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Sorry, I had to stop laughing before I answered this. There are birthday parties in prison but NEVER, EVER, EVER from the warden. Your friends may hold one for you. Group gatherings aren’t allowed but usually they are overlooked. I actually wrote about this in my book The Slumber Party from Hell all about my prison journey. It’s long but if you’re interested, here it is:The Birthday PartyThe invitations are individual works of art: small, appliquéd American flags of red, white, and blue. The picnic tables are set in the shade of the tree and decorated with flowers of mauve, pink and yellow. The guests are fashionably dressed in varying shades of the year’s hottest color, orange. It sounds trés chic, but the flags are made of construction paper and glue, the metal tables are under the lone tree on the gray prison yard and the orange is the ugly uniform of an inmate.A party in prison? Yes, they happen, mostly for birthdays, and this one is for three of us. Melissa, Candace, and me…all July babies. Because we all have different friends, not all the guests know each other so I decide on a game, my old favorite, ‘Get Acquainted Bingo’. I have painstakingly drawn twenty bingo cards with grids (recreated below) and have my precious colored pencils ready to distribute to each guest. The object of the game is to get each square signed by a different person until the entire sheet is signed…a Bingo blackout. It forces you to circulate and talk to everyone. The descriptions are tailored to your guest list.I am frankly a bit nervous as I distribute the cards and give instructions. After all, this is prison. Will these women be too “cool” for a silly game? I have successfully played this from Phoenix to Portugal with ages from 8 to 80, but this is a totally different audience. As they look at the cards, there is complete silence while I hold my breath. Suddenly, almost in unison, they jump up and start darting around getting the coveted signatures. It’s working! They are talking and laughing…actually mixing, just like in real life. Finally, we hear “Bingo!” The proud winner is Lisa, a darling young woman who has served fourteen years of a sixteen-year sentence. She wins a bottle of DOM Perryville; a very young vintage of Ginger Ale that Candace has decorated with a Champagne label.Time for the appetizers. Potluck is a tradition in prison. Everyone brings a dish to show off her culinary skills…a huge challenge here. Inmates are allowed to buy a very limited array of food items from the ‘company store.’ Almost everything available is junk. Lots of chips and candy, but only three items of protein…peanut butter, tuna and beans. These make up the bulk of our menus. What can you do with junk food? The creations are amazingly good, but ultra high in carbs and calories.Val’s hors d’oeuvres are a hit. She made cheesy tuna roll-ups…tuna, mayonnaise, cheese and jalapenos rolled up in tortillas. She cut into bite size pieces using our cutting tool, the edge of our very small plastic mirror. No knives allowed. Val even made a serving tray by painting and decorating the bottom of the box that brownies come in, lining it with a pretty magazine ad. Not exactly hygienic, but certainly pretty. The roll-ups are served with a tasty sauce made from squeeze cheese, mayonnaise and powdered milk. No seasoning allowed, but somehow inmates find a way.Candace made a yummy sour cream and onion cheese dip. Take a bag of Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips and crush them to a fine texture (Keep them in the bag and use a water bottle). Using the bag as your mixing bowl, add three packages of squeeze cheese, milk and jalapeno juice to taste. Consistency should be creamy. Serve in a bowl with tortillas or crackers. Don’t ask about the calories.For the main course, the tables are filled with our beautiful prison ‘china’…white plastic bowls filled with various delicacies. We’re only allowed one small bowl so ‘cooking’ is a challenge. Most of inmates actually have two bowls, but the second one is contraband and on quarterly “shakes”, the Correctional Officers routinely throw it away. So then everyone buys a new one for twenty-five cents. It gives the company store more business and inmates then have two bowls for the next three months. It’s a prison game everyone plays.The highlights of the main course are euphemistically called “Pasta with Tuna” and “Sour Cream Chicken”. (Recipes included). Do not consider making these unless you are rail thin, have ridiculously low cholesterol and just love junk food, because it is indeed junk food.After we’ve eaten much more than our stomachs are used to, desserts are forthcoming. First, we are tempted by chocolate cake made with candy bars. I made chocolate mint truffles, lots of work, but well worth it…easy to serve and bite size. I, too, decorated a brownie box for serving. In an ugly place, we appreciate the efforts to make things pretty.Finally, comes the piéce de résistance…Melissa’s lemon birthday cake, star shaped and decorated with stars. Melissa was sick the week before the party and for a few precious days she got meals in her room when dessert was lemon pudding. She carefully saved it for icing and filling. The cake itself was a mix of Vanilla Zingers and Dunkin’ Sticks layered with the lemon filling. She carefully worked it into the shape of a star , then iced it all with a mixture of pudding, milk and lemon drops melted in hot water. The extra stars were made by rolling Star Bursts flat with a water bottle (yes, it takes forever) and then using our special mirror cutting tool to cut the star shapes. The effort is intense and they really looked fantastic, shiny, colorful and sparkly. It is the most beautiful cake I’ve seen in prison, and we dub Melissa the Martha Stewart of Perryville.Of course, no birthday party would be complete without singing and presents. The singing is enthusiastic and the presents very special…all handmade with love. Except for mine. I have a very special milestone. The girls give me rollers and mascara this year. Last year, I had lost all of my hair and eye lashes to chemotherapy and was painfully bald. This year I have hair to roll. I am thankful.As the sky turns all the gorgeous sunset hues of the Arizona desert (despite the fences, we can still see the sky), the party talk mellows to past birthdays in prison and out. Melissa turned 28 years old; Candace is 40 and I hit 59. The hardest milestone is Candace’s. Turning 40 in prison is not exactly reason to celebrate. She is due for release in three weeks and fears starting over with nothing. But I knew that with her energy and drive, she’ll be on top again in the blink of an eye. Melissa fears she is loosing her youth and the best years of her life, but she is beautiful with a perfect figure and excellent mind. I know her best years are in front of her.From the prospective of our ages, our fears are different. Because I’ve lost everything and am essentially homeless, I fear being a bag lady, sleeping under a bridge somewhere, but then I stop, knowing that’s ridiculous. I am blessed with a brain, energy, enthusiasm, friends, and faith. I know I will not be under a bridge.It is a wonderful day to celebrate and practice the little niceties of life. We are so isolated, in such an ugly place, but we used our creative energy to produce a pretty party to share with our friends. It’s the closest thing to normal possible behind the razor wire. It lifted our spirits and brought laughter into our lives. No matter where you are or what your circumstance, remember that you are a creative spirit with much to contribute and share. Sharing that creativity and joy will give meaning to your life…inside or out.Believe it or not, Recipes that are Absolutely Delicious and Completely Bad for YouSour Cream &Onion Chicken2 BowlsSmall amount of milk (pilfered from somewhere)2 pouches of chicken in gravy (mostly gravy)1 bag Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips (finely crushing chips in the bag using a water bottle)Grilled potatoes pilfered from breakfastChopped JalapeñosBoil 1 cup of water with heating coil. Pour into bowl, and immerse pouch of chicken & gravy. Heat up about 3 minutes.Pour ½ bag crushed chips in 2nd bowl. Add warm chicken and mix well.Add some potatoes and keep mixing. Add chopped jalapeños to taste and some milk to smooth consistency.Repeat with the 2nd pouch.When it’s all mixed well, combine the bowls. Then wash out empty bowl and line with Saran Wrap. Add all the mixture to this bowl, pressing tightly to make a mound.Turn out on a serving box you’ve decorated with pretty magazine ads and covered with Saran Wrap you’ve pilfered from somewhere. Decorate the mound with 2 whole ships and surround it with crackers.Alternatively, you can roll it up in tortillas and serve.Pasta with Tuna1 Ramen Vegetable Noodle Soup 1 Tuna pouch½ bag Sour Cream Chips (crush chips by using a water bottle)1 ½ Squeeze Cheese Packets 3 Mayonnaise PacksWhole or Chopped Jalapeños (to taste) Salt & Pepper (pilfered from D.R.)Boil water and add to soup to cover pasta. Let sit until all the water is absorbed with the pasta.In a bowl, mix well Tuna, ½ cheese pack, 3 mayonnaise packs, salt & pepper.In another bowl, mix crushed chips with one pack cheese and a little hot water. Mix so it looks like cheese chunks. Then mix it all together with the tuna.Add Jalapeños to taste. Serve with crackers.Chocolate Mint Truffles6 Brownies, mashed in a bowl4 Dunkin Sticks, well crushed in a bowl6 Peppermints, finely crushed2 pats of butter with melted cocoa to taste. (You have to sneak the butter out of the kitchen. If caught, it’s a major ticket for stealing off of your own tray).Mix brownies in a bowl to a consistency of fudge.Mix Dunkin Sticks to a doughy texture in another bowl.Combine and add melted butter. Texture should be like fudge.Add cocoa to taste.To crush peppermints, throw them, wrapped in paper, very hard on the floor. Roll crushed bits with a water bottle to crush more. Take out the big bits and eat them! Then add the crushed bits to the truffle mix and mix well. Roll out truffles to the size of a small cherry tomato. Sprinkle with cocoa powder.Chill and serve on a brownie box you’ve painted and then layered with pretty magazine paper, covered with cling film (also pilfered from someone’s sack lunch.)Happy Birthday. Enjoy!

Alexis Arguello said Aaron Pryor defeated him fair and square in both fights.There is no proof Panama Lewis or anyone else cheated in this fight, there was no complaint filed by Arguello or by anyone else, and to claim “there was definitely cheating going on and the whole world heard it and saw it” is complete disrespect to two dead Hall of Famers who said there was no cheating.CREDIT PICTURE YOU-TUBEHall of Famer and all time great infighter Aaron Pryor managed to twice defeat Hall of Fame and all time great boxer-puncher Alexis Arguello.During the first fight, Panama Lewis, clearly heard on TV, told his second, the cut man Artie Curly, to get the bottle he had prepared.26 years later, Luis Resto - who hated Panama Lewis - claimed in a 2008 documentary (for which he was paid) that there were antihistamine tablets in the water of another bottle Lewis fixed for him a year later.But he declined to offer any proof of any of it, or any proof that was in the bottle at the Arguello fight.Curley said the bottle contained peppermint schnapps to settle Pryor's upset stomach, and that was all.Who says Pryor did not cheat? What did Alexis Arguello say?Alexis Arguello said Pryor won fairly from the night of the fight till the day he died.Was Panama Lewis capable of cheating? Sure, but he was not caught cheating until a YEAR AFTER THIS FIGHT. There is no proof whatsoever he cheated in this fight.There was not a complaint filed, and no one connected with the fight ever raised the spectre of cheatingArguello and his team not only did not complain, Arguello gave Pryor credit for his victory.Arguello never believed Pryor cheated and said after the first fight he had simply been bested because of a bad fight plan. After the second fight, Arguello wryly noted it was Pryor, not a bad fight plan, that caused his defeats.Did anyone else in the greater boxing community believe Pryor was a cheat?NO, no one made that claim, ever. And, after Pryor needed to change trainers two weeks before his rematch with Arguello, Emmanuel Steward, not just a great trainer, but a man revered for his honesty and immaculate reputation, came aboard and worked with Aaron.Steward never, ever, would have worked with Pryor in the rematch if he had the slightest belief that Pryor had cheated in the first fight.So let us look at the actual fight in Pryor vs. Arguello OnePryor, who believed he could beat any fighter remotely near his weight class, and who had yearned for a definitive career defining fight, had signed to fight Sugar Ray Leonard in the fall of 1982 for the Undisputed World Welterweight Championship, but Leonard suffered a detached retina and retired.Pryor was then offered a fight against rising lightweight champion Alexis Arguello. Arguello was attempting become the first boxer to win world titles in four weight divisions, and was a 12-5 favorite over Pryor. Ray Leonard- who had sparred with Pryor in a vicious exchange, remarked of the odds:“They must not know Aaron!”Pryor's purse was $1.6 million, while Arguello's was $1.5 million, both career highs for both men.The fight started as a war, with Pryor roaring forward and throwing punches from every possible angle and some which were not possible, and with the counter-punching Arguello hitting him with shots which would have flattened any other living fighter.The early rounds were all Pryor, but by the half way stage, Arguello was right back in the fight with his precision counter-punching. Pryor had only boxed beyond 10 rounds once before, but Arguello had done so 10 times.But Pryor, also visibly stunned on at least two occasions, was never really hurt.Former Pryor trainer Frankie Sims said wryly:“You could run a bull into Aaron and couldn’t knock him out,”Arguello suffered a cut over his left eye in round six, and slowly but surely, the damage accumulated from Pryor’s unstop assault.Pryor went on to defeat Arguello after an entire barrage of punches ended the fight at the start of the 14th round. Ring Magazine named that battle the Fight of the Decade.The great Larry Holmes said it best, after watching Pryor knock out Arguello:“Aaron beat Arguello’s ass like he stole something, no one could beat Aaron. He’d throw 200 punches per round and keep going.”Then let us look at Pryor vs Arguello TwoArguello believed a poor fight plan by Eddie Futch had cost him the fight, and wanted a rematch with a different trainer.Arguello would later note that changing trainers was:“The worst mistake of my life,” saidArguello apologized publicly to Futch after he did worse in the second fight than the first.Arguello was trained by Lupe Sanchez for the Pryor rematch.Pryor had been trained by Panama Lewis for his first fight with Arguello. Lewis had his license revoked after he removed the padding from the gloves of Luis Resto before his match with Billy Collins. Pryor hired Larry Holmes trainer Richie Giachetti to train him, but they had a falling out and just two weeks before the Arguello rematch, Pryor turned to Manny Steward, who came in and saved the day.Both men earned career high purses over their career high payday for their first fight. Pryor's purse was $2.25 million and Arguello's was $1.75 million. This time however, Pryor was a 2½ to 1 favorite.The fight was a dirty one. Arguello was deducted a point in round eight for low blows. But in the end, it did not matter, Arguello had swelling under his right eye by the third round, and Pryor knocked down Arguello three times: once in round one, once in the fourth, and for the count in the tenth. Arguello was counted out while sitting on the canvas with his arms draped around his knees.Alexis Arguello through tears after the fight said:“I didn’t want to risk my life. On the third knockdown, I was protecting myself. I thought about how good Pryor is and I said, ‘Jesus, I will stay here.'”Ironically, Arguello and Pryor both found theirs greatest acclaim, greatest purses, and lifelong friendship, in these two fightsBoth Arguello and Pryor are members of the Hall of Fame, and the two formed a deep and abiding friendship in their retirement. When Arguello ran for office, Pryor went down to Nicaragua to support Arguello's political career, and travelled around the country advocating for him.Perhaps Pryor summed up Arguello the best when he said:“He was pure class, both inside and outside the ring. He was intelligent. articulate, and a genuinely nice person. He was what any boxer would like to be.”Arguello said simply:“Aaron was a great, great, fighter and more importantly, he is my friend.”The two got together several times a year until Arguello's death, apparently by a self-inflicted gunshot, in 2009. Pryor died on October 9, 2016. He never stopped grieving for his friend…Both men had been denied the acclaim their careers warranted before these 2 fightsLet us start with Aaron PryorAaron “the Hawk” PryorPryor was a two-time light welterweight world champion, having held the WBA title from 1980 to 1983, and the IBF title from 1984 to 1985. Additionally, he held the Ring magazine title from 1980 to 1983, and the lineal title from 1983 to 1986.Pryor campaigned as a junior welterweight solely because he was not able to get lightweight contenders and any champion in the ring. He was that good. Pryor's style, called "Hawk-time" was non-stop punching, movement and aggression. Pryor in many ways resembled a reincarnation of "Homicide Hank" Armstrong, except Pryor was a cleaner fighter, without the fouling. But like Armstrong, he would pound your entire body, every second of every minute of every round. He was blessed with incredible handspeed, lateral movement, power, a great chin, sound fundamentals, and an incredible ability to adapt. He literally had it all.Pryor is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame since 1996, he was voted by the Associated Press as the world's best light welterweight of the 20th century. The Ring has him as the 35th greatest boxer of the past 80 years and the best light welterweight.Boxrec ranks him #5 of all time - but it has to be noted that he was a lightweight, who could make weight as a lightweight his entire career. He fought at a higher weight class at light welterweight because not one top lightweight would sign to fight him. Ray Leonard said bluntly he could have beaten Duran at lightweight.A ferocious swarmer he was similar in many stylistic ways to Duran as a lightweight, only he was quicker, and his volume punching output was unmatched at that weight.Pryor won 39 out of 40 fights, 35 by KO, an incredible 88% KO rate, and his one loss came after 3 years out of the ring after he became a drug addict. In December 1985, Pryor was stripped of the IBF title for failure to defend it, and his trainer and family said openly he was using drugs daily.After 3 years of inactivity, Pryor, claiming he was finally clean - he was not, he admitted later he was high on the day of the fight. Nonetheless, Pryor attempted a comeback. He fought welterweight journeyman Bobby Joe Young in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on August 8, 1987. Pryor was a shell of his former self and was knocked out in the seventh round. At 32 he looked 50.It was his only defeat. Although he won 3 more fights, Pryor never reclaimed his former ability, and now blind in one eye, retired.Sugar Ray Leonard, who had sparred with the Hawk, and was supposed to fight him before his first retirement said of his old rival:“The first time I saw him I thought he was a crazy f——-, Aaron was there among the top fighters during that time. I don’t care if Aaron was going to fight Joe Schmoe, he still had a kamikaze mentality. He had heart. He fought with conviction.”Pryor is often overlooked by fanboys, and quite simply, we will never know how good he really was, because fighters in his natural weight class simply would not fight him, and drugs destroyed his later career. At his best, Angelo Dundee believed he was a bigger threat to Ray Leonard than Tommy Hearns, though he was much smaller, if that gives you an idea of how good boxing people thought he was, or could be!Aaron Pryor in the professional ranks was one of the most avoided fighters everPryor’s first fight as a pro was with Larry Smith, for which he made $400.Pryor continued to fight for relative peanuts, forcing him to work other jobs to make ends meet. As more people in the boxing game became aware of his skills, the less able he was to get meaningful fights.In 1979, he fought 6 times, but in his last match, Pryor was pitted for the first time ever against a once or future world champion when he faced former WBA light welterweight champion Alfonso "Peppermint" Frazer of Panama. Frazer, ranked #40 of all time, was the first prime great fighter faced by Pryor, who knocked out Frazer in the 5th round, advancing his fight record to 20-0 with 18 knockouts. After defeating Fraser, Pryor entered the World Boxing Association rankings.(Pryor had been ranked by Ring for over a year, since late 1979)Although Pryor had risen to #4 in the lightweight rankings, none of the other top contenders would fight him except Alexis Arguello, who was #3 - and no promoter was willing to meet Arguello’s price for that fight.Both Jim Watt and Hilmer Kenty absolutely refused to even consider Pryor for a title shot at lightweight.But fate intervened, and all time great Antonio Cervantes, #7 of all time light welterweights, was looking for a discretionary title defense, and he was willing to come to Cincinnati for the right price.On August 2, 1980, Pryor faced two-time world champion Antonio Cervantes of Colombia for the WBA light welterweight championship. His purse was $50,000. Cervantes was looking for an easy fight, and figured the lightweight Pryor was too inexperienced to pose a threat, or stand up to his power. He was wrong on both counts.The fight took place in Pryor's hometown of Cincinnati and was televised nationally by CBS. Pryor was knocked down in round one, but he got right back up and knocked out Cervantes in round four to become light welterweight champion.Pryor dominated the light-welterweight division for six years. He made 11 defenses of his title, all mandatory defenses except the two against Arguello. Arguello was the only top fighter to willingly enter the ring with Pryor after Frazer and Cervantes were destroyed.Alexis Arguello, “El Flaco Explosivo” (the Explosive Thin Man)Alexis Arguello, known to boxing folks as "El Flaco Explosivo." The explosive thin man, was born April 19, 1952 in Managua, Nicaragua, and died on July 1, 2009.Like so many boxers, Arguello, whose father was a shoemaker, came from abject poverty. The father was unable to provide for his 7 children, and his father attempted to commit suicide when Alexis was five years old. At the age of 9, Argüello ran away to work in a dairy farm, to get away from horrific conditions at home. At 13, Arguello emigrated to Canada to try to find a better life for his family.Argüello was in constant trouble through his teen years, but when his sister Marina married a boxer Alexis took an interest in the sport, and after an brief amateur career of 58-2 he turned pro in 1968 at 16.His career lasted from 1968 to 1995, and he became a three-weight world champion, having held the WBA featherweight title from 1974 to 1976; the WBC super featherweight title from 1978 to 1980; and the WBC lightweight title from 1981 to 1982.Arguello never any of his 3 titles in the ring, he always vacated them and moved up in search of more money, and more acclaim.His best weight is considered to be super-featherweight, at which he is ranked #1 of all time by Boxrec.American audiences were introduced to the Nicaraguan's ruthless skills in the ring, and also his tremendous heart and compassion after his victory over Ray Mancini, when he battered Ray into submission in the 14th round. After the fight, he embraced the beaten up Mancini and wished him all the best for the future, and all in perfect English.Ironically, he found his greatest acclaim, greatest purses, and a lifelong friend, in his two defeats by Aaron Pryor.Finally, the aftermath of the two fightsSadly, both Arguello and Pryor lost all their money with financial issues, and both men suffered cocaine addiction.Both men attempted comebacks with limited success.Eventually Pryor’s comebacks were halted by blindness, it was discovered during a medical test that Pryor had significantly lost vision in one of his eyes, (he was legally blind in that eye) and after that he was denied a boxing license.Arguello’s comeback ended with a defeat by journeyman Scott Walker, and Arguello retired for good and returned to Nicaragua, where he wanted to do something to help his native country.Disillusioned with retirement, at first Arguello appears to have sought solace in booze, cocaine, and women. But Arguello eventually entered politics later in his native Nicaragua, while Aaron Pryor became a Christian minister, working in the community he grew up in.***********************************CREDIT TO:Boxrec for records, statisticsRing for ratingsCox’s Corner and Monte CoxFour Kings : Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing by George KimballFlight of the Hawk: The Aaron Pryor Story by Aaron Pryor and Marshall TerrillPryor vs Arguello II. Alexis Faces The Painful TruthRing August 2020 Anson WainwrightBeloved Warrior: The Rise and Fall of Alexis Argüello by Christian Giudice

Back in the mid to late ’70s I worked for a production company called Sound 70 in Chattanooga, TN. I started as a truck loader but quickly moved up to Production Assistant. That might sound more substantial than it actually was, I was essentially a Gofer. Go for this, go for that. It usually involved what’s called the Rider. A Rider was part of the band’s performance contract and put forward what the band wanted backstage. Cases of beer, deli trays and most of the time some odd bits that had to be tracked down. I came in where the odd bits were concerned. No, not drugs, shame on you! It was generally things like fresh squeezed orange juice or sandalwood/peppermint incense, stuff like that.In April of ’76 ol’ Bruce came to town. I’d heard about him through his being on the covers of Time and Newsweek, which was kind of a big deal at the time, but had only heard Born To Run. I thought it was a pretty good song. Despite Bruce being hyped pretty heavily during the previous year, the show didn’t sell out. The Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga seats a little over three thousand people, but we ended up with about half the house sold. A bit disappointing to my bosses. The balcony was closed. We figured Mr. Springsteen would give us a fairly perfunctory performance. I mean, the guy was being compared to Dylan, Rolling Stone magazine tagged him the ‘Next Big Thing’ and the turn out for his show filled half of a small venue. I anticipated a sort of hit and run thing. Boy, was I wrong.During this era Southern Rock was king in the South, not surprising really. We got other kinds of acts, but Southern bands sold out in no time and generated the most enthusiasm. I think most of the audience that April night were curious. I doubt most of them had heard much of his music. There was a definite ‘Show Me’ attitude in the air. Well, he showed ‘em. At a time when most headliners played an hour and half Bruce hit that mark and then left it in the dust. He played two and half hours. And he did so with the energy of a man possessed. It didn’t seem to matter to him how many people had failed to show up, he only cared about the folks who did. By the end of the show I’d say 90% of the audience were true believers. To this day people my age here in The Noog still talk about that show.Obviously he picked up fans that night. What kind of fans were they? As I mentioned previously, Southern Rock was dominate in that part of the country so most of the people at the show that night were probably big fans of that particular genre. But Bruce that night transcended genre. He presented a high energy Rock & Roll event that seemed bigger than a place like the Memorial Auditorium could actually hold. To say he blew the roof off the place is an apt metaphor. I have a feeling he did this everywhere he went back then. If you were a devotee of rock music in those days and you saw Springsteen live you couldn’t help but become a fan. What he was able to get across more than anyone else in the ’70s was the joy of Rock & Roll. Just the pure joy of it. And he still has that. Yeah, he plays his sad tunes where he connects with workin’ folks and their struggles, but when he kicks it into high gear and lets loose with unadulterated Rock & Roll that joy comes through.