Shlomo Aboutbul’s Reluctant Rap

For those of you who knew Jacob’s blog back in ‘aught 5, this will be a blast from the (dorky) past. Basically, I snuck a digital recorder into my god-awful truck driving course in the army. Hillarity ensued. Made this song:

And now the story behind it…

About two years ago I got drafted. Had the experience you would expect; ups and downs, good times and bad, some friends became enemies, enemies became friends, etc. etc.

But more importantly, I got a truck driving license. Which, despite my current job(s!) in fancy-shmancy companies, is apparently my ticket to earning potential for the rest of my life here in Israel (or so everyone in the army reminded me at every juncture — and continues to).

It’s not that simple though — you have to actually go through this four month course (or, in Hebrew, “kurs”) to learn how to drive a truck. It’s all about the double-clutch and wide turns, and coming from ten or so years of driving cars that shift themselves, this was no easy task. See the clip.

Anyway, you also have to learn the rules of the road — and specifically those that apply to trucks — over and over and over again to the extent that you can take a very specific written test and make nary a mistake. So, this is four months of traffic school (a one-day punishment for some states in the US to avoid keeping a speeding ticket on one’s record).

And it’s not only traffic school…it’s army traffic school, taught by a career sergeant with a hardly surprising proclivity for yelling. And rightly so — the truck corps are notorious for being the last stop of all those who were deemed unmotivated and unfit for just about everything else in the army.

So this guy is haplessly trying to teach a class of about 30 degenerates who can barely read how to safely operate a vehicle that can kill lots of people. People are talking, falling asleep, touching each other; your basic kindergarten level stuff. So, from time to time, the instructor gets fed up and sends people out of the class like a schoolteacher might in 3rd grade.

But sending them out of the classroom in the army is something altogether different. Outside waiting is Dima, the “rasap” or “sergeant major of the platoon” whose job it is to find mundane and annoying tasks for soldiers to do, especially when they misbehave. We’re talking painting trees and rocks here…and if you’re lucky, raking leaves and other various landscaping tasks.

I found this whole experience both degrading and really, really funny. Back in the days that Pinni and the Portuguese Crotch Flu was just a gleam in his father’s dirty, dirty melvin, I put together this piece of music that aired some of my frustration with the whole truck-driving-school mess.

I even enlisted the instructor — Sergeant Major McYell-y himself (a.k.a. Shlomo Aboutbul) — to spit some verses on this joint. Except, well, he didn’t so much know he was going to be the featured rapper he became as I had clandestinely recorded his lessons with a digital recorder I put in my pocket.

That very weekend, “Af Achootza” (“Get out”) was born. Enjoy, and here’s a translation.

You can download it here.