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Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, AARP is going to win.
Guy Fontaine’s time has passed. His wife is dead, and the small-town Oklahoma newspaper for which he covered sports has forced him into retirement. He sold his home and moved to northern California to live in his daughter’s guest cottage. It’s all over but the golf.
Then, in a heartbeat, Guy’s life goes from boredom to nightmare. After he blacks out on the golf course and drives a golf cart down the San Bruno Freeway, the dream of independence through his golden years flies out the window. Guy finds himself an involuntary resident in assisted living at Mission Pescadero, which its administrator, Alexandra Truman, calls “the premier retirement community in Half Moon Bay.”
Only this is 2022, and the old-timers at Mission Pescadero are nothing like the old-timers in south-central Oklahoma. After surviving fifty years of corporate ladders, carpools, mortgages, and insurance annuities, these senior citizens yearn for a time when life was fun—1967, the days of sex, drugs, peace, revolution, rock and roll, and more sex. So they transform Mission Pescadero into their own version of it. Even the dining hall is divided into where people were during the Summer of Love: Berkeley, Old Haight, New Haight, Sausalito, New York. The drugs may be different and the sex is driven by girls instead of guys, but for the residents, rock and roll goes on forever.
And what a bunch they are. There’s Ray John, the cynical writer of letters to the editor, who will never again be in a situation without complaint; Winston, the drug-dealing, womanizing wheelchair mechanic; Sunshines #1 and #2, still fighting over who is the original; Henry, lonely and perpetually cold; and Phaedra, the self-proclaimed creator of feminism, who hates everyone young, straight, healthy, or happy, including her lifelong companion, Suchada.
The world would like nothing more than to forget these people past their prime, but they have other ideas. So when Alexander discovers Henry’s cat, Mr. Scratchy, living in a closet and evicts him, the radicals take over, declare themselves the free nation of Pepper Land, and crank up the music. Only The Man, in the person of Lieutenant Cyrus Monk—sworn by his mother to bust all hippies—cannot abide free senior citizens. The conflict mushrooms into an epic battle between authority and anarchy, young and old, intolerance and free love—complete with twenty-four-hour news coverage.
By turns outrageous and hilarious, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty is Sandlin’s exploration of his own vision of eternal truth—that love blooms, rock and roll changes lives, and hippies never get old. In the process, he shows us the importance of staying true to ourselves, however and wherever we end up.
Guy Fontaine’s time has passed. His wife is dead, and the small-town Oklahoma newspaper for which he covered sports has forced him into retirement. He sold his home and moved to northern California to live in his daughter’s guest cottage. It’s all over but the golf.
Then, in a heartbeat, Guy’s life goes from boredom to nightmare. After he blacks out on the golf course and drives a golf cart down the San Bruno Freeway, the dream of independence through his golden years flies out the window. Guy finds himself an involuntary resident in assisted living at Mission Pescadero, which its administrator, Alexandra Truman, calls “the premier retirement community in Half Moon Bay.”
Only this is 2022, and the old-timers at Mission Pescadero are nothing like the old-timers in south-central Oklahoma. After surviving fifty years of corporate ladders, carpools, mortgages, and insurance annuities, these senior citizens yearn for a time when life was fun—1967, the days of sex, drugs, peace, revolution, rock and roll, and more sex. So they transform Mission Pescadero into their own version of it. Even the dining hall is divided into where people were during the Summer of Love: Berkeley, Old Haight, New Haight, Sausalito, New York. The drugs may be different and the sex is driven by girls instead of guys, but for the residents, rock and roll goes on forever.
And what a bunch they are. There’s Ray John, the cynical writer of letters to the editor, who will never again be in a situation without complaint; Winston, the drug-dealing, womanizing wheelchair mechanic; Sunshines #1 and #2, still fighting over who is the original; Henry, lonely and perpetually cold; and Phaedra, the self-proclaimed creator of feminism, who hates everyone young, straight, healthy, or happy, including her lifelong companion, Suchada.
The world would like nothing more than to forget these people past their prime, but they have other ideas. So when Alexander discovers Henry’s cat, Mr. Scratchy, living in a closet and evicts him, the radicals take over, declare themselves the free nation of Pepper Land, and crank up the music. Only The Man, in the person of Lieutenant Cyrus Monk—sworn by his mother to bust all hippies—cannot abide free senior citizens. The conflict mushrooms into an epic battle between authority and anarchy, young and old, intolerance and free love—complete with twenty-four-hour news coverage.
By turns outrageous and hilarious, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty is Sandlin’s exploration of his own vision of eternal truth—that love blooms, rock and roll changes lives, and hippies never get old. In the process, he shows us the importance of staying true to ourselves, however and wherever we end up.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 18, 2007
15 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
About the author
Tim Sandlin
22 books149 followersTim Sandlin has published ten novels and a book of columns. He wrote eleven screenplays for hire; three have been made into movies. He turned forty with no phone, TV, or flush toilet and now he has all that stuff. Tim and his wife adopted a little girl from China. He is now living happily (indoors) with his family in Jackson, Wyoming.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
September 12, 2007
Although Sandlin certainly has a knack for comedic dialogue, this book reverberates with a deeper message than the lost art of free love being revitalized by aging Baby Boomers. Although it is about a generation reclaiming what they can of their youth and analyzing their triumphs and pitfalls, it is also a deep criticism of this society's treatment of its senior citizens. A grim look into the future, as Boomers face retirement and nursing care, the hippies become aware that they have aged as they never thought they would. The ultimate youth-centric generation realizes the society they helped form has turned against them. And something has to be done--as one middle-aged protester's poster exlaims, "Glorify your Elders."
June 22, 2010
I could not put this book down. It walks the line of nostalgia without crossing over into triteness and offers a touching view into the sadness, joy, frustration and humor that is growing older.
March 31, 2011
Bah. I guess this was supposed to be a light-hearted "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" for the Boomer retirement set. Too bad it was about as effective as anything else that generation attempted that didn't involve personal pleasure and gain.
So the deal, basically, is that in the distant year of 2022(!), the ex-radical hippie residents of an assisted care facility are being repressed, man, by the Man, man. Well, okay, really we're only talking about the nurses, and the orderlies that aren't allowing the rickety old retired granola farmers to smoke banana peels and wiggle nekkid to bad cover versions of "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" or "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" and songs of similar quality. Those big Blue Meanies!
So what's a useless, pot smoking AARP member to do? Why, start a revolution, of course! Cast off those cruel shackles of the (figuratively) toothless Nurse Ratched stand-in! Gee golly gosh! A totally effective and selfless act of social progress and enlightenment! Just like Mom used to make!
Well, considering the cultural history of the "revolutionaries" in question, it comes as no surprise that all their slogans might as well be boiled down to "GIMME IT I WANT IT IT'S MINE". All that "social justice" crap is just window dressing -- the so-called revolutionaries are and have always been really just concerned with chasing their own pleasures.
Look, not a single one of these arrested-development Earth Shoe types gives a single fucking thought as to, say, improving working conditions for all those brown people barely scraping by on the piddling checks they get for wiping the saggy asses of old hippies who couldn't even tell you the name of any given nurse. There's no consideration towards, I dunno ... maybe peacefully sitting down with the Administrator and talking through their differences in a rap session? (That's "rap session" in the 60's sense. A discussion, in other words. Beat boxing is not involved, and anyway that's something those brown people do. Totally valid form of free expression, yes. And so... colorful. But we revolutionaries are involved in something a whole lot deeper and significant).
The administrator, along with those brown people who keep these old gummers from choking on their soup really only represent obstacles to be compacted and confined while the hippies get down to the Serious Business of spiking the Metamucil with LSD. It's just like the flower-children side of the 60's: GIMME IT I WANT IT IT'S MINE.
I love the hell out of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". I really do. But this? I had about 30 pages of the book left to go. The pigs were en route to stage the Final Confrontation. Well, I absent-mindedly left the book in a restaurant. I was six steps into the parking lot when I realized the book was still inside. I just kept walking. I figure that if the uprising of these geriatric stoners is anything like the ones in their heyday, then they're all doomed. Chemical lobotomies for the lot of 'em.
And nothing of value is lost.
So the deal, basically, is that in the distant year of 2022(!), the ex-radical hippie residents of an assisted care facility are being repressed, man, by the Man, man. Well, okay, really we're only talking about the nurses, and the orderlies that aren't allowing the rickety old retired granola farmers to smoke banana peels and wiggle nekkid to bad cover versions of "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" or "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" and songs of similar quality. Those big Blue Meanies!
So what's a useless, pot smoking AARP member to do? Why, start a revolution, of course! Cast off those cruel shackles of the (figuratively) toothless Nurse Ratched stand-in! Gee golly gosh! A totally effective and selfless act of social progress and enlightenment! Just like Mom used to make!
Well, considering the cultural history of the "revolutionaries" in question, it comes as no surprise that all their slogans might as well be boiled down to "GIMME IT I WANT IT IT'S MINE". All that "social justice" crap is just window dressing -- the so-called revolutionaries are and have always been really just concerned with chasing their own pleasures.
Look, not a single one of these arrested-development Earth Shoe types gives a single fucking thought as to, say, improving working conditions for all those brown people barely scraping by on the piddling checks they get for wiping the saggy asses of old hippies who couldn't even tell you the name of any given nurse. There's no consideration towards, I dunno ... maybe peacefully sitting down with the Administrator and talking through their differences in a rap session? (That's "rap session" in the 60's sense. A discussion, in other words. Beat boxing is not involved, and anyway that's something those brown people do. Totally valid form of free expression, yes. And so... colorful. But we revolutionaries are involved in something a whole lot deeper and significant).
The administrator, along with those brown people who keep these old gummers from choking on their soup really only represent obstacles to be compacted and confined while the hippies get down to the Serious Business of spiking the Metamucil with LSD. It's just like the flower-children side of the 60's: GIMME IT I WANT IT IT'S MINE.
I love the hell out of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". I really do. But this? I had about 30 pages of the book left to go. The pigs were en route to stage the Final Confrontation. Well, I absent-mindedly left the book in a restaurant. I was six steps into the parking lot when I realized the book was still inside. I just kept walking. I figure that if the uprising of these geriatric stoners is anything like the ones in their heyday, then they're all doomed. Chemical lobotomies for the lot of 'em.
And nothing of value is lost.
October 30, 2010
This was a very fun read! It takes place in "the future" @ a nursing home, who's residents, are/were all "love children", in the 60s...hence the title of the book. The author, Tim Sandlin, has written a few other books. I did ATTEMPT to read his other books, after having read this one, but the story lines, were a little to dark/obscure, for me. But, definitely, if you are a Jimi Hendrix fan & of the 60s era & all that it empowered...Woodstock, etc..You will enjoy this book!
February 26, 2014
The year is 2022. It is over 50 years since the summer of love. So what has happened to the flower children/hippies? A bunch of them are in an "old folks home" near San Francisco at the mercy of a cruel establishment - corrupt conservators, a sadistic administrator, a doctor compelled to keep them drugged up and compliant, and children who think it is better for mom or dad to be put away where they "can't hurt themselves". Then there is a revolt, and the former children of the '60s put all of their civil disobedience and anarchy skills to good use.
There are lots of laughs in this book, but I found it more poignant than funny. For instance: "Rocky thinks about how arrogant they were back then, she and Grace and the whole tribe, how they knew old people were wrong and what the kids were doing was right and that it would never end. Of course, here they are, fifty-five years down the road, doing the same damn thing, so on one level it had lasted, in a twisted way. The difference is the love children never expected to grow old. Rocky supposes no one expects to grow old, but the children of the '60s were worse than other generations. Old age came as such a shock. You'd think sooner or later someone would tell the young what to expect and the young would listen. But then what? The social contract would crash and burn if the young knew what was in store for them."
Yes, there are laughs. There is irony. But there are also many touching moments, too.
There are lots of laughs in this book, but I found it more poignant than funny. For instance: "Rocky thinks about how arrogant they were back then, she and Grace and the whole tribe, how they knew old people were wrong and what the kids were doing was right and that it would never end. Of course, here they are, fifty-five years down the road, doing the same damn thing, so on one level it had lasted, in a twisted way. The difference is the love children never expected to grow old. Rocky supposes no one expects to grow old, but the children of the '60s were worse than other generations. Old age came as such a shock. You'd think sooner or later someone would tell the young what to expect and the young would listen. But then what? The social contract would crash and burn if the young knew what was in store for them."
Yes, there are laughs. There is irony. But there are also many touching moments, too.
July 28, 2011
I was really disappointed with this book. I thought I was going to like it a lot more than I did. It started off strong, and as the storyline went to hell, the book just got weaker. Not sure I will be reading more by Sandlin.
July 29, 2008
Boring, cutesy, silly, only about 10% clever and just downright slogish...
July 18, 2025
This book, although comical at times was much different than I had expected. It failed to capture my interest and was at times pretty confusing.
November 4, 2018
DNF'd at ~1/3 of the way. I did skip to the end to see how things turned out.
It's not really a bad story. I guess it's just not for me.
The good part was that it elicited an emotional reaction in me. Not an emotion I like to experience though. It's the feeling of not being able to control your own life. Being manipulated by others. It makes me feel breathless in a suffocating way. Watching the TV show 'Everybody Loves Raymond', the mother makes me feel like that. :/
Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty follows a guy, named Guy, who is sent to live in a senior care facility less than a year after his wife dies and he has one moment of delusion?. His daughter takes him to a doctor that writes him off as having dementia. The doctor, his daughter, and later, anyone that is not a resident in the senior care facility treats Guy as if he is not even there and when they do acknowledge him it's to tell him he suffers from dementia with little evidence. Guy has no control over his life anymore and there is crap he can do about it! It's the same with all the residents. They are being taken advantage of by family and conservators. This is definitely a topic that needs more attention, but probably will get little and there will be even less done about it.
Other than that, the story just wasn't that great. It took 1/3 of the book just to get to the inciting incident. I didn't feel there was the humor in it that the book, reviews, etc. touted. Or maybe I just didn't get it or was not the target audience. In addition, there were sentences peppered here and there that did not make sense, not because they were obscure '60s references, but because they were written with words that seemed to have nothing to do with one another. Weird.
There's a chance this book would hit the spot for people who grew up in the '60s?
All-in-all it felt pointless for me to continue reading it.
Anyway, there you have it.
It's not really a bad story. I guess it's just not for me.
The good part was that it elicited an emotional reaction in me. Not an emotion I like to experience though. It's the feeling of not being able to control your own life. Being manipulated by others. It makes me feel breathless in a suffocating way. Watching the TV show 'Everybody Loves Raymond', the mother makes me feel like that. :/
Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty follows a guy, named Guy, who is sent to live in a senior care facility less than a year after his wife dies and he has one moment of delusion?. His daughter takes him to a doctor that writes him off as having dementia. The doctor, his daughter, and later, anyone that is not a resident in the senior care facility treats Guy as if he is not even there and when they do acknowledge him it's to tell him he suffers from dementia with little evidence. Guy has no control over his life anymore and there is crap he can do about it! It's the same with all the residents. They are being taken advantage of by family and conservators. This is definitely a topic that needs more attention, but probably will get little and there will be even less done about it.
Other than that, the story just wasn't that great. It took 1/3 of the book just to get to the inciting incident. I didn't feel there was the humor in it that the book, reviews, etc. touted. Or maybe I just didn't get it or was not the target audience. In addition, there were sentences peppered here and there that did not make sense, not because they were obscure '60s references, but because they were written with words that seemed to have nothing to do with one another. Weird.
There's a chance this book would hit the spot for people who grew up in the '60s?
All-in-all it felt pointless for me to continue reading it.
Anyway, there you have it.
September 8, 2011
I found this book off-putting right away. The first real page is a little dedication, "I wrote this book for...", followed by a page of acknowledgments which begins "Call me strange, but I read the acknowledgements of every book I read. I think the thank-yous matter". I thought this was a book likely written by a baby boomer hippy, not a hipster who oozes condescending judgements designed to shame me into aspiring to be more like him? Maybe it's my fault for trying to make distinctions between the two in the first place? This page is followed by a quote. Awesome! I'm going to get to the story now! Nope. Next is the authors note, which assures us that "The only thing I know for certain is that this book will be true, someday. Librarians of America will move it from fiction to nonfiction". Oh, okay then.
The author really beats you over the head with the hippy thing, turning most of his characters into caricatures. I felt there was an important message about what’s actually happening to seniors and how nursing homes are run that got lost in the endless pop culture references. But then the story was meant to focus on hippies, I guess it’s just a subject that for me doesn’t contain many surprises. As a young person who really over-identified with the sixties early on, I got most of the references, I picked up on the loss of having lived through and lost such an important and undeniably fun time, and I just don’t care. It’s hard to get passed that spoiled brat mentality and ultimately I felt it wasn’t worth it to try, at least not for this story.
Though I did like the ending. It was surprisingly real and sad.
The author really beats you over the head with the hippy thing, turning most of his characters into caricatures. I felt there was an important message about what’s actually happening to seniors and how nursing homes are run that got lost in the endless pop culture references. But then the story was meant to focus on hippies, I guess it’s just a subject that for me doesn’t contain many surprises. As a young person who really over-identified with the sixties early on, I got most of the references, I picked up on the loss of having lived through and lost such an important and undeniably fun time, and I just don’t care. It’s hard to get passed that spoiled brat mentality and ultimately I felt it wasn’t worth it to try, at least not for this story.
Though I did like the ending. It was surprisingly real and sad.
May 8, 2021
It's set in the year 2022 (written 2007) and concerns a nursing home full of (mostly) old hippies. They're tired of being ruled with an iron fist by the evil administrator and medicated into oblivion by her evil henchman doctor. So they take over. I think we're supposed to be sympathetic to the old hippies, but, in the course of being farcical, the author makes them into self-absorbed caricatures.
As with many of the original hippies, there is no thought about any other oppressed groups. Of course, they're almost all white and middle class. When they take over the home, much of the lower-paid staff (orderlies, food service, nursing assistants) go with them and continue to care for them without pay. It's entirely unclear why the workers do this, as they do not share economic class or color with the hippies, and the hippies aren't even particularly nice to them.
As in life, various random things happen without being part of the plot.
It drags on for quite some time, and then the author decides to resolve it by having the governor of CA (a really cool chick) arrive by airplane to sing Jefferson Airplane songs and tell the fuzz to back off. One of the characters actually SAYS, "This is what they call a deus ex machina." Yes, it is.
Skip this Tim Sandlin book and try any of his others if you like dry humor and eccentric characters in unexpected places. His best known books, I think, are part of the the GroVont (Gros Ventre) trilogy set in Wyoming. MUCH better than this one.
As with many of the original hippies, there is no thought about any other oppressed groups. Of course, they're almost all white and middle class. When they take over the home, much of the lower-paid staff (orderlies, food service, nursing assistants) go with them and continue to care for them without pay. It's entirely unclear why the workers do this, as they do not share economic class or color with the hippies, and the hippies aren't even particularly nice to them.
As in life, various random things happen without being part of the plot.
It drags on for quite some time, and then the author decides to resolve it by having the governor of CA (a really cool chick) arrive by airplane to sing Jefferson Airplane songs and tell the fuzz to back off. One of the characters actually SAYS, "This is what they call a deus ex machina." Yes, it is.
Skip this Tim Sandlin book and try any of his others if you like dry humor and eccentric characters in unexpected places. His best known books, I think, are part of the the GroVont (Gros Ventre) trilogy set in Wyoming. MUCH better than this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 28, 2013
I absolutely LOVED this book
Hilarious well written and lots of fun!
Here is the review from Amazon
Though Jimi doesn't make an appearance in this near-future satire, Sandlin (Skipped Parts; Sorrow Floats) has fun with his surviving fans. The year is 2022 (the year Jimi would've turned 80), and strait-laced retiree Guy Fontaine, at his daughter's behest, moves into the Mission Pescadero nursing home, where aged hippies, former radicals and random California nutjobs refuse to give up their sex, drugs and rock and roll. Guy is stricken with an acute case of culture shock, but gets over it with the help of a few friendly residents who aren't living in a perpetual summer of love. But just as Guy is getting into the scene, the residents take control of the facility to protest the lack of respect they receive from their families, doctors and the home's administrators. Though not all of the humor works across generations (chants of "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. AARP is gonna win"), most does, and the action, thankfully, is far from bingo night and crafts hour. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Hilarious well written and lots of fun!
Here is the review from Amazon
Though Jimi doesn't make an appearance in this near-future satire, Sandlin (Skipped Parts; Sorrow Floats) has fun with his surviving fans. The year is 2022 (the year Jimi would've turned 80), and strait-laced retiree Guy Fontaine, at his daughter's behest, moves into the Mission Pescadero nursing home, where aged hippies, former radicals and random California nutjobs refuse to give up their sex, drugs and rock and roll. Guy is stricken with an acute case of culture shock, but gets over it with the help of a few friendly residents who aren't living in a perpetual summer of love. But just as Guy is getting into the scene, the residents take control of the facility to protest the lack of respect they receive from their families, doctors and the home's administrators. Though not all of the humor works across generations (chants of "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. AARP is gonna win"), most does, and the action, thankfully, is far from bingo night and crafts hour. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
January 20, 2015
OK, it's improbable (after all it's meant to be a comic farce), and at times it seems insulting, because every other character is wearing Depends at 67, or senile at 72. But if you continue on, you realize we all may hit some point where we're in a flashback but we still deserve to be in control of our lives.
He has a point, behind the silly story of the Woodstock retirees' sit-in at the nursing home: "We are the invisible minority, cast aside by a culture aimed at satisfying only pubescent desires. What makes us unique from other minorities...is that we were once like you and, someday, you will join us. A landlord or employer would never treat a black man with contempt if he was certain of becoming one. How can you treat the aged as nonentities, knowing where you yourself are going?"
He has a point, behind the silly story of the Woodstock retirees' sit-in at the nursing home: "We are the invisible minority, cast aside by a culture aimed at satisfying only pubescent desires. What makes us unique from other minorities...is that we were once like you and, someday, you will join us. A landlord or employer would never treat a black man with contempt if he was certain of becoming one. How can you treat the aged as nonentities, knowing where you yourself are going?"
April 29, 2012
I like Sandlin and his sense of humor. This book is original and funny but I have a difficult time forgiving Sandlin - and his editor - for the indulgent middle section which stretches a relatively brief period of story into chapter after chapter, boring the reader and daring him to put it down. The end was somewhat less than satisfying but less so than I expected after the middle section.
I will say that I really enjoyed many aspects of the book. The characters were interesting, if not somewhat less than three-dimensional. Sandlin's odd humor shows through, as does his ability to weave together sadness, humor as people deal with the inevitable consequences of growing old, as he did in his earlier GroVont trilogy with people growing up.
I will say that I really enjoyed many aspects of the book. The characters were interesting, if not somewhat less than three-dimensional. Sandlin's odd humor shows through, as does his ability to weave together sadness, humor as people deal with the inevitable consequences of growing old, as he did in his earlier GroVont trilogy with people growing up.
February 27, 2017
This book is pretty funny. It stars a wild cast of elderly hippies living together in the Mission Pescadero old-folks home, who revert back to the ways of the 1960s in the San Francisco area. They are fed up with the rules, the children shoving them into nursing homes, the doctors constantly dosing the patients to keep them from truly living life, and conservators stealing their money. While this book is a satire, it really does open a window into a growing problem in this country, in how we treat our elders. These residents have had enough with authority, and are taking over! Watch out! Rowdy sock-hops, Viagra induced orgies, and a gun wielding octogenarian are just a few silly scenes from this book.
March 14, 2008
Tim Sandlin finds himself back near the top of his game in this, his seventh novel. It's his second foray into third-person narrative and it works much better than the hit-or-miss Honey Don't. The plot revolves around an insurrection by a group of aging baby boomers who attempt to stage a takeover of their California assisted-living facility. This gives Sandlin plenty of room for high comedy as well as simultaneously poking fun at and showing heartfelt admiration for the 60's generation.
In the end, it turns out to be a classic mix of Sandlin's best elements--a great plot, hilarious comic turns all backed up by a heart of gold and some truly touching moments.
In the end, it turns out to be a classic mix of Sandlin's best elements--a great plot, hilarious comic turns all backed up by a heart of gold and some truly touching moments.
July 6, 2008
Funny, touching, radical, mind-expanding. An enjoyable, well-crafted summer read engaging the lived experienced of aging and the social management of the elderly, imagined through the not-too-distant future of twilight years of the generation of the summer of love reconnecting to the past of its youth. The chance addition of a retiree from Oklahoma to a California assisted care facility otherwise inhabited by former hippies and radicals from NY, SF and Berkeley sets off a chain of events leading to dramatic--if Viagra and LSD assisted--climax.
April 2, 2015
This novel was a fast ride down memory lane. Lots of popular culture references from the sixties and seventies made every page a flashback. All the characters you may remember from those tie-dyed years make an appearance, and the truth is they haven't changed much; they've gotten a little saggier, a little more weathered, more experienced than Jimi, a little sadder, and a lot more funny. Just for managing such a grand cast of characters so well, Sandlin should receive a banner of peace signs. This one is a great absorbing read.
November 12, 2008
It's 2022 (the year Jimi Hendrix would have turned 80), and the unwilling residents of Mission Pescadero Assisted Living and Nursing Center are pissed. And they have experience with revolution.
What happens next ranges from hysterically funny to profoundly touching. Everyone born between 1945 and 1958 will recognize themselves or someone they know so they should all read it. Their children should all read it so they know what to expect from us.
What happens next ranges from hysterically funny to profoundly touching. Everyone born between 1945 and 1958 will recognize themselves or someone they know so they should all read it. Their children should all read it so they know what to expect from us.
May 6, 2020
As a boomer and one who spent his college days in the late 60's, I expected to enjoy this book more than I did. I've found everything of Sandlin's besides the GroVont trilogy and the recent Lydia to be mediocre.
This had its moments of humor, for sure, and it made an overall statement about aging and how our society treats its aged. A number of moments could best be described as poignant, in spite of the absurdity that permeates the book. But overall, it deserves no more than a 3.
This had its moments of humor, for sure, and it made an overall statement about aging and how our society treats its aged. A number of moments could best be described as poignant, in spite of the absurdity that permeates the book. But overall, it deserves no more than a 3.
March 11, 2010
Unrealistic story about Baby Boomers in assisted living center. They are not that with it to enjoy sex, drugs, and rock and roll! Interesting idea but poorly written and silly.
July 25, 2024
This book is uneven. It's got some good storytelling, and a hint of a good idea--'60s radicals, now in their 70s, take over the nursing home where they feel they have been treated unfairly. Written in 2007 but set in 2022, it tries to take on issues like conservatorship (long before Britney Spears' struggle brought it into mainstream consciousness). I like that, I like some of the story.
The book struggles with too many characters without having each being identifiable enough, and it also leans way too much on physical descriptions of characters, most egregiously the "180 pound woman" who is apparently just so gol-darn fat, that's her only trait, she's fat, and her daughter put her in the home because she's fat. (There's also an "Asian anchor and a black anchor" at a news station--not that this isn't worth mentioning, but does it have to be the only way they're referred to?)
This book is pretty darn boomer-y. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone.
The book struggles with too many characters without having each being identifiable enough, and it also leans way too much on physical descriptions of characters, most egregiously the "180 pound woman" who is apparently just so gol-darn fat, that's her only trait, she's fat, and her daughter put her in the home because she's fat. (There's also an "Asian anchor and a black anchor" at a news station--not that this isn't worth mentioning, but does it have to be the only way they're referred to?)
This book is pretty darn boomer-y. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone.
August 9, 2020
I must confess ...I picked this up in a consignment shop because the title and cover caught my attention. Not always the best criteria for choosing a book, I know. However, this was a good summer read...in the future year of 2022 (book was published in 2007) the main character, Guy, a recent transplant from Oklahoma, finds himself unexpectedly living in a senior care community in California with a bunch of old hippies. At times very funny, but also sad and poignant. Lots of cultural references, some nostalgic and some which no author could anticipate would not be relevant in the future (going to Radio Shack for walkie-talkies), no smartphones or tablets in sight. also good commentary on American society’s view of the elderly.
June 2, 2020
OK.... too many characters.
March 23, 2017
Very funny!
March 21, 2022
Fair novel about old hippies in a retirement home rebelling. Too over the top for me, finished it only because I was reading it for a book club. Not funny.
January 9, 2015
It's the year 2023 (the year Jimi Hendrix would have turned 80 had he lived that long), and an Oklahoma sportswriter named Guy Fontaine finds himself remanded to an assisted living facility in Northern California after a brief incident involving a golf cart and the CHP. He finds himself surrounded by aging hippies, who segregate themselves (the Marin hippies, Berkeley hippies, etc.) and still engage in bitter partisan squabbles over virtually nothing. It's pretty apparent Guy doesn't fit in here. The lazy, pill pushing resident doctor, Dalton Beaver diagnoses him with dementia (contrary to available evidence) and recommends heavy medication.
Many of the residents have placed there against their wills.
When the evil, Nurse Ratched-like head administrator, Alexandra Truman moves to take away an illicit pet from a resident, the seniors take her and Dr. Beaver as hostages, and take over Mission Pescadero to protest their ill treatment.
Now I understand "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" is a farce, but the stereotypes are way too broad. The ancient hippies all come off as petulant children with hopelessly stuck in the past. When they take over the facility, they chant anti-Nixon slogans. Huh? All the villains may as well have waxed handlebar mustaches to twiddle while they plot their evil plots.
And this is a pity, because Mr. Sandlin is a fine writer, and hidden among the ridiculous characters and implausible occurrences, there is a lovely book about facing death, and the diminishment of old age.
Many of the residents have placed there against their wills.
When the evil, Nurse Ratched-like head administrator, Alexandra Truman moves to take away an illicit pet from a resident, the seniors take her and Dr. Beaver as hostages, and take over Mission Pescadero to protest their ill treatment.
Now I understand "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" is a farce, but the stereotypes are way too broad. The ancient hippies all come off as petulant children with hopelessly stuck in the past. When they take over the facility, they chant anti-Nixon slogans. Huh? All the villains may as well have waxed handlebar mustaches to twiddle while they plot their evil plots.
And this is a pity, because Mr. Sandlin is a fine writer, and hidden among the ridiculous characters and implausible occurrences, there is a lovely book about facing death, and the diminishment of old age.
July 3, 2013
I had a grand time with this book. It's a cautionary tale on many levels. It's 2022, and there's a deceptively pleasant-looking, upscale retirement home populated almost entirely by aging hippies and freaks. Unfortunately, they are being patronized and in many ways abused by their avaricious adult children and by a corrupt management. When one resident's cat gets confiscated, the community pulls out of its cliquishness and takes two hostages, renames the grounds Pepperland, and figures out to govern themselves. There's a bit of a murder mystery and lots of intrigue as well as repeated "put down the book and chuckle" ironic humor in the residents' interactions and competitiveness over where they were in 1968. As a California native who often finds that writers from elsewhere are lax in their research and make silly errors in describing or characterizing this area, I must say that Sandlin, who hails from Wyoming, seems to have done his homework enough to understand the Bay Area. His futuristic world is an unexpected mix of dark underground journey and sweetly lit fable, and it's fun to observe from here.
January 11, 2016
I learned of Tim Sandlin through the humor author Christopher Moore. I did a little research on Sandlin and decided to give one of his novels a try. I was not disappointed. "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" is at times clever, humorous, and ultimately touching. Many of the reviews have disparaged the ending. However, I felt it was massively apropos and true to the tricks of life. Great success and highs are followed by lows and heartache. And time keeps marching on.
Although some of the characters are underdeveloped, and the novel has a few too many digressions for my taste, it is overall a satisfying read. Not only that, but there were some profound revelations about the nature of life, including this line from a character; "Beauty is heartbreaking and heartbreak is life-affirming, therefore beauty is a heartbreaking form of life affirmation." Words that only those who have lived can truly appreciate.
I will say, that I did not find the novel as funny as Mr. Moore's novels, but what humor there was seemed appropriate and fit the scene. Sandlin tried hard to steer clear of shtick, and I for one appreciate the attempt. I will definitely investigate more of Sandlin's novels.
Although some of the characters are underdeveloped, and the novel has a few too many digressions for my taste, it is overall a satisfying read. Not only that, but there were some profound revelations about the nature of life, including this line from a character; "Beauty is heartbreaking and heartbreak is life-affirming, therefore beauty is a heartbreaking form of life affirmation." Words that only those who have lived can truly appreciate.
I will say, that I did not find the novel as funny as Mr. Moore's novels, but what humor there was seemed appropriate and fit the scene. Sandlin tried hard to steer clear of shtick, and I for one appreciate the attempt. I will definitely investigate more of Sandlin's novels.
June 18, 2008
Not really great writing, but the premise is fun. Hippies and Boomers who are now ready for nursing home care. Some of the characters are a hoot and others make for some thought provoking moments. It is set in 2022 and "Jenna Bush has the highest approval rating of any president in 20 years". Many references to various musicians, news events, etc from the late 60s and early 70s. So while it wasn't "literature" it was a fun read.
"We are the invisible minority, cast aside by a culture aimed at satisfying only pubescent desires. How can you treat the aged as nonentities, knowing where you yourself are going?"
"Rocky is reminded of that old question:What's it all about? Answer: The Hokey Pokey"
"Now widen your daughter's lack of compassion to include her entire generation. They all wish us well, but they'll do whatever it takes to keep us out of sight."
More cheers and chants. "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, AARP is gonna win!"
"We are the invisible minority, cast aside by a culture aimed at satisfying only pubescent desires. How can you treat the aged as nonentities, knowing where you yourself are going?"
"Rocky is reminded of that old question:What's it all about? Answer: The Hokey Pokey"
"Now widen your daughter's lack of compassion to include her entire generation. They all wish us well, but they'll do whatever it takes to keep us out of sight."
More cheers and chants. "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, AARP is gonna win!"
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