Off-Beat is a reported audio series hosted by Emma Spring and Barrett Dolata exploring the hidden, unexpected and often overlooked sides of whatever — and wherever — they’re currently living through. Each episode dives into a different story. From niche subcultures to quiet social shifts, Off-Beat is about the places, people and ideas you don’t notice until you stop and listen.
In New York City, parking isn’t just about finding a spot — it’s about power, policy, and what it means to share public space. This episode starts on the ground before pulling back to something much bigger: why a city of eight million people dedicates so much public land to storing private cars for free. Along the way, we hear from the NYC sanitation commissioner explaining what streets are actually for, a parking policy researcher working to make sense of curb economics, and a City Council member representing neighborhoods where cars aren’t optional, they’re essential. Between them, a single question keeps resurfacing: when space is limited, who gets to use it?
At its core, this isn’t really a story about parking. It’s a story about scarcity, control, and the quiet negotiations over who gets to belong in a city that never stops moving.
7 May 2026
No Pulse, No Pattern
Medicine is often imagined in extremes — sirens, emergencies, and clear lines between life and death. But the reality is far messier, quieter, and harder to categorize.
In this episode of Off-Beat, Barrett and Emma talk with healthcare workers about what medicine actually feels like from the inside. An OR nurse reflects on a patient’s final night spent talking about Japanese poetry. A medical student describes the limits of care inside an overwhelmed community clinic. Another brings us into the anatomy lab, where learning begins with stillness and discomfort. A physician shares a rare case that blurs medicine’s most definitive boundary — death itself.
Together, these stories show a version of medicine that doesn’t follow clean narratives. It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just being present, noticing what others miss, or realizing the rules aren’t as fixed as they seem.
29 Mar 2026
Evan Bates — Coming Home
Evan Bates has competed (https://www.teamusa.com/profiles/evan-bates) in five Olympic Games, won nearly every title ice dancing has to offer and built a life in Montreal with his skating partner and wife Madison Chock. But at his core, he’s still a kid from Ann Arbor and a University of Michigan graduate – the 52nd in his family. In this episode of Off-Beat, Barrett and Emma sit down with Bates days after his gold and silver medal finish (https://apnews.com/article/chock-bates-silver-medal-ice-dance-judging-score-8764d176a6f5a4a707e9a027188d01e6) at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympic Games to talk about what it really means to come back home.
They talk about life with Chock beyond the spotlight, what it actually felt like to come so close to another gold, whether this was his final Olympics and the version of himself he hasn’t had time to become yet.
12 Mar 2026
Between The Sirens
Most people only think about the fire department when something is already wrong. But what happens the rest of the time? In this episode of Off-Beat, Barrett and Emma spend a Friday shift inside the Ann Arbor Fire Department’s Station One, following firefighters through their typical day –– cooking dinner, swapping stories, trying to sleep between alarms and racing out the door when the radio finally crackles. Along the way, they hear about the calls that stick, the humor that fills the quiet hours and what it means to be ready for a city that’s growing faster than its fire department.
3 Feb 2026
A Third Space
Yemeni coffee shops are popping up all over Ann Arbor — open late and packed full of students and locals. Notes of cardamom and cinnamon accompany their cosmopolitan yet cozy interiors, where patrons aren’t sipping on hot toddies or cocktails, but Adeni chais and pistachio matcha lattes. In our first episode, we ask why?
Through café soundscapes, student voices and experts on coffee history, Off-Beat traces Yemeni coffee from its 15th-century roots to its role today as a modern “third place”: not home, not work, just somewhere you’re allowed to stay.
Further reading & resources:
Read Dr. Nancy Um’s book on Yemeni coffee history: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvvn0hs (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvvn0hs)
Explore a map of Muslim and Arab cafés across North America compiled by Dr. Nancy Khalil: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8643188,-85.2154144,7.3z/data=!4m2!11m1!2sCGVF_5iHSJat9HzL7_jGng?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDEyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8643188,-85.2154144,7.3z/data=!4m2!11m1!2sCGVF_5iHSJat9HzL7_jGng?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDEyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Contact Off-Beat
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Off-Beat?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
