Sometimes while sitting alone on a barstool, you meet either the most fascinating or singularly boring people in the universe. I experienced the former many years ago while enjoying my stay in New Orleans in the spring of 1978. I had stopped in a little bar called the Chart Room in the French Quarter for a drink and struck up a conversation with an older gentleman next to me. He was a science writer for a fledgling New York magazine and was interviewing a Nobel Prize-winning scientist for his research on pheromones.

We talked at great length about his story because I had read one or two scientific articles about pheromones. At that time, however, the topic was not very widely known.

Pheromones are defined as “an agent secreted by an individual that produces a change in the sexual or social behavior of another individual of the same species; a volatile hormone that acts as a behavior-altering agent.” The term “pheromone” is usually used for sexual attractants but it also applies to aggression-stimulating agents, such as a certain chemical in honey bees. Other pheromones act as signals for alarm and defense, territory and trail-marking, and social regulation and recognition.

It is thought by some in the scientific community that humans also put out pheromones. For example, women may at the time of ovulation secrete a subtle scent that attracts men.

After a time, he said he was meeting a friend at the Napolean House and invited me along. The Napolean House is over 200 years old. The building’s first resident, Nicholas Girod, (and New Orleans mayor from 1812 to 1815), offered the house to Napolean in 1821 as refuge during his exile. Napolean never made the trip, but the name stuck and it has long been a famous hangout of writers and artists. There is a slight green patina of moss on the outside walls; they almost speak to you of their history as you step over the threshold. He greeted his friend, who turned out to be a longtime New Orleans newspaperwoman, Iris Kelso. Ms. Kelso was the epitome of southern grace and style. A very classy lady, yet you could see that she could be a steely adversary if the occasion called for it. I immediately liked her. She ordered a Pimm’s Cup and settled in for some “shop talk.”

Once their visit was over, we ended up having dinner together to further our discussions. He was a fascinating man, well-traveled, extremely bright, and a brilliant conversationalist. He seemed somewhat distrustful of strangers, but I suppose that was due to the nature of his work. News reporters are trained to be suspicious and look for the “angle.” He commented on the fact that I was from Phoenix: “They kill reporters in your town,” referring to the car bombing of reporter Don Bowles two years earlier.

He finally told me that he was writing for a new science magazine named “OMNI” and would be published by Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse magazine.

Omni combined articles on science fact and short fiction. The first issue was published in October 1978 and the last was in Winter 1995. It was actually launched by Guccione’s wife, Kathy Keeton Guccione. Originally it was going to be titled Nova, but they changed the name due to the conflict with the PBS show of the same name. In its early days, it enjoyed a high circulation, which allowed the magazine to pay many times more for stories than other science fiction magazines. They were also able to attract some prominent fiction writers due in large part to an outstanding staff of fiction editors.

The large part of the magazine profiled science and scientists with a visionary, gonzo-style science journalism. OMNI’s Q&A interviews remain a collective oral history of 20^th century science told by some of its greatest scientific minds. OMNI essentially paved the way for the future of science journalism. In a way, Guccione made science journalism sexy long before Carl Sagan was talking about the “primordial ooze” on his PBS show, “Cosmos.”

His article on the Nobel Prize appeared in the inaugural issue of OMNI, October 1978.

In researching this, I came across an interview by a man of the exact same name who had interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald on August 17, 1963 in New Orleans on a little radio show called the “Latin Listening Post.” As a result of this, Mr. Stuckey earned a seat before the Warren Commission investigating the death of JFK. If I had known then what I know now, I would have asked a lot more questions. But I doubt I would have gotten any answers……

I haven’t spent any time on barstools in quite a while, but when I did, I tried to make the most of it. Nevertheless, that particular day was a very interesting one indeed.