Sobbing uncontrollably reading through a dissertation about the college experience of students with ADHD. It is like reading a report about my life that just says over and over "My experiences are real. My hardships are real. I am not lazy, I am not dumb. My struggles were not my fault, and they were not a moral failing. The failure was with the system, not with me."
Here's a line that got me in particular:
"Hotez et al.(2022) compared the health, academic, and non-academic capacities of a nationally representative sample of U.S. first-year college students with ADHD and without ADHD. Students with ADHD self-reported lower academic aspirations and more feelings of depression and overwhelm, ranking themselves lower in their general emotional health. The fact that students with ADHD scored in the highest 10th percentile for many non-academic traits, such as artistic ability, computer skills, creativity, public speaking, social confidence, self-understanding and understanding of others, compassion, and risk-tasking, suggests that this population has strengths that are frequently underappreciated in academia."
(the paper is a thesis called "Understanding the Collegiate Experience for Students With ADHD" by Gia Long, 2022)
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The Story Behind The Song: Arctic Monkeys’ early ambitions on ‘A Certain Romance’
Lucy Harbron – Far Out Magazine | January 17, 2024
It was 2006. Mortgages were crashing, and businesses were going bust. Tony Blair was on his last legs in office as the longest-serving prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, and the hangover of ‘Cool Brittania’ was beginning to set in with an unexpected ferocity. Things were bleak when a young Alex Turner sang, “There ain’t no romance around there” through the public’s speakers. Arctic Monkeys were about to write themselves into musical history as the voice of a new generation.
The final song on their debut album, there has always been something special about ‘A Certain Romance’. In 2022, after the release of their seventh album, The Car, Turner seemed to find himself reflecting back on that 2006 track. To the musician, that early cut holds a clue to everything that was to come as he said the piece “showed that we did actually have these ambitions beyond what we once thought we were capable of”.
Coming in at over the five-minute mark, ‘A Certain Romance’ almost feels like the Arctic Monkeys’ version of a rock opera, summarising all the themes, feelings and energy that came before it on their seminal album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. It has the cheekiness of ‘Fake Tales Of San Francisco’ and the catchy instrumentals of hits like ‘Dancing Shoes’ or ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor’. Utilising the northern charm of ‘Mardy Bum’, it stands as a final, neatly summarising point on the social commentary found in their early tracks like ‘From The Ritz To The Rubble’ or ‘Riot Van’. Really, it could be argued that ‘A Certain Romance’ is the ultimate example of Arctic Monkeys’ original sound, perfectly encapsulating all the things that made the world listen up and pay attention.
It’s like they seemed to know that, too, always allowing the song a special place. In fact, it was really the band’s opening remark. Years before the offer of a debut album came around, the group were a well-oiled machine with their own local hits. They had the northern live music scene in their hands as their homemade demo CD was passed around like everyone’s worst-kept secret. Beneath the Boardwalk features eight out of the 13 songs that would be on Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, albeit in a slightly different, lower-quality version. But the opening number, ‘A Certain Romance’, sounds just the same.
It’s all there, from the rolling opening drums to that final guitar solo. Recorded and produced in a rented studio at only age 17, the existence of ‘A Certain Romance’, one of the band’s most explorative and energetic numbers, in this form this early in their career feels like a diamond sitting in a mine. It proves that they were always onto something special.
They never needed any help. In fact, their producer, Jim Abbiss, noted that they even seemed nervous about the help. “I think they were probably a bit weary, like ‘who’s this guy? And is he gonna make our sound this or that.’”
They didn’t want anything to change too much, as the group already had the songs figured out. Turner certainly did, as the track’s meandering narrative about hometown lads, fights, and local boredom is already there. Talking on a podcast, original member Andy Nicholson revealed the story behind the song. “We had a practice room with a pool table in, and we had a party in there, and we invited another band who were friends of ours, and we all had some drinks,” he said. “Then something happened, someone throws a pool cue, someone throws a pool ball, and everyone ends up fighting,” he added, explaining the lyrics, “there’s boys in bands / And kids who like to scrap with pool cues in their hands.”
But the magic of Arctic Monkeys lies in their nuance. What begins as a snooty analysis of his local landscape is a genuinely affectionate take. “Well, over there, there’s friends of mine / What can I say? I’ve known ’em for a long long time / And, yeah, they might overstep the line / But you just cannot get angry in the same way,” Turner sings, looking around at his bandmates and lifelong friends. ‘A Certain Romance’ is not only a time capsule for the group’s beginnings but is an ode to all the people who were there with them. It’s an ode to the hometown that made them and all its various characters.
But as the last guitar solo roars to life, there is an unspoken statement that they’re going to be bigger than what they came from. “I remember when we were recording ‘A Certain Romance’ and having a conversation with the producer about the final guitar solo,” Turner told NME, recalling the moment these songs were reworked for their debut. But they wouldn’t let anyone mess with ‘A Certain Romance’, knowing exactly what they were doing and trying to say with that one. In the 2003 demo version, all the feeling is already there, and Turner wouldn’t risk it.
“There’s something that happens at the end of that track where we break some rules in a single moment,” he continued. What happens at the end of the piece feels even more special, considering how the album was recorded. “These are the songs we wanna do, and I think this is the order we wanna do them in,” Alex Turner told their producer, recounting the conversation in 2007 to RadioX, “And he goes, ‘alright, we’ll try to record them in that order as well.’” As the final song, that last guitar solo is the last thing recorded for the album, standing as a cathartic outlet and a chance for the band to prove themselves.
“We focused on the [emotional] effect of the instrumentals over the words,” Turner reflected on the track, concluding, “and I feel like we’ve been trying to do that again and again since then.”
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Okay, so I am not a Funko Pop collector by any means, and I don't necessarily like them all that much, but I just found about these digital Funko Pop things (NFTs??? blechhhhhhh) that I... think you can redeem for actual physical limited edition Funko Pops in the future that correspond with whatever digital ones you collect... and apparently there's a Powerpuff Girls set you can't get the tokens for anymore that actually looks kind of cute (also, more importantly, it's OG PPG!).
I already have figurines of the girls playing in their little band, so I wouldn't need anything like that even though it is admittedly adorable.
BUT! LOOK AT THIS ONE THEY MADE AHH
IT'S BABY MOJO AHHH MY STOMACH HURTS SO BAD OMG I WANT HIMMMMM 😭😭😭
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