, they represent the desire to help an important charity and it is quite profound.

Tommee Pickles

Tia Marie again.  I had to run this cute blue photo again. She’s a community manager with Clp.ly.

I thought it was a URL shortener like bit.ly but it’s something totally different, extremely cool for content sharing, and something I need.

Green Mohawk.

Green beard. Blue tuft.

Are they twins? I forgot to ask. I think these guys might have been twins whose mother differentiated them through color coding. Good natured fellows, they were, always smiling and laughing.  Green One posed for this photo while holding that heavy server box and still kept on smiling and laughing. Red One enjoyed that.

[Zebbler], the Techno-Shaman, posing so I could take a picture of his dreadlocks from the back. This is how he looked when I met him, only he was walking.

JonJon the phenomenon. Short hair. JonJon has a second degree black belt, is a former professional wrestler, is a comic book expert and is a personal bodyguard.

He’s also a budding television producer and an entrepreneur.  But to me, he’s just JonJon.

Jeremiah Saint, music artist, Industrial music. Google him. He’s got sort of a side tuft with some fluff, and a short side, a straight piece and a puff and formaldehyde. Ok – no formaldehyde – it just came while I was flowing to get a goth-sounding Dr. Seuss rhythm going. He’s a vegan, among other things. More info: CLICK HERE

I wonder how a professional stylist would describe Jeremiah? In person, his look was uber stylish, dark, congruent and rather “hot vampire.”

Nikita

Blue scrubber style

Neil

Zack, aka Z3RO, and Cobolt whose Mohawk doubles as a behemoth can opener if used correctly.

I guess in hacker culture you get a free pass to hack and innovate on your hair as well as everything else on the planet. I’m wondering if a pink and lavender superbob would bring out a whole new side of me that I have been suppressing. Let me give it some thought…

]]> http://technorazzi.com/2010/08/hacker-hair/feed/ 4 http://technorazzi.com/2010/07/creative-genius-at-comiccon-giving-5-free-passes/ http://technorazzi.com/2010/07/creative-genius-at-comiccon-giving-5-free-passes/#comments Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:07:46 +0000 Technorazzi Magazine http://technorazzi.com/?p=1615 more »]]> Dave Shelton, an award winning writer, cartoonist and voice actor, made his appearance at ComiCon without his latest furry character, Snuggy Bear©. By the way, he’s giving away 5 free passes good for today, Sunday, July 25, at the San Diego Convention Center. For more info, see below. Dave Shelton is extraordinarily accomplished in and beyond the world of cartoons. As the former senior writer and head of cartoons at National Lampoon, he put out two best-selling cartoon collections and handled the writing and cartooning for the flagship magazine.  He created the popular Hackidu characters for Everybody Loves Raymond. He illustrated several popular children’s books including Bellaboo, the Purple Princess written by General Hospital star Nancy Lee Grahn and The Lemming Shepherds, now being distributed throughout China. In fact, his cartoon work is part of the Charles M. Schulz (Snoopy) museum in Santa Rosa, California and the Haig Museum of Cartoons in New York. And the list goes on.

Dave Shelton’s creativity also takes other forms. He’s a screenwriter, director, animator, TV show creator, film maker, and song-writer. He wrote the theme song for Special Olympics, which named several of their teams after Snuggy Bear©. He is the former song writing partner of the late Albert Hague (Fame, How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

Most recently, however, he’s the creator of the upcoming kids television series Snuggy Bear and the T-Shirt Kids© (www.snuggybear.com) which has already achieved world-wide attention and multiple brands of merchandise.

Snuggy on the right, hanging out with buddies

Now, about those ComicCon passes? Hit him upon facebook. Better act fast!

Tawnya Bhattacharya

FOX TV recently optioned a one-hour television pilot GRAND COULEE written by screenwriters Giselle Achecar and Tawnya Bhattacharya. A supernatural family drama steeped in Native American mysticism, GRAND COULEE is one of six scripts accepted into the 2009/10 FOX Diversity Writers Initiative as run by Ron Taylor, the current Vice President of Diverse Programming and Content for Fox Broadcasting Company.

Giselle Achecar

Achecar, a former attorney, previously had a two-show deal at Fox Television Studios. Bhattacharya has just been hired to write an action feature for producers Manu Boyer and Paul Rosenberg and has two optioned features in development. The writing team met at Writers Bootcamp in Santa Monica, where Bhattacharya was an instructor.

Describing Darren Ewing is complex. He’s like Leonardo da Vinci mixed with Stephen Spielberg mixed with a stand-up comedian – mixed with the Energizer Bunny mixed with a Marlborough Man that loves children mixed with a kind-hearted Nikola Tessla mixed with a fun-loving Alien mixed with James Dean. On caffeine.

He is also an entrepreneur, businessman, and organizer. You can peer into how his brain works on his blog: http://darrenewing.blogspot.com

He’s a madman. The movie posters below were the clever handiwork of Darren Ewing & company. Kudos.

Darren’s twitter: http://twitter.com/sadknob

The only human in the clip is John Draper, aka cult icon Captain Crunch!!
(He made this in my office after hours and worried I would be upset.) But I love it. John laughed a lot too.