I’m an American comedian based in Berlin and I’m bringing my solo show The American Apology Tour to Riga tomorrow night.
The show is about living in Germany, being married to a German, becoming a German dog dad, and apologizing on behalf of the United States. A LOT.
I also usually do some crowd work, and try to riff on whatever city/country I’m performing in. This will be my first time in Latvia so just wondering if there is anything off limits to joke about here?
It seems everyplace I visit has at least one thing people don’t like to joke about. Photo from last week’s show in Frankfurt where I learned their sacred thing they dont want to hear jokes about is finance 😬😂
Happy to answer questions — I’ll drop the details in the comments.
https://i.redd.it/eedvcwq411qg1.jpeg
Posted by LaughatPat
13 Comments
That Latvians are Russians 😂
I would say no, not really, but everyone becomes really pissed off when we are somehow associated with russia, so thread carefully there. Joking about it needs the pretext – “I know of the history”.
Aside from that, this is a good question I’d like to see comments on myself.
Don’t compare us to russians i guess.
Latvians aren’t known for their best sense of humor, but try to stay away from topics regarding Soviet Union, russians in our country as a whole etc. It can get people riled up, especially now. Good luck man.
Seen your videos, you are really funny and will do great! Pity cant make it myself. Advice – do not go into joking about the Russia – Ukraine war. Or war in general. Enjoy Latvia and good luck!
Don’t even slightly imply there are better beers elsewhere. I’ll find you myself.
It completely depends on what type of humour. Latvia isn’t completely Americanized, so I think all jokes go here. Well, most that would offend Americans are ok.
But one that really seems to grind Latvian ppl gears is any comparisons to russians. There is a HUGE minority of russian speaking Latvians here, myself included, but nothing pisses us off than being compared to russians.
We don’t share any mentality or culture with them. We just know their language. Some “Eastern European” jokes might fall under “Latvians are russians” stuff.
P.S Well, not *ALL* of us hate being compared to russians, but most are. Some still love the good old Soviet Union.
Don’t ever say that Latvia is same as Russia
I think you can get arrested if you mention Russia or Russians in specific contexts, which could be a fun classic Latvian prank. Other than that you are good to go. People here are overreacting like crazy regarding it unfortunately. There are wars all around the world currently and we are good with all that, for some reason we only care about this specific aggressive country.
The best Latvian dish is the Lithuanian cold beet soup.
Considering the soviets/russians killed a bunch of Latvians and illegally occupied (many still won’t leave) the country, it’s not really… funny? It’s kind of like joking about domestic violence to a crowd of middle-aged women.
No, it has to actually be funny though. Funny because offensive won’t get you far if it doesn’t have any substance of its own.
If anybody is interested in the show you can read more about it/get tickets here: [https://fienta.com/the-american-apology-tour-english-standup-comedy-in-rigaearly-163350?utm_source=reddit](https://fienta.com/the-american-apology-tour-english-standup-comedy-in-rigaearly-163350?utm_source=reddit)