Club Bam

The night the Phillies won the World Series, cars were overturned in West Chester. Luckily, Bam Margera has an alibi: He was involved in a noisy scuffle with a neighbor.

The next day, the borough's most famous and infamous native is showing off his civic side, sitting outside the Note, the recently opened music club he co-owns.

But just because Margera, 29, is wearing his businessman's hat doesn't mean he's suddenly gotten civilized.

Asked how married life is treating him, he says, "It's good, but today we got in a big fight. I broke a few lamps and doors. It's because [the band] CKY is here and every friend I've ever had is in town. It's just mayhem."

His wife, Missy - their engagement was the focus of Margera's most recent MTV series, Bam's Unholy Union - has a high threshold for mayhem. But this week, their property has been particularly zoolike (hence the altercation with the neighbor).

"Usually he's got eight people over there," explains his burly father, Phil. "This week, there's 20."

CKY, the metal band formed by Bam's older brother, Jess the drummer, provided the soundtrack for the early videos that turned Margera into a daredevil skateboarding legend when he was still a teen.

The group may be tough on Margera's marriage, but it is clearly good for business, judging by the long line of young people stretching down the sidewalk on East Market Street.

The Note is a dark but tastefully appointed space with a comfortable lounge upstairs overlooking the stage.

"When we bought it, it was basically just a pile of bricks," Margera says. "We gutted the whole thing and fixed it up. We got some cool chandeliers from the south of France and Coatesville."

Bam finds that geographical juxtaposition so amusing, he repeats it twice, chortling each time.

"We put a lot of money into soundproofing the place, trying to appease the neighbors," says Don Moore, Bam's partner, who transferred his liquor license from another local watering hole, Rex's.

Margera's musical taste runs to Scandinavian headbangers, but to keep the turnstiles humming, the Note has booked such wide-ranging acts as Blues Traveler and Jerry Blavat. The club has become a mecca for Chester County's younger crowd.

"There are so many college kids that don't have the money to drive all the way to Philly," Margera says. "And if they have a few drinks then they have to drive an hour home. They can just walk here."

Buying a bar was something of a no-brainer for the wild man of West Chester.

"I realized that I was probably blowing 20 grand a month at Kildare's [Irish Pub] so I figured . . . ," he says, before collapsing into laughter. "I finally said, 'Dude, I should just open my own place.' "

From Jackass on, Margera's career of insanely dangerous stunts and pranks has been fueled by a volatile combination of exhibitionism, recklessness and alcohol.

Brandon Cole Margera's demolition-derby nature - and his nickname - emerged at a young age.

"When he was 1, I would be playing cards with my dad and my brothers in the kitchen," Phil says. "The kids would be out in the living room and he kept running into the furniture. We'd hear boom and my dad would say, 'There goes Bam again.' "

That headlong approach to life would eventually find its perfect expression in Jackass, a monument to sadomasochistic high jinks and gross-out humor. The hit MTV series, with Margera, Johnny Knoxville, and a host of crazies, was spun off into a pair of movies.

The franchise is still alive.

"It takes about four years to write a Jackass movie," Margera says. "If we're doing a third one, we want it to top the second one. It just takes a while to think of stupid stuff."

Stuff like, in Jackass: Number Two, having Margera's posterior branded with an obscene, acetylene-heated cattle iron. Or getting shot at close range with riot-control pellets.

His contributions to the creative process are rather primitive. "When I write my scripts, I don't even write anything," he says. "I just draw a goofy picture and fax it in. That counts as a writer's credit - some crappy drawings."

At the moment, he's something of an absentee owner of the Note. "I'm in L.A. almost more than I'm home lately," he says.

Margera is developing two feature films, including one based on dreamseller, the memoir of his friend Brandon Novak, a skating prodigy who slid into heroin addiction.

Novak had to be pushed to get his story down on paper.

"I was like, 'You can live in my house for free just as long as I see you writing every time I wake up,' " Margera says. "After a year and a half went by he said, 'I think I'm done.' "

Margera has other projects in the half-pipe, such as Minghags, an indigestible morsel of a DVD that comes out on Thanksgiving (available at www.minghags.com). Shot in West Chester, it's the sequel to 2003's Haggard: The Movie, and is a goofy, trailer-trash comedy with bad wigs, tacky clothes, and great root beer.

The next week, he's putting out Where The #$&% Is Santa?, a DVD that answers the shopping question posed by Missy: "What can you get in Finland that you can't get in King of Prussia?"

"I've been to Finland like 22 times, and I found out there's a Santa Castle up in the Arctic Circle in a little town called Rovaniemi," Margera said. "I flew all my friends out there and we took dogsleds, helicopters and snowmobiles 600 miles through the middle of nowhere. What we wanted to do is bring Santa back to West Chester for a decent Christmas."

The film culminates in a raucous rock-and-skate party in Bam's barn.

Margera would be even busier if he didn't have to devote so much time to recovery. For instance, he's just gotten over tearing his stomach muscles during a typically self-destructive feat in China.

In case you're wondering, the worst he ever got hurt while following his maniacal muse was filming an episode of MTV's Cribs featuring members of the local punk-rap group the Bloodhound Gang.

Margera drove a car modified to look like a banana off an embankment into a pond that the owner assured him was seven feet deep.

"I stood on the roof as it was sinking to do a gainer," he says. "I went in head-first. It was only two feet deep, so I cracked my head open and had to get 16 staples to close this massive gash. My neck is still messed up.

"I got rushed to the Pottstown hospital. . . . That wasn't fun."

He meant the hospital experience. Because the stunt? That was awesome!