Le Petomane - Warning! Possible offensive material.......

Needing a dose of humor, I was perusing YouTube this morning in search of a partifular video and I stumbled across something from Blazing Saddles. As Ron White might say, I tell you that story to tell you this. The Governor in Blazing Saddles is named William J. Le Petomane. Whats funny about that? Well, seems there was this gentleman, long long ago, who was known by his stage name "Le Petomane." For those of you who are Franco-illeterate the name translates as "The Fart Maniac." His real name was Joseph Pujol. (For those of you who know of my interest in Compressed Natural Gas Vehicles, you can understand why I would find this facinating. But I digress).

Now Joe was a unique indivdual as humans go. He had this ability to fart on cue. Not only that, he could fart for sustained periods and was able to accomplish miracles with his... well, back end lets say. He was able to suck water into his colin, and then project it several yards. He could imitate the sounds of musical instruments, (farting "Le Marseillaise") imitate the sounds of thunder and cannon fire, and blow out a candle from several yards away.

He debuted on the stage at the prestigious Moulin Rouge in 1892 and performed for most of the celibrity figures of the day: Sigmund Freud, Prince Edward, and so forth. After a nasty lawsuit, he stopped performing on the stage at the Moulin rouge and opened his own theatre in 1894.

He continued to "refine" his act, trying to make them gentler. Part of his act was to quote a poem of his own composition about a tranquil farm while imitating the farm animals out of his other orifice. The climazx of his new act included him farting an impression of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

He stopped performing after WW I and returned to his former occupation as a baker, dying in 1945 at the age of 88.

There is an indivdual that accomplishes similar feats today who goes by the stage name "Mr. Methane." He has his won website at www.mrmethane.com

Thus concludes the interest in our natural gas manufacturing capabilities.