You know, people often ask me why I live here. Oh gosh, I don’t know, about a THOUSAND reasons (hence the name of this category LOL). Here’s even one more!

YES!!!!!

Oh my gosh, let’s count at least 12 ways how flipping awesome this video is:

1) It’s got a beat and you can dance to it!

Seriously, I don’t care if you don’t speak a word of Romanian, tell me you can’t resist tapping your toes and dancing to this song. It is incredibly upbeat and catchy and perfect for dancing. Yes!

Wait, don’t feel it? Drink a glass of tuica, put this song on and I double dog dare you not to dance. YOU CANNOT RESIST!

2) It’s about mamaliga!

I mean seriously in what other country do you find awesome songs about food? You don’t! Only in Romania. Damn and he’s singing about one of my all-time favorite Romanian foods. It has its own chapter in my book for a REASON, dog.

You just know that a few months ago Sandu Ciorba (even his NAME means food!) was sitting in his studio and trying to come up with an awesome new song for the compilation “Etno Hits la Maxim”. Hmm… what should I write about? What am I passionate about? What moves me? Ah yes, I know, I’ll write a song about mamaliga!

Heeeeeeeeell yes.

3) Pretty girl

Can’t have a decent manele video without a dancing girl, can you? No!

Even more awesome is the fact that she’s wearing FOUR, count them, FOUR different outfits in this video, which means they had to stop shooting, allow her to change (shoes, jewelry, everything!) then shoot it again. Now that’s dedication!

Best part – she’s not just dancing with that bored pouty expression (normally my favorite) but is laughing and having a wonderful time, nearly falling down a couple of times. Yes!

4) Most awesome violin player ever

Seriously, I love this guy. He doesn’t just play the main instrument, he also dances. Yes!

Check out his super dance move and JUMP around minute 0:18 and 2:04. He does the splits WHILE playing the violin. Awesome!

5) Sandu Ciorba’s mullet

Damn right this guy’s hair gets its own separate entry. Only sweaty old Sandu Ciorba would have the sheer guts to star in a video while wearing the sensational hairstyle called the mullet.

Business in the front, party in the rear, yo!

6) Sandu Ciorba’s dancing

This guy just cracks me up. His little pouty kiss at 2:16 is freaking awesome.

Are you a man and thinking of going to a Romanian wedding and getting drunk this summer? Just do what Sandu Ciorba does and you’ll be the star of the party! :)

7) Entire video cost 5 lei to make

For lengthy reason I’m not going to go into here, I loathe and hate “professional” videos like you see on MTV. This video on the other hand is the kind of stuff I love. Yes!

Just a single camera, a green screen and everyone goes wild. Fake disco scene? Check. Flying through a blue star nebula? Check. Green dawn? Check! Random zooms and close-ups in the post-production? Check! Mixing up different scenes to make it look like people are dancing together? Check! Duplicating the girl dancing at one point so she’s dancing with herself? Yes, FOR THE WIN!

8) Sandu Ciorba’s sweat

LOL I love it, I simply cannot stop loving how sweaty and greasy this guy is on the scene of his OWN video. I mean he’s either the James Brown of manele or he just is too drunk to give a crap. Either way, solid gold!

9) Fewer than 1,000 views on Youtube

Yeehaw! The Unsleeping Eye never sleeps, does it? And it finds me gems like this, which is why I love it. Flipping awesome.

10) Background grunting

If you listen to this song closely (as I have, DUH) it’s awesome during the instrumental parts to hear Sandu going “hup, hup” and making all kinds of cool background sounds.

11) Jibber jabber Romanian

I used to live in a village where people talked like this, barely enunciating their words and saying little filler sounds like “ale” and “a-ci” instead of “aici” and all the rest. This guy is no debate team coach is he? No! He’s a sweaty guy with a mullet who wrote a barely sensical song about mamaliga!

DOUBLE CARAMELIZED EXTRACT OF AWESOME SAUCE

12) Crazy eye make-up and tattoos

That dancing girl makes me laugh and get happy every time I see her but that weird tattoo near her belly button just makes me curious. WTF? Is that dirt? Like arrows? What is that? Oh right, I forgot it’s Romania! There is no explanation.

SING ALONG IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS! :):):)