his is a picture of my favourite part of San Jose - the Mission Ale House. San Jose has a population of just short of, one million. It's downtown has about 6 pubs. When I first came here, this seemed really strange to me. There is a HUGE alcohol culture where I am from. Socialising is pretty much completely tied to alcohol - this is not really the case in the USA, it took me some time to adapt to this fact. However, this pub (or Bar as Americans say), is the closest to a Scottish pub I have found in San Jose.
It has none of the awful phoniness of the Irish Bars. The Brewery pubs are good, but they are really restaurants that sell beer, Americans think more about food than drink - not that that's a bad thing, but it does not make for good pub atmosphere. The Mission seems like a real pub. Thank goodness it's not trying to be a phony little piece of Ireland, or a restaurant. They will sell you food in the Mission, but most people seem to go there for a beer.
I actually would go as far as to say that the Mission is better than most Scottish pubs. Alcohol is not a big thing here like it is in Scotland, so the upside of this, is that American's think its possible to go for one or two beers and then go home. In my youth, if we could even remember going home, we didn't think we'd had a good evening - the aim was to get as drunk as possible. From what I can see, this culture is getting even worse in the UK now. But, it's possible to go for a quiet beer in the mission without getting hassled by drunk people, having been attacked by drunk people in my home country more than once, I'm particularly wary of drunk people. It's actually quite uncool to be drunk on a night out in America, it's uncool not to be drunk on a night out in Scotland.
Not only is it not trying to be Irish, the Mission actually has, what I think of as a very American atmosphere. But in a good way, friendly and uncomplicated.
I saw it as a sign of my advancing years that the bouncer at the door of the Mission asked to see every one's ID's when arriving, but always just waved me through. On Friday, after going there most Fridays for the past 2 years, he asked for my ID for the first time. Am I getting younger?
Also, I see then Mission has installed a jukebox again, after 2 odd years of it not having one. The old jukebox was great, I used to put the Violent Femmes and the Smiths on all the time. I must check out the new one. I don't suppose the new one will have the Violent Femmes's "Old Mother Regan" on it anymore. I got sick of the overly reverential tributes to Ronald Regan when he died and I kept putting that song on the jukebox at the time. No one seemed to mind.
So lets raise a glass to the Mission. Please don't ever change it. If it goes away, a population of just under a million will go from having one decent pub, to having no decent pubs!
For further reading, see:
http://www.missionalehouse.com/
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