Good grief why did I write this passage down?
I think it was the reference to the smoke eaters on the ceilings of this club.
I remember smoking cigars in college in a place like this.
Them eaters were supposed to be taking all the smoke out…
But they worked as well as a paperweight would.
It smelled like boredom.
AFTER THE BOARDING HOUSE GIG, I was booked into a club in Nashville called the Exit/ In. It was a low ceilinged box, painted black inside, with two noisy smoke eaters hanging from the ceiling, to no avail. The dense secondhand smoke was being inhaled and exhaled, making it third-hand and fourth-hand smoke. The stage was perfectly situated in the corner of the room.
-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (Amazon)