Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen have an absurd but beautiful podcasting setup.

America’s fathers drooled straight to their quarter-zip pullovers on Monday when Spotify released the first two episodes of “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a new podcast from Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. That’s right: dad jeans man and sexy-dirty-butt jeans-man walked their respective jeans into a recording studio and captured what Spotify calls “a series of conversations … about their lives, music and enduring love for America – despite all his challenges. ”That wording seems to suggest what Obama will be talking about to be music, alongside Springsteen’s – an exciting but unlikely implication that isn’t exactly refuted by the show’s promotional photo.

I have no real desire to listen to this podcast – Obama was the most heard of man in the world for at least eight years, and I’m not sure what else Springsteen can tell me about how much he loves America – but I have an unstoppable need to stare at this photo for at least a full hour, maybe more. There is so much to love here: the power of the reflection. The sumptuous range of drinks. The gleaming vibraphone in the background, presumably foreshadowing in the podcast when Obama decides to pick up a hammer and improvise a haunting, quirky American melody.

Let’s get the picture’s biggest reveal out of the way: Are these guys touching toes? Or do their feet rest on different parts of the same table leg – which, due to the transitive furniture property of masculine bonding, would still make up a variety of footsie? Either way, the co-hosts are fluent in high-level body language. Their crossed arms indicate emotional detachment, while their toes reach for intimacy. They might as well cut out the conversation about their fraught relationships with masculinity that are in the series trailerTheir slippers have said all there is to say.

However, Obama and Springsteen have a little more to do on other topics. As a humble podcaster, I was amazed to see the men talking casually in a cavernous room with windows. Have the rest of us been looking for spinal injuries and eye fatigue for nothing through shots in tight pillow forts and dark closets? Presumably, a small space offers a marginal improvement in audio quality. Would I have been recording my personal guitar and organ storage space all the time?

This shame of riches extends to the drinks offered at the “Renegades” recording session. At least Obama is enjoying the enjoyment three different drinks: something in a mug, something in a glass and something in an insulated cup. We can assume none of his drinks are dairy based unless the podcast privilege of the ultra rich extends to mucus-free throats, so coffee, iced tea and … vegan hot chocolate? A chilled (heated ??) juice? Each host also has their own carafe with what looks like water, but judging by the shape of the carafes, it might as well be Patrón. In other words, Obama’s drink display – a little bit of caffeine, a little bit of sugar, a few antioxidants and, just speculatively, an entire carafe of tequila – exists right at the intersection of recognizable and ambitious. It is tailor-made for the target audience of a meditative podcast about life, love, and the “unlikely friendship” between two of America’s richest and most famous Boomer men.

Finally, “Renegades” is advertised as a series of casual chats, but these hosts were prepared for their conversation. I count two telephones, a tablet, a laptop, a notebook, a notepad and a good amount of paper on their table, a visual representation of the often invisible work involved in making an audio production that sounds awkward. It’s even more refreshing to see Springsteen in white jeans. He no longer needs torn, soil-stained jeans. He doesn’t think about the concept of national unity while running his fingers through American soil. He sits in his home studio, talks about his childhood with an ex-president in leather slippers, sips from his carafe, and cashes those Spotify checks as they come in. The dream of the humble podcaster!