“And taking the stage now, R.C. Victor!!”

I saw the photocopied advertisement taped on the side of a restaurant window.  Thursday nights, 6:00 p.m., it’s a comedy Open Mike night at Broadway Joe’s Bar and Grille in Albany.

A comedy open mike night.  Oh my lord.  Do I want to get back involved with that again?  Do I want to return to the open mike stage, a place I left more than 20 years ago?

No, Chuck is not joking.  Believe me, I’m not joking about joking.

Spin the clock back to the winter of 1988-89.  At the time, I had just gone through a very ugly divorce – maybe I’ll blog about that some time, maybe I won’t – but suffice it to say, in October of 1988, I was living alone in a second-floor flat on Morris Street in Albany and feeling like I had taken a sucker-punch in the solar plexus.

It was at that point that I started reading the free newspapers – Metroland and Source – because I really couldn’t afford a Times Union subscription at that time.  That’s how tight my finances were.

While reading through Metroland, I spotted some advertisements for various night-time entertainment – clubs and bars and such.  There was a place on Central Avenue called the Comedy Works – and on Wednesdays they offered “Open Mike” to anyone who thought they were the second coming of Andrew “Dice” Clay or Bobcat Goldthwait.

Well, I had nothing else to do with my life at that point.  My ex had my daughter, and all I was doing was living the Jim Reeves lifestyle – four walls to hear me, four walls to see, four walls too near me, closing in on me…

So on a cold October Wednesday evening, I took the CDTA bus to 855 Central Avenue, home of the Comedy Works.  I talked with the owner of the bar / comedy club, and he told me how things worked.  The patrons would come in, they would order drinks, they would watch the routines on stage, you might get applause, you might get heckled, but you weren’t getting paid.  In other words, it’s like being a Times Union community blogger.

The open mike was free entertainment for the bar, and free exposure for the performers.  Again – just like being a Times Union community blogger.

“So what’s your name?” the bar owner asked.

“Chuck Miller,” I replied.

“Ehh,” he said.  “That’s not much of a comedian’s name.  Doesn’t sound very funny.  You got anything else?”

I thought quickly.  Maybe a set of initials and a phony last name.  I.P. Freely.  Nah, that sounds like something one does in the lavatory.  Any other name I came up with sounded like it belonged on the end credits of an episode of Car Talk.

Then I had an idea.  Inspired by my record collecting hobby, I came up with…

“Just call me R.C. Victor.”

And at that moment, a new comedian took the stage.

That’s right – for about six months, I was one of the Wednesday night cadre of comedians at the Comedy Works on Central Avenue – and later on, when the venue relocated to the Thruway Inn on Washington Avenue Extension, I was part of the Open Mike team there as well.

I tried a whole mess of routines – some of it was indeed a mess; some of it actually worked well. At that time, Mike Tyson was in the news, and I was able to do a very good imitation of Mike Tyson.  “That’s right, I married a girl named Robin Givens, she be robin’ from me and given to her mother.”

I remember some of the people I did open mike with – Tom Davis and Rich Tenace and Jay Pregent and a guy from Schenectady who called himself “Spuck,” those were my compatriots.  Some of them used the same routines every week – Spuck always sang a song with lyrics like “You haven’t been the same to me / since the day I slit your throat…” and Jay Pregent had a joke about someone along the highway who held up a sign saying “Free Soviet Jews,” so Jay pulled over and took a few of them.

It was a great Wednesday night diversion, and I built up a decent circle of friends.  I did this for about six months, and then I stopped.

Although it was fun to go out every Wednesday night, I had to put the kibosh on it because of family obligations. Those family obligations were that my ex-wife – after only a few weeks with the kids in her care – actually lost custody of them and they ended up in a foster home.  Again, it’s something I might blog about some day – or maybe I won’t.

At that point, telling jokes about Mike Tyson’s love life on a comedy stage just wasn’t funny any more.  Neither was Mike Tyson’s love life, but I digress…

I immediately began court proceedings to get my kids – my daughter Cassaundra and her older sister Sonya, who wasn’t even my biological kid – out of foster care.  I had to step to the plate and be a parent – and if it meant giving up part of my life to take care of them, then I gave up part of my life and that was it.

My last stint at the Comedy Works was in March of 1989.  I had fun, I even hosted for the night (and I drove the owners of the bar nuts by not enforcing the strict time limits each act was allowed on stage, hell what did I care?).  It was great, it was fun, but I couldn’t make it part of my life any more.

I stayed in touch with some of my fellow Open Mike talent – Tom Davis went to New York City to try his hand at the NYC comedy clubs, and Jay Pregent later restored and renovated the Madison Theater, which he still operates.

And every so often, I think about what it would have been like had I continued on with this stand-up comedy shtick.

And I came to one inescapable conclusion.

I’d be blogging for the Times Union, just as I am today – but my blog picture would be on the left side of the webpage, not in the “Lifestyles” center section.