excerpt private screening the making and unmaking of an american dream

8/3/2019 Excerpt PRIVATE SCREENING The making and unmaking of an American dream

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WILLIAM TOUZANI

PRIVATE SCREENING

AMERICAN DREAM

The Making and Unmaking of an


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PRIVATE SCREENING

Private Screening describes a 20 year odyssey which took Bill

Touzani from California to the French Riviera, from the red-light

district of Amsterdam to the South African men of steel, from

Arabian sheikdoms to an Israeli Kibbutz. His goal, as he saw it,

was to make this world a slightly easier place to live in. But he

reckoned without the destructive force of the new American estab-

lishment and a legislative which now favors corporate stability

above individual initiative.

I was born in French Morocco

and spent my teenage years

shuffling from Casablanca and

Paris. As a world class swimmer,

I competed around the world

before receiving a swimming

scholarship at La Salle College

in Philadelphia. I later foundemployment with Honeywell,

GE, Siemens and Picker.

In 1986, I was issued my first

utility patent, which I licensed

to General Foods Kool-Aid , to

Germanys Capri-Sun , and to

other multinationals. I was

subsequently awarded over 100

patents. In 1991, I moved to theNetherlands where I managed an

advertising agency. I presently

work for the US government.

R

R


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One hundred years ago the huddled masses of the world poured throughthe gates Ellis Island and headed west to seek their fortunes in the wilder-

ness. They were, almost without exception, the deprived, the dispossessed

and the discontented. Behind them they left societies where talent went

unrewarded, where education and advancement were the monopoly of a

few, where rigid class systems, authoritarian governments, corrupt and

self- seeking legislatures and moribund religious institutions conspired to

keep them on the bottom rungs of the ladder. In front of them lay a land in

which everything was possible- a land in which the pioneer was king and

any man or woman, regardless of their origins, could use their talents andindustry to raise themselves to prominence and their country to greatness.

One hundred years later, much has changed. The pioneers of yesterday

are the lawyers of today. The rigid class system of the Old World has been

replaced by the professional class system of the New. Ellis Island is closed

to all but tourists. The United States government no longer welcomes

huddled masses: It actively discourages them.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

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4

In the months it took to write this book, it would not

have been possible without the help of my wife Malika

Belhaj, for her patience and her many sacrifices.

Kevin McGinnis, my next door neighbor, had to suffer

many sleepless nights because of the crying baby. I

expected him to move but instead, he spent even more

sleepless nights editing this book.

Copyright 2000 c 2011 by William Touzani

All rights reserved, including the right to

reproduce this book or portions thereof

in any form whatsoever.

For information address William Touzani at:

BillTouzani@ Comcast.net

ISBN-13: 978-1461156994

ISBN-10: 1461156998

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S


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C O N T E N T S

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SATISFACTION GARANTEED

1 GOD

2 BILL

3 DONNA

4 JIM

5 LISA

6 BIRGIT

7 MEL

8 ANDREW9 RODNEY

THE FRAME-UP

10 DENNIS

11 KEVIN

12 MICHAEL

13 MINUTE MAID

14 MELITTA

15 R.O.1

16 R.O.2

CRIMES OF PATENT

17 KAMAL

18 FERGUSON

19 TOUZANI inc

20 OMAR

21 SCAT

22 DA 1

23 DA 2

24 YEHUDA

25 DEGOOIJER

26 DAVID

7

9

11

29

43

58

73

98

128144

165

167

192

216

235

253

279

300

329

331

349

358

373

385

405

428

448

478

507


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"COLLAPSIBLE BOTTLES HIGH-TECH SOLUTION FOR 'FIZZEDOUT SOFT' DRINKS? William Touzani says he came up with theidea as a frustrated consumer...so on October 11, 1985, Touzanileft his job with Picker International to form Collapsible Bottle ofAmerica

...

Touzani certainly drew interest at the show. On the firstday, over 2,000 people left businesscards

BeverageIndustry (january 1986)

"KIDS LOVE FRUIT BURPLE AND ITS EXPANDABLE BURPINGBOTTLE.The bottle is enjoying phenomenal sales growth... it maywell become one of America's more famous packages."

Packaging(May 1988)

"A CONCERTINA OF A BOTTLE General Foods (Kool Aid) andothers are packing juice concentrates into a bottle that expands

like an accordion when filled. It saves on refrigerator and storeshelf space. And it preserves freshness by limiting air inside."Business Week (June27, 1988)

"Coke, Pepsi and A & W are eager to merchandise their versions ofthe revolutionary bottle because it keeps carbonated beveragesfrom going flat so quickly. This year, more than 100 millioncontainers weresold."

NewYorkPost (December 7,1988)

"Eight Stocktonians who invested in a company that markets acollapsiblebeverage bottle are suing the company's general partnerfor$5 million for alleged misappropriationof funds."

The Stockton Record(April 1989)

"We have promisedto be your exclusive licenseesfor Europe. Yourinvention 'tamper monitoring closure' is an important break-through in the safeguard of consumer welfare..."

Bencap, Germany

"Jerrican with expandable spout wins the 1990 Gold Star Award"

TheWorldPackaging Organization, Paris, France

"DA FILES 1st CASE UNDER COMMERCIAL BRIBERYLEGISLATION...That evidence ...Provided prosecutors with enough

information to charge the inventor with one felony count of thenew offense of commercial bribery, He was also charged with onefelony count of soliciting perjured testimony. A warrant has beenissued for Touzani's arrest"

San Diego DailyTranscript (September14, 1990)

"Please advise your client that the arrest warrant will not bewithdrawn and that he is considered to be a fugitive.

We consider the solicitation of a witness to commit perjury attrial to be a veryserious offense."

Douglas C. Cregg,Deputy DistrictAttorney (January8, 1991)

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P A R T O N E

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It was an American ceiling, finely constructed with the care that

only Americans can lavish on their public buildings. It had beenimmaculately levelledand carefully painted so that no tell-tale indica-

tion of its original color was discernable no matter how hard youlooked.

In spite of this pedigree enviable in the closing years of the twen-

tieth century unknown decades of wear and tear were beginning to

betray themselves. There was an area hard up against the faintly flick-

ering fluorescent light on my left where the paint was beginning to

flake off. Straight ahead, on the periphery of my vision, a thin crack

snaked downwards towards a distant wall.

There was a window. If Ipulled my head sideways until the mus-

cles began to strainI

could see its comforting, tantalizing brightness.Outside it was another Californian day.

"You finished?"

"I said are you finished?"

The tears began to slither down my face once more. I wanted to

wipe them away and hide my eyes from this stranger but my arms

were pinioned and all I could do was toss my head from side to side.

"That mean no?"

"No."

"Uh?"

My voice came distantly as if it had echoed down every corridor ofthe psychiatric wing before finding its way back into the room.

"I mean yes. Yes, I'm finished."

Ablack face obscured the ceiling. Gentle hands lifted the blanket

and removed the bedpan."How long?"

The face that was about to disappear from view halted within myfield of vision. Bushy eyebrows arched their acknowledgement.

"You mean how long you been here or how long you gonna stay?"

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"How long am I going to stay?"

"Till the doctor says you're okay, I guess."

"Thanks."

"Uh-huh."

The face completed its retreat and the neat ceiling was drowned

beneath the tears that welled in my eyes. My own visions supplanted

the blankness in front of me. Once more I heard the door of my bed-

room burst open. Shadowy figures rushed in. There was a sudden,

painful flood of light.

"Don't make a move, Touzani! Don't even breathe!"I felt the cold barrel of a police-issue handgun against my head.

The hammer was pulled back with a loud, ratchety click.

"I am arresting you on charges of incitement to commit perjury

and"This is my way of keeping what's rightfully mine.""...you have the right to remain silent

Al, helpless, frightened, tosses me a pair of pants.

"Here, put these on."I'm out in the darkness, handcuffed and half-naked, pushed stag-

gering into the back of a police-car. We swerve and wail through the

L.A. streets.

"I hope he's all right. Oh please, God, don't let him die. I should

never have told him about CBA. I might have known his heart

wouldn't take it."

And then the blinding light. Something in my head giving way. A

dam bursting. A steel cable, stretched to final thinness in its effort tohold everything together snaps and the two ends whiplash like flail-

ing arms."Leave me alone! Get away from me you sons-of-bitches! Let me

out of here! Let me out!"

Blood on my knuckles. Something hard hits my face and I feel

wetness. My arms held fast. I feel the prick of a needle.

"That ought to hold the son-of-a-bitch!"And then the bed. The wonderful bed with its wonderful Ameri-

can ceiling that is once again slowly swimming into view. Now at last

the fight is over. My hands and arms are strapped lovingly so that

they will no longer do me harm; I cannot move my head to discover

what is best left unseen. America will clothe and feed me. America will

bring the bedpan when I yell. As long as I cause no trouble, Americawill see that I never have to struggle again. God bless America.

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PRIVATE SCREENING


10/16

Several years earlier in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Birgit and I were about to begin our nightly routine.For me, this was a pretty straightforward business which began

with the grand ceremony of putting on my pajamas and culminated a

few minutes later with the ritual cleaning of the teeth. The form of thisritual was very simple but its practice was nearly always complicated by

one major problem: although I nearly always knew where my tooth-brush was, I never knew where Birgit had put the toothpaste.

On this particular night, the toothpaste was not too difficult tolocate. After a short search of the surrounding area, I finally spotted it

next to her make-up on a low table by the wall.

"You're slipping, Birgit," I muttered. "Any fool can tell the differ-

ence between toothpaste and hair-remover."

I checked the tube, just to make sureI

wasn't the one fool whocouldn't tell the difference, and then tried to squeeze it onto my brush.

Predictably, nothing happened.

"God damn!" I growled. "Why does she always leave the cap off?"The paste had dried to a solid barrier, blocking the nozzle. I rolled

up the end of the tube tightly, forcing its contents upwards and then

crushed it angrily. There was a split-second's resistance and then the

toothpaste spurted out onto my brush, my hand, the washbasin and

the bathroom floor.

"God damn!"

I threw down the tube in disgust.In most respects, Birgit, like just about every other German I'd ever

met, was methodical and meticulous and had a keen eye for detail. We

had been together for over three years and, as time passed, we had bothfallen into the sort of mutual compromises that all couples are obliged

to make. But replacing the cap on the toothpaste still remained a boneof contention. Nothing that I could say or do seemed to make the

slightest difference. It was a habit that could not be explained in con-

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ventional terms: it was just one of those unaccountable phenomenalike UFOs or the Loch Ness Monster.

"Birgit!" I shouted. "For God's sake!When will you learn to put the

cap back on? Now I have to clean the whole goddamned sink!"

By now, protests of this sort had become so common that Birgitdidn't even bother replying.

I know, " I continued, "it's about time some genius invented a

self-sealing tube.They'd make a fortune out of you girls."Birgit was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to finish. Ours was

one of those small one-bedroom apartments that optimized the art of

conversation: if you whispered in the john, your voice carried clear to

the living-room.

"It's already been invented, Bill," she replied, calmly."But some of

us girls are just plain old-fashioned, I guess."

"What do you mean, it's already been invented?"

"It's easy to see who does the shopping around here. They're

upright tubes with a flat base and a sort of dispenser top. Been aroundfor years."

"Really?" I sighed, taking a sponge and dabbing half-heartedly at

the mess on the floor.

"Yes, really."

"That's a shame," I said. "We could've patented it and made our-

selves a fortune."

"Like your three-sided toothbrush, you mean?""That was a damned good idea!""No, it wasn't. Oh, Ill admit that it saved a lot of work- you could

clean your teeth on all sides with one stroke - no problem.The trouble

was you had to keep your mouth open all the time and anyone who

used it ended up drooling like the town idiot. You'd have needed to

invent a drip-tray to go with it!"

"Okay, point taken."Birgit went to get herself a drink. This was always a job that she

approached with a certain degree of trepidation. The door of the fridgewas invariably crammed with crushed, half-empty cola bottles and she

never knew which one was going to fall out. This time, she managed to

open the door slowly and found only one bottle which appeared to

have taken a savage blow to its midriff and was bent over in pain. As

she reached for it, the bottle toppled forward, fell to the ground and

exploded into its original'shape. Birgit gave a short cry and jumped

backwards as if a rat had sprung at her."You okay?"I shouted, pausing in my dabbing.

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PRIVATE SCREENING


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There was a moment's silence.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay,"

"What happened?"

"One of your damn bottles again."

"Sorry.""Sorry? One of these days they'll give me a heart-attack," she

gasped. "Look, Bill, make a deal with you. buy you a self-sealing

tube of toothpaste ifyou stop buying those two-liter bottles that always

go flat on you."

"It's too expensive to buy little cans," I objected. "Forget the tooth-

paste - if somebody invented a bottle that shrank as you used it they'd

make a fortune for sure."

"It's already been done."

"Oh, come on!

" Iexclaimed.

"Next you'll be telling me tha t someguy's come up with everlasting chewing gum."

"No, I'm serious," she said. "There is a bottle that collapses down.

My father used them to store photographic chemicals when I was a kid.

The sides of them were...how do you say?...fluted kind of like a bel-

lows. Whenever he dispensed fixer or developer, he collapsed t hem

down to eliminate the air. That way the chemicals didn't get contami-

nated."

She's right, you know, I said to myself, I've heard of those bottles.

Why don't th e soft drinks companies use them? I can't be th e only per-

son who hates flat cola.Maybe I wasn't the only person but I couldn't imagine anyone else

allowing such a minor irritation to reach the level of an all- consumingobsession an obsession that had now been with me for more than a

year, intruding on my daily activities and haunting my nights. Basical-

ly it was a frustratingly simple matter: how to prevent the loss of car-

bon dioxide from my favorite soda-pop once t he plastic bottle had

been broached. After every drinkI would squeeze the sides of the bot-

tle, forcing its contents up towards the screw-cap to occupy the empty

space. When the space was filled and the air was evacuated I wouldscrew the cap down tightly and replace the bottle in the refrigerator.

The soda-pop remained as fresh and sparkling as it had been when thebottle was first opened.

So, in fact, the whole story began with fizz. Bubbles. Effervescence.

That was the first, brief, almost irrelevant spark that kindled my inven-

tiveness. It was fizz, or lack of it, that initially inspired me to devise anew and better way of storing liquids and foodstuffs and set me o n a

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13/16

And so I became the latest in a long line of new Americans to

undertake the long journey west. It was a journey that began with a

sense of excitement and anticipation. For me, as for millions of peoplethe world over, the Golden State had always symbolized everything

that was best and most desirable about the American Dream.

I had been there before on a few occasions to install planetariumsbut my work had rarely allowed me much time for sight-seeing. As I

oscillated between a planetarium that looked pretty much like any

other planetarium and a hotel-room that could have been in San Fran-

cisco, Boston or Yokohama, it had sometimes been difficult to believe

that I was in California at all.

In spite of the hurt she'd inflicted on me, I felt sorry for Birgit: Cal-

ifornia had meant just as much to her as it meant to me and now shewas back in Europewithout ever having sampled the best that America

had to offer. Without any disrespect to Donna,I would have much pre-

ferred Birgit's company - either as a wife or, failing that, as my best

friend.

During the three hours that it took to reach ChicagoI got to know

a little more about the girl that was traveling with me. Donna was not,

as I had thought, in her twenties. To be more exact, she was almost

twenty. An abandoned child, she'd been taken in by an uncle and aunt

who owned a small doughnut business in Ann Arbor. It was nota par-ticularly prosperous business and Donna had had to give up a promis-

ing university career to help out financially.Since then she had drifted

from job to job until she washed up in the milkbar where I met her,

and from whereshe'd sometimes caught sight of Birgit and me walking

along the street. It was clear that she'd had a crush on me for quitesome time and when I'd suggested that she fulfilled an old high-school

fantasy by running off to California, she'd had no qualms about

accepting my offer.

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Our journey went smoothly until we encountered the immense

flatlands of Nebraska. It was there that I noticed the police car in myrear-view mirror.

He wasn't the first cop we'd seen and initially I didn't pay him

much attention but instead of passing us, as I'd expected him to do, hedrew level with us, observed us carefully and then slid back into the

traffic to take up a position a few yards from our rear fender. I won-

dered what was interesting him. There wasn't anything special about

our Jartran truck: it was by no means an old vehicle and, as far as I

knew, there were no pieces hangingoff that might have done injury to

some innocent Nebraskan. Perhaps he wasn't interested at all. Perhaps

his curiousmaneuver had nothing to do with us.

But ten minutes later he was still there and I was becomingincreas-

ingly nervous. I put my foot on the gas to see if he followed suit. Hedid. I slowed down again. He slowed down too. No doubt about it: he

wasn't giving an inch. Donna's mother was suspicious of me! She'd

reported me for kidnapping! I was going to be arrested and chargedwith corrupting a minor! I was transporting Donna across a state line

for immoral purposes! Goodbye, Donna! Goodbye, California dream!

It was a hot day and I was getting hotter. If he stopped me and saw

me sweating like that he was bound to suspect something. I switched

on the air-conditioning.

At first there was a musty odor like you find in a room that's been

sealed for a long time. Then there was a shower of sparks from the air-

conditioning unit, followed by a series of loud crackles. Finally the

unmistakablearoma of roasting plasticinvaded the passenger compart-

ment.

I swung onto the hard shoulder of the freeway. The cop followed

immediately, touching us fender to fender. I jumped down and lifted

the hood. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him walk round and join

me.

"You got a problem, sir?"

He never said a truer word. At that precise moment a large flamelicked up through the radiator-grille.

"Get back!" yelled the cop.

He sprinted to his car and returned a few seconds later witha fire-

extinguisher. He pulled the lever. Nothing happened. He shook the

extinguisher and pulled the lever again. Again nothing. Empty.

Visiblyovertaken by events, the poor cop stared at his extinguisher

with an impotent, contrite air. I didn't have time to sympathize with

him.

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Woooff! A scorching blast threw us back a good ten feet.

"Donna!" I screamed. Whatre you playing at? Get the hell out of

that truck!"

Donna dived into the ditch. Behind us the siren of the police car

began to wail. There didn't seem to be too much point to that since ourtruck was already stationary and unlikely ever to go much further.

Maybe it was standard procedure in cases of fire.

The only constructive measure the cop did take - in fact the only

really constructive measure he had taken up till then - was to call the

fire department. As he was doing that, I tried to rescue my attach6 casefrom the front seat of the truck but, in the blinking of an eye, flames

tore through the interior of the cab and reduced it to cinders.

At this point the cop, who had been sitting petrified behind the

wheel of his car, decided it might be a fairly prudent idea to move itback. Once he seemed to have taken the decision that the raging infer-no in front of him might conceivably be no respecter of the law, he

wasted little time in acting on it. By then, the fire must have been visi-

ble many miles away. Thick, black smoke was pouring into the quiet,

crystal air of Nebraska.Finally the cop's state of shock seemed to be diminishing a little.

He ran into the middle of the freeway and began stopping the traffic.

Heavy trailer-trucks lined themselves up at the side of the highway

with an unbearable screechingof brakes and the whistling exhalations

of exhausted animals.With our vehicle threatening to explode at any moment, three

truckers with the bodies of Sumo wrestlers ran over brandishing ironbars and set about forcing the rear door. The cop was shouting and ges-

ticulating wildly in his efforts to get them to move away but they

ignored him and began an incredible game of catch with anything that

came to hand: TV, video, stereo... A shrivelled scrap of brilliant red

cloth protruded from a smoldering suitcase, twisted in agony. It was a

tragi-comic vision and I burst into laughter - then doubled up cough-

ing and retching. Hands laid hold of me and bundled me onto astretcher. I was being pushed into a ambulance. An oxygen mask was

stuck on my face. Suddenly everything seemed like a dream...an awful

nightmare. My last recollection was a surreal image of my computer-

flying high above me and crashing into the ditch, belly open, its

seething entrails overflowing into the dust.

As night was falling, the firemen dropped us at a Holiday Inn bythe freeway exit. Because of a simple short-circuit in the air- condition-

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ing we'd lost everything. But we were alive. I was not charged with kid-

napping or starting fires without a permit and I was able to fall asleep

in Donna's arms.

"It's a pity about my red dress," she whispered before she closed

her eyes. "I never did get a chance to wear it."

I had hoped that the rental company would replace our truck with-

in a matter of hours but I reckoned without the beginning of the stu-

dent vacation.

"I'm sorry, Mr Touzani," said the Jartran representative, when Icalled the next day, "but we just don't have anything available at the

moment."

"Look," I replied, angrily. "The truckI rented back in Michigan

nearly killed the both of us. I think the least you can do is to get areplacement to us right away!"

"I'm very sorry about the accident," soothed the representative,

"but you must understand that I can't just produce a new truck out of

thin air.Ill do my best - you can be assured of that -and Ill get back to

you as soon as I knowsomething."

It looked as if there was was nothing for it but to wait. Unfortu-

nately a Holiday Inn in an empty, God-forsaken corner of Nebraska

was not the best place to do it. We spent the next two days in a state of

limbo until finally a new truck turned up at the hotel entrance.

I use the word 'new' in the sense of 'fresh' or 'different'. Otherwise

there was nothing at all new about our replacement vehicle. On a

downward gradient with the wind behind us, we sometimes achieved

the tremendous speed of forty or fifty miles an hour but on a level sur-

face the most we could hope for was twenty. Aftera fewhours, Donna

and I had the sensation that we were traveling to California as the pio-

neers had done a hundred years earlier. If we'd spotted an Arapaho

raiding party on the skyline I don't think either of us would have been

surprised.

One thing was certain: if ever we did eventually make it across thegreat plains, the burning deserts and the high sierras, we would be in

California to stay.

San Franciscoat last! Welcome pioneers! Suddenly there's Mexicanfood at every turn. Chinatown, with its hookers and lacquered ducks,

mirrors the chaos, the bustle, the fury of Hong Kong. Down at Fisher-man's Wharf, Italian fishermenmend their nets in the midstof tourists

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PRIVATE SCREENING

excerpt private screening the making and unmaking of an american dream

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