Irish Drinking

by Sean Rein

Earlier this year, my wife and I took a two-week vacation to Ireland. Since I have been back, I have been asked at least 100 times, “Why did you go to Ireland?”

Do I have to point out that my name is Sean? My wife’s maiden name is Sheehan! WE’RE IRISH! Plus, who doesn’t want to have a Guinness in an Irish pub?

People are idiots.

The truth is, Ireland is a great place to visit, even if you are not Irish. The people are friendly and speak English…well, the ones you can understand speak English. The weather isn’t bad, and, yes, it isn’t hard to find a pub. In fact, National Geographic named the Dingle Peninsula “most beautiful place on Earth.”

I truly went to Ireland because my wife had never been, and I enjoyed it so much the first time that I couldn’t say no. And, yes, my favorite part was drinking in the pubs. That’s why I want to highlight some of my favorite pubs from my last visit home.

Durty Nelly’s – Bunratty
I went to Durty Nelly’s when I went to Ireland the first time in 1982. It is the quintessential dark Irish pub. The floors are wood, the celling is low, they were burning peat in the fireplace, and the drinks and conversations flow freely. When I was there in 1982 I was 12 years old and there were no laws against underage drinking.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. It was good in 1982 and still was in 2008.

Dick Mac’s – Dingle
It’s known as “The Last Pew” because it it directly across the street from the Catholic church. In fact, the main stairs of the church empty out to the curb, and the entrance to Dick Mac’s is directly across the narrow street. A guy could walk out of church and take about ten steps before he was bellied up to the bar in Dick Mac’s. The place used to be a leatherworks back in the day. So, a guy could bring in his saddle and have a pint while the leatherworker repaired it.

While drinking at Dick Mac’s, I was informed that it was not against the law to pick and be in possession of “magic mushrooms.” I was also told by the locals that the grounds of the Pitch & Putt were the best place to go hunting for the little delights. It made me want to take up golf.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. It goes good with mushrooms.

Foxy John’s – Dingle
This might have been the best pub I visited. It was a pub on one side and a hardware store on the other.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. It tastes good when you are looking at hammers.

O’Connor’s – Kenmare
This was a cozy little place in Kenmare. It was perfect for ducking in out of the rain and hoisting a pint. It was so warm and inviting that a stray dog wandered in and begged for food. The barmaid shooed him out but as soon as her back was turned, he wandered right back in.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. Stray dogs like me love it.

Florry Bott’s – Kenmare
This place was a real tiny crapbox, but it was quaint in its own way. When I went to the back of the place to inspect the plumbing, I found the keg room. I love keg rooms.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. They have a room full of it!

Morrissey’s – Dublin
This place was great! We went in there on three separate days, and, every time, the same old guy was in the corner watching horse racing and had the table covered with papers. We spent every evening here watching horse racing, hurling and Premier League soccer.

My drink recommendation: Paulaner Hefeweizen. Hey, Dublin is a lot closer to Bavaria than St. Paul, Minnesota is!

Sheehan’s – Dublin
Please! It’s my wife’s family’s place! What more do you want? My drink recommendation: Guinness. When in Rome.

Matt Malloy’s – Westport
Matt Malloy was the flautist for The Chieftains. There was a Grammy sitting behind the bar. The rumor was that he would drop by often and play with whatever band was on stage. We actually heard an old guy singing Irish songs badly in here. Every pub had a stumbling drunk and the one in Matt Malloy’s decided to sing.

My drink recommendation: Guinness. It soothes the ears.

I kept track of my drinking while I was on the island, and in 15 days I drank 70 pints of Guinness. I’m very proud of that, and I know that my Irish relatives, dead and alive, feel the same way. I only gained 2 pounds on the trip and I attribute that to Guinness’s low carb content and the low-calorie foods I ate in the pubs.

My advice to you…go to Ireland and drink your way around the island. I did and it was the best vacation I’ve ever had.

New Diet

by Sean Rein

My editor paid me a compliment the other day. He saw this picture of me in front of the wookie display and told me I was a bastard for slimming down. He wanted to know what my secret was.

With all of the diets out there—South Beach, the L.A. Diet, the Atkins Diet, etc.—mine is a unique diet plan and I should patent it and write a book. My diet is called The Eat Less and Exercise More Diet.

It’s weird, isn’t it? Everyone (fat) thinks that there is some big secret to losing weight, but there isn’t. Just take Jim Palermo’s advice: “Stop eatin’ so much, ya fat pig.” I have simply stopped eating crap like Doritos and ice cream, and I get my wide load to the gym three times a week.

Oh, I do a few other things in addition to that. Instead of grabbing that can of soda, I drink water. Instead of going home from work and drinking 3 to 6 beers (that’s called a Wednesday), I drink gin and tonics every other day.

Hey! I didn’t say that I became a monk. I still enjoy my alcohol. It’s just that a gin and tonic has no carbs and fewer calories than a beer. Plus, I get vitamin C from the lime in the gin and tonic. That staves off the scurvy.

Want another tip? We older guys need to take in more fiber. In my warped mind, I figure if the food moves through the system faster, my fat-ass body has less time to absorb calories. Then I don’t have to work out as much. Get it, more time to enjoy that cocktail on the patio.

Last but not least, let’s talk about “ideal body weight.” People, your weight is just a number. I went from 280 pounds down to about 250. Yes, I still feel like a beached whale, but I get compliments all the time about how good I look. Hey, even my stuck-up editor told me I look better.

I’ve toned up from the workouts, but I don’t think that I will drop much below 250. Let’s face it, muscle weighs more than fat. I’m fine with that. I’ll take big and strong; 250 is just a number. I don’t break benches in the park, and I don’t need to buy a lawn chair with reinforced steel legs to support my bulk.

I’m fine with that.

So, hey, Lardo, give the Sean Rein, Eat Less, Work Out More, Gin & Tonic, Eat More Fiber and Drink More Water Diet a try. I can smell the book deal.

New Job

by Sean Rein

As you all know, I have a tenuous relationship with my editor. When I started writing for him in the early 1990s, he promised that there would come a day when he could pay me for my writing. Seventeen years later, the only payment I have received for my hard work has been two beat-up issues of The Incredible Hulk comic book and a quart of Wild Turkey.

Needless to say, I need to keep a normal job to support my family. I have stooped quite low to make ends meet. In fact, I once worked as a janitor to help pay for my college tuition. There is nothing more humbling than cleaning toilets and emptying the “love” boxes in the ladies room stalls. You know what I’m talking about, girls.

So as it turns out, the job I was holding down for more than five years had gone from a rewarding, well-paid gig to an absolute shitfest. To top off all of the crap I was having to endure, my annual raise was 34 cents an hour. If you think that this tidy sum is an okay raise, let me put it in to perspective. My 18-year-old daughter got a 40-cent per hour raise from Sam’s Club. FUCKING SAM’S CLUB is giving out better raises!

That was enough. I needed a new occupation. So I started kicking it around with my friends that I was currently looking for a new job. Without batting an eye, my friend Scott told me that he could hook me up with a job that he guaranteed would pay more that what I was doing right now.

“How much, Scott.”

“I don’t want to talk salary in front of other people, but it’s better than what you’ve got.”

“What would I be doing?”

“It’s a great gig. You’ll be a supervisor. Quit your job tomorrow and come work for me.”

So I did. I quit my job and went to work for Scotty. He neglected to tell me that the “supervising” that I would be doing is driving around and watching the employees of his sanitation company sucking out the leavings from port-o-pottys at various construction sites and carnivals.

Have you ever experienced a sewage truck, or honey wagon as they are called in the industry, suck out a portable toilet? First, the one guy puts on rubber gloves that go up to his armpits and fishes out anything that might clog the old tube. This includes pop cans, beer bottles, solids, etc. Then the second chap sticks the old suction hose into the toilet’s glory hole and turns on the suction. The noise it makes and the smell it creates is quite amazing.

Scott is now on the top of my enemy list.

1. Scott
2. The guy from the post office
3. My editor
4. Nick
5. Marjorie Johnson

Loveseat for Sale $20

by Sean Rein

I’ve got a loveseat for sale, $20. It’s a clean, attractive sofa in good shape. Well, it’s not that great looking. In fact, it’s the ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. It was my soon to be former wife’s love seat. She got it from her stepfather (he lives in a trailer home) and it held some sentimental value to her.

I found out later in our relationship that the sentimental value to her was that she lost her virginity on this loveseat to the neighbor boy, Kyle. Kyle was 17 and my wife was 13. Do I need to tell you more?

My wife gets poked more than a pin cushion. The last straw was last week when I came home and found her on this very loveseat with the guy who puts those little flyers in your screen door every Thursday. I told her I had enough and she moved out the next day. The only thing she left behind was this ugly fucking loveseat.

I’d even sell it to you for $10 or trade it for a case of Rolling Rock.

Tony Has My Back

by Sean Rein

I met Tony Palermo (he writes Tip Tone Presents on this website) (seriously, I wish you people would pay attention) in junior high. We exchanged hellos right after I did a cannonball into the pool and landed on his back. I’d like to say that we have been friends ever since but that is a lie. I still have a scar on my forehead from where he hit me with a plate full of tater tots in the school cafeteria.

It’s a guy thing.

It’s tough to find an exact date when we became each other’s familiars. The fact is, it’s a weird friendship. I’m currently married to his high school sweetheart, and Tony is married to my next wife. That’s not strange, is it?

As you all know by now, I have an unhealthy fascination with handguns. I love them all but have a special fondness for 357 Magnums. I don’t know if it’s the sound of that large caliber going off when you pull the trigger or the big hole it puts into your target, but it’s my catnip.

Anyway, when my friend Nick called me and said that he had a Smith & Wesson Model 686-P with a rubber Hogue grip for sale, I just had to go and see this beauty and hopefully take her home with me.

I grabbed my secret roll of hundred dollar bills that every married man hides from his wife and gave Tony a quick call. I wanted him with me because Nick can’t always be trusted and Tony can sniff out bullshit better than any man I know. Tony and I soon found ourselves being buzzed in to the shitty apartment building that Nick lives in on Como Avenue in St. Paul.

“Nick, let me take a look at her.”

“Sure thing, Sean. Do you and your hairy friend want a drink?”

To be honest with you, my mind was not on booze like it normally is. I just wanted to see the gun and add her to my collection. Tony was so nervous that a whole bottle of Wild Turkey wouldn’t have calmed his nerves.

Nick handed me the gun and I immediately opened the cylinder to check if it was loaded, and it was!

“What the fuck, Nick? You just handed me a loaded gun you stupid half-breed.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, man.”

Fucking Nick.

“Hey, Nick, did you hear that my neighbor Homer’s house was broken into last night?”

My bullshit alarm was ringing as Tony leaned in next to me and said.

“He’s full of shit; get me the fuck out of here.”

I tried to distract Nick, “Yeah, he said they only took his guns and his favorite cane, the one with an 8-ball for a handle.”

I dumped the bullets out of the gun, put them in my pocket and pushed Tony towards the door.

“Sorry, Nick,” I said. “I don’t deal with stolen goods.”

Tony and I ran out the door of Nick’s apartment, down the hall, and outside to my car. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Where the fuck do you meet these people, Sean?”

“My editor introduced me to him. Nick’s usually a stand-up guy, but I guess he needs drug money.”

“Sean, that stupid fuck handed you a loaded gun. Someone is going to shoot his dumb ass.”

“Yeah, I should cut ties with that guy. He’s trouble waiting to happen.”

I looked over and Tony’s hands were shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or anger, so I thought I’d smooth things over by buying the first few rounds of drinks.

“You know, Tony, I do appreciate the help. You are usually there for me.”

“No sweat, Sean. In fact, if you are ever in bad shape in the hospital, I’ll be glad to smother you with a pillow like Fuckin’ Eh Chief did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“I’d rather that you gave me a hand with tossing the water fountain out the window so I can make a break for it.”

“Shit, I weigh less than the water fountain. Just grab me by the waist, Heimlich style and toss me out the window. I’ll be your water fountain.”

I may need that some day. Tony has my back.

The Opener

by Sean Rein

Everybody in Minnesota knows or should know that the second Saturday in May is the walleye fishing opener. I would compare it to everyone who lives in Kentucky knowing that the first Saturday in May is the Kentucky Derby.

I celebrate the opener the same way that I always have. I get up at the ass crack of dawn, get out on the lake, and start drinking. I keep a line in the water so it looks like I’m fishing. I would estimate that I popped the first can of beer open at 5:15 a.m. that morning. As circumstances would have it, my brother-in-law was 2 hours and 6 beers ahead of me.

It all started the week before. Year after year, Craig would drive 250 miles north to camp, freeze his ass off, drink (duh) and catch the same amount of fish that I would while staying at my brother’s house and fishing his lake for the opener. “There are too many city people out on your brother’s lake” he would say. “I don’t like those assholes!”

Well, this was the year that he decided to take me up on fishing near the Twin Cities for the Opener. Much to my dismay.

He showed up at my brother’s house with his boat and two 30-packs of beer. That’s 60 cans of beer, people!

“Sweet, Craig. You brought us beer.”

“Fuck you, asshole. That’s for me. Get your own.”

I guess they taught manners in the public schools up on the Iron Range.

Friday night before the Opener has its traditions. First, grilled steaks and booze for dinner. I like my bourbon, Craig went with Schmidt’s in the can. “Fuck you, it was $9.99 a box.”

Then downstairs to my brother’s rec room for pinball until you pass out. I counted 15 cans-o-Schmidt went down Craig’s gullet before he made his camp on the basement floor. He unrolled a sleeping bag, laid out a pillow, and rummaged clumsily through his backpack for something. Out came a large hunting knife. A big, menacing one with an eight-inch blade and fixed handle. It stayed in its sheath and got stashed under his pillow.

He then went back to his pack and pulled out an uncased 45-caliber hand gun. Cocked it, waved it at me, and said “Don’t fuck with me while I’m sleeping.” I guess he’s used to getting hassled while he’s sleeping.

I took this as my cue that the evening’s festivities were over, so I turned in and made sure that I propped a chair up against the door to the spare bedroom.

When I came to at 4:30 a.m., the bedroom door was open. This freaked me out and made me realize that I had to pee really bad. I ran to the bathroom and started relieving myself.

The person who designed my brother’s guest bedroom must have been a chick. The wall behind the toilet was a mirror so I got to look at myself holding my junk and urinating. Some people might be into that, but I’m not so I looked up and realized that my forehead had been written on.

My fucking hillbilly brother-in-law had gotten into my room and wrote on my balding head with a Sharpie. Somehow that dumb fuck even figured out to write backwards so I could read it in the mirror. It said “I went fishing at 2:00 a.m. so I don’t have to deal with city people”.

I have a big forehead.

When I got out on the lake, he was 6 beers and 5 walleyes ahead of me, including one that was 28 inches long and weighed over 5 pounds.

What a prick.