El Cajon Boulevard bar taps into its shot at fame in new movie

Have you met Mick, the “chick of the week” ladies’ man who never goes on more than two dates with any woman? How about Buck, the barfly with a comment for everyone and everything? If you have, you’ve been to the Live Wire, a North Park bar that is the setting for the independent feature film The Five Stages of Beer. The film follows the trials and tribulations of a newly divorced man back on the dating scene and his womanizing friend.

“We’ve had our share of Micks come through the bar,” says bar owner Sam Chammas, who lent his support — and his keys — to the production.

Chammas also owns the Whistle Stop and Turf Club in the South Park area. He and business partner Joe Austin are no strangers to film shoots. “We did it a lot in the early years between ’92 and ’95,” says Chammas. The early years were both prosperous and troublesome for the bar owners. “The first couple of years we had a lot of break-ins, a lot of crazy things going on around here.” Did that impede early business? Chammas says no. “It was busy right off the bat.”

The key to Live Wire’s success may lie in the thematic heart of The Five Stages of Beer. Based on the five stages of grief model discovered by Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the film purports that you can substitute beer into the model to deal with relationship breakups. As Sunny the barmaid says in the film, “I find it works for everything.”
Stage one is denial, which is represented by raspberry Hefeweizen, a brew Sunny calls “chick beer.” Next comes anger, which calls for Guinness, a warm, thick, dark brew that she calls “the most pissed off of all beers.” Stage three is reserved for a local microbrew, nothing too specific as stage three is all about bargaining and indecision. Stage four is depression, which must be nursed with a light beer because “as bad you feel, you just want to make it worse.” Finally comes acceptance, and only one beer can be so dependable when you’re at peace… Budweiser.

It is this eclectic mix of brews and banter at the real Live Wire that made it so successful. As Chammas recalls, at the time Live Wire opened, “there was no bar that had 20 great imported and microbrewed beers on tap. We have Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Hefeweizen, Red Hook.” And of course, Budweiser.

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“The previous 10 years the Live Wire was a little pub, a beer and wine pub. Then we got a liquor license so now there’s all these nice shiny bottles back there when before it was all covered with rock ‘n’ roll band stickers and pints and stuffed animals and all kinds of stuff… It looked like Sanford and Son back there.”

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Live Wire’s popularity attracted cinematic interest. In the bar’s early years, says Chammas, “all kinds of student films would be shot here.” But since then they had sworn off film shoots. “When a film crew gets into a space and once they claim it, they own it. It got so abused.” Then his filmmaking friend, Mark Yturralde, came to Chammas with a film he believed would fit right in. “Mark and I go way back,” Chammas says. So he relented.

The two met when Chammas was a drummer in the now-retired CLA, a local band that Yturralde frequently listened to and whose music is featured in the film. When Yturralde approached him about Stages Chammas was a little reticent. Eventually, he conceded. “When it was Mark, I said, ‘We’ll do it and we’re going to do it this way. I can’t be here all the time. I’m going to give you the keys. You’ll open up. You’ll close it. You’ve got to be out by this time. I totally trust you. Here’s my cell phone (number). Anything comes up, give me a call.’ It went flawlessly.”

Yturralde concurs. “When I brought Brian (Mix) in, my director, and showed him around, he was like, ‘yeah, sold.’” And Mix makes good use of his setting. The film “documented the bar pretty well,” says Chammas. “The previous 10 years the Live Wire was a little pub, a beer and wine pub. Then we got a liquor license so now there’s all these nice shiny bottles back there when before it was all covered with rock ‘n’ roll band stickers and pints and stuffed animals and all kinds of stuff… It looked like Sanford and Son back there.”

Not that the bar lacks character now. If the bright red exterior doesn’t catch your eye then the deformed bicycle sculpture in front that serves as a bike rack will. It was fashioned by local metalwork company DeForm, which also fabricated the Little Italy sign that hangs over India Street.

Andrew and James Leritz, founders of DeForm, were frequent customers of Live Wire and complained often about the lack of a bike rack, to which Chammas finally replied, “Alright, Andy, make us a bike rack!” Little did Chammas expect they would actually do it. “You hear things like that all the time and customers never follow through. Three weeks later, Joe and I show up and Andy’s out there jackhammering up the sidewalk and he’s got this cool melted bike sculpture.” So cool, director Mix featured it in the opening credits of Stages.

The location was beneficial to the crew in other ways. Mama’s Bakery and Lebanese Deli next door provided the catering. Park Manor, which lies at the northwest end of Balboa Park, provided lodging for the crew as well as doubling as a set for the film’s restaurant scenes. Most convenient of all, San Diego Stage and Lighting is situated directly across the street, providing extraordinary convenience for the film crew when supplies were in need of replenishing.

The crew also was fortunate to have full run of the bar for days at a time. As Mix says, “They open at eight o’clock, so we had to set up and tear down by six.” Was there a problem with shooting mostly night shots during the day? Not really, says Chammas. “This place is very window free. It could be nighttime in here, it could be daytime. It worked out pretty well.”

As for the movie itself, Chammas is pleased with the outcome. “I’m glad it’s getting some attention. I did enjoy it. I thought it was really good.”

As well he might. For Live Wire is the ‘reel’ star of The Five Stages of Beer.

Live Wire is located at 2103 El Cajon Blvd. and opens at 8 p.m. 5 p.m. happy hour every Friday.

“The Five Stages of Beer” was featured at the San Diego Film Festival and will screen again at the Indendepent Film Society, Schulman Auditorium, 1775 Dove Lane in Carlsbad. 7 p.m, Saturday, Oct. 18.

For information visit www.5sob.com.

Originally published in San Diego North Park News.