NEW ORLEANS (AP) - For more than 150 consecutive days, Muffin and Jamie Bernstein have used Facebook Live to broadcast a series of coronavirus awareness messages. Nightly, at 8:45 p.m., the Mid-City couple produces a self-styled talk show. They wisecrack while discussing the existential threat of coronavirus, criticizing the government’s response and sharing random news items that have caught their attention. The show lasts for 15 minutes.
Just 200 or 300 people tune in a night. So the popularity of the series, which is called “Every Night at 8:45 Muffin and Jamie Go Facebook Live” may not be a threat to Stephen Colbert, but the appeal is broader than Muffin expected.
“It’s weird,” she said. “I felt like no one on earth would watch this. Now people say, ‘It gives us so much hope and knowledge.’ ”
Besides hope and knowledge, the Bernsteins are doling out laughs.
Each day has a different tongue-in-cheek theme: Silly Mask Sunday, Manic or Magical or Mischievous Monday, Traumatic Tuesday, Wild Wild Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday, Funky Friday and Psychedelic Saturday.
On a recent Funky Friday broadcast, Muffin wore a golden gown with a plunging neckline and a shiny green wig. Jamie wore a zippered jumpsuit, despite the summer heat. Both wore weird wrap-around sunglasses. They recorded on their back porch, where lizards roamed the clapboards and squash vines climbed the stair rails.
The couple studies the breaking COVID-19 news before each show. Jaime reads from notes on index cards, like David Letterman. Muffin prepares large, easy-to-read prompts on notebook paper.
They say the neighbors have yet to complain about the 60 seconds of spirited pot-banging that brings every episode to a close.
Muffin and Jamie learned about the noisy cacerolazo (casserole) form of demonstration while vacationing in Spain, where they witnessed people on balconies rapping on pots as a plea for the independence of the Catalonia region.
When the coronavirus pandemic reached New Orleans, the Bernsteins began banging sauce pans each evening in solidarity with front-line workers and as a call for more coronavirus testing.
It was Jamie’s idea to broadcast their pot-banging and their commentary via his eponymous Facebook page. The first live show took place on March 12.
Jamie is a musician, an actor and a bartender at the Maple Leaf Bar. Muffin is a photographer and Dillard University art teacher. Jamie is from West Virginia; Muffin is from Lakeview.
They’ve been married for 12 years. The Bernsteins are mainstays of the Krewe of OAK, which, under ordinary circumstances, would be preparing for the annual Mid-Summer Mardi Gras parade.
Instead, there’s the Facebook Live COVID show.
“I think people think we’re funny,” Muffin said. “They watch us out of amusement. Do I feel like I’m making an impact on the government? No. But am I providing 15 minutes of fun for friends? Yes.”
“My mom watches us because she misses us,” Muffin added.
Missing people is part of the show’s underlying reason for being.
“Before the coronavirus, we didn’t need to use Facebook,” Jamie said. “We could just go to the Maple Leaf and talk to our friends about what happened in the news. Now there’s this vacuous space in everybody’s consciousness.”
“It’s easy to get lonely,” Jamie said. But thanks to the nightly broadcasts, “we’re all still part of each other’s lives.”
Sometime during each show, the Bernstein’s address the audience, assuring everyone, ‘We love you and we miss you.’
On a personal level, Muffin said, the shows allow her to “release negative energy.”
“First and foremost, it gives me an outlet to get my sadness and anger out,” she said. Plus, she said, the shared activity has brought the couple closer together during this stressful time.
So the show must go on, no matter what.
So far, the Bernsteins have never missed a night. When Jamie left town for a few days, Muffin soldiered on solo. When they traveled to friend’s wedding, they broadcast from the road.
In an era of “maddening uncertainty,” as Muffin put it, there’s something reassuring about the nightly task. With everything else in flux, Jamie said, “we’re held responsible for one thing.”
Jamie said that in his view the show is like a repeated prayer for an end to the pandemic. Until the city reaches Phase 4 or a vaccine is in production, the couple pledges their nightly comic litany will continue.
“We could be protesting every night for the next four years,” Muffin said, “which is a little bit terrifying for me.” But terrifying or not, “we can’t quit,” she said.
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