Simon Sellars: Sleepy Brain Archives

Report by Symon Brando

Photography by Michael Shaw

Sleepy Brain lifts the lid on a sick new musical youth cult: “Bent Hop”. Originating in the suburb of Bentleigh, it has spread like cancer throughout the neighbouring southeastern municipalities…and beyond. It could be coming to a suburb near you.

No parent can afford to miss this special report.
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CENTRE RD, BENTLEIGH. Main Street, Any Town. An innocuous, leafy and peaceful thoroughfare…on the surface. But beneath the veneer, something is very wrong: the youth of Bentleigh are wasting away, growing old before their time.

And it’s among this shopping strip where it all happens: the drug “Senility” is dealt here. “Dementia”, the main Bent Hop afternoon club, is hidden away in an alleyway here. And our kids are losing their innocence here.

Bentleigh is genteel, affable, harmless. I should know – I grew up there. The suburb, smack bang in the middle of a “retirement belt”, has always had its fair share of older people. Real estate is affordable enough to enable retirees, generally in their 60s and upwards, to live comfortably on the pension. And it was precisely that aspect that forced me away at the age of 15, to seek my fortune in the Big Smoke.

Albert: hangin’ old at Bentleigh Station

So imagine my amazement upon discovering that the most bizarre youth cult of all, “Bent Hop”, had taken root there. And that this “scene” was wearing, as a badge of honour, the very aspects that had caused me to flee, all those years ago: old age, senile dementia, the sucking away of youth into a musty, ancient black hole of death. I had to know more.

It took a long time, but my photographer and I somehow gained the trust of the leading “faces” on the Bent Hop scene. It took a lot of visits to Dementia, a lot of “hanging” with Bent Hoppers…and a lot of lamingtons, the favoured “munchy” of these kids. After eventually convincing them I wasn’t with the police (although I am a “natural ager”), I managed to line up an interview with one of the leaders, “Albert” (not his real name).

Getting Senile: Albert Shoots Up

Albert was keen to clear up the misconceptions surrounding Bent Hop. Why? Because, according to Albert, all we, the naturally aged, hear are the horror stories. The drug taking and its side effects: Senility causes severe calcium deficiency, so that bones become brittle and frail and, of course, minds senile and forgetful. The dangerous sex: last week, one Bent Hopper died of a heart attack as he was looking at a girlie magazine (he was only 12). The non-violence: often, Bent Hoppers are too tired and cranky to make it to school, let alone do much of anything.

Albert says the deaths are isolated incidents, blown out of proportion by the media. He wonders why the positive aspects of the scene are never discussed. Although Albert is only 14 years old, I found him to be a polite and intelligent “old” man. Even so, his train of thought kept wandering and he often had to stop to wipe drool from his chin, a result of a Senility bender the night before.

We talked for at least 10 minutes, and then he fell asleep in mid-sentence. But those hot minutes were packed with insight, all, of course, peppered with Bent Hop slang and dialect, the language of young/old people. But be warned: the following interview and accompanying photos may be disturbing to some readers.

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– Symon Brando
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Albert, what attracted you to “Bent Hop”?

Er, the music, first up – I just got into it. It was different. Slow. Old. I just got sick of everything else: Limp Bizkit, Korn. And techno – that’s all a bit funny, isn’t it? Jibber-jabber music. Gives me the willies. But this music, it was new. I mean, “old”. Oh, you know what I mean.

Can you describe the music?

Er, it’s kind of…what’s the word? “Swing?” No, that’s not it. Gosh, what’s the term? My granny liked it…”big band”, that’s it! Crikey, almost came a cropper, there.

Do you mean you listen to old swing records, like Glenn Miller?

Oh, no. I mean, not exactly. Those naturally old codgers used to listen to it but we’ve changed it, cut it up. Made it our own. I mean, me granny and that, they listened to the main ingredients. Oh dear, I hope you’re following me. Look, it’s all put together on computers. Lots of brass and horns, taken from old records, but slowed right down. And chopped up with electronic bits and…ahh…samples from war marches and skiffle records.

Where do you go to listen to this music?

There used to be clubs all around Bentleigh, but Bruce Ruxton closed them all down, the natural bastard. Old coot. Said we were giving old people a bad name! How dare he? I’ve got the right to be old if I want to; why should he and those diggers have all the fun? Anyway, now there’s just one main place left, “Dementia”, just off Centre Road. That’s the main one. Did I say that already? Um…they can’t close that one down. It’s on the up-and-up; the others were just squattin’.

Now Dementia, it’s legit: they bought an old office space and converted it. But don’t you bother going down there in yer fancy strides. They won’t let ya in without a walking stick and zimmer frame. You got to look the part. I go down there with me homebodies most Tuesday afternoons – around about 5, just after me afternoon nap.

Did you mean to say “homies”?

Er, “homebodies”, that’s we call people in the scene.

What does the name “Bent Hop” mean?

Well, obviously, “Bent” from Bentleigh, and “Hop”, that’s when you dance, right? When you dance in the club, you do the “Zimmer Frame Shuffle”. You get your walking frame and place it in front of you, and then take a step, and then you kind of bounce up and down as you do it. Senility helps.

The fearsome designer drug, Senility

Can you tell me about this drug, “Senility”? Why on earth would you want to waste your body and mind away?

That body stuff, that’s the papers, they distort everything. I reckon there’s worse things in drinking water. But Senility, it just slows you right down. I mean, I have a lot of anger in me. Just born that way. Could never control it. Senility, it just makes me, like…what’s the word…docile. Still cranky, like, but flattened out. I’ve got to take my time with things, now.

OK, I’ll be honest. Senility does get me back all hunched over and stooped, and that’s where the zimmer frame comes in. And me knees give way with no warning, these days, and I gotta rest all the time. But that’s why we take it, ya see – because everything’s too fast these days. Too fast. Everything. I just like old-fashioned values. And I want to feel them, live them, not just…ummmm…where was I?

And then I just like wearing old codger clothes, ’cause it goes with the music and the drugs: cardigans, brogues, pork pie hats, all that.

But don’t you feel vulnerable, all stooped over?

I cant really explain it. I look at kids in other scenes and I just think, “What a load of silly little whippersnappers”, carrying on like that. You know, the fashion, the music – its really fake, but with Bent Hop, and the drug, it gives you this…wisdom…like you’ve lived a long time but you’re really only 14, like I am.

The clothes we wear, the music, it’s all stood the test of time. But what the drug does, the way it makes us feel old, I heard some doctor call it on the telly the other day…what was it? Some condition. “Accelerated decrepitude” – that’s it!

Bent Hop fashion

Now that’s got dignity to it. That sounds like you’re doing something important, not like “head banging” or “raving” or any of that other nonsense.

Albert, you’re only 14 years old. Why do you want to get old so quickly? There’s plenty of time to get old later on!

Well, young man, I’m afraid I must disagree. Kids today, they’re a pack o’ hooligans. No respect. Our scene, cobber, it’s totally passive, we don’t hurt anyone. We couldn’t bloomin’ well lift a finger to hurt anyone for a start! Why wait for that to happen later on in life? Might as well start now, I say. Do everyone a favour.

What about the other side effects of the drug? The uncontrollable dribbling, the farting, the diarraoeha? Isn’t that rather embarrassing?

Well, I get on top of that. All it takes is some prune juice and me multivitamins, and lots of fibre in me soup. And it’s all a part of getting old, ain’t it? We wouldn’t want to do anything by halves – ya gotta go all the way, or you’re just a poser. Anyway, any drug has side effects.

I guess I just can’t get over the fact you’re only 14. I mean, you look and act at least 70!

Why, thank you, young man!

What do you think of naturally old people?

Well of course we respect them, but their values are different you see? They’ve lived all that time, so they’ve got attitudes from ages ago. And they’ve had to wait all that time to get old. So they’re ultra cranky when they finally get there.

Us, we’re “now”, we’re today – old age is a lifestyle choice for us. Most of them naturally old bastards, the pensioners and so on, they’re just miserable whingeing gits, like Ruxton, always thinking the kids have got it good. They don’t know how lucky they are! But they think we’re wasting our youth or something. I can’t imagine why.

Dementia night club, Bentleigh

Albert, I agree. I just think there’s more to youth than getting old. Did you know you can get help for Senility addiction? There’s a local nursing home in the area that…

You can go to blazes, matey!

At this point, Albert started swinging his cane at me, actually giving me a good crack on the side of my head. It was unexpected and I fell off my chair, not from the strength of the blow, but from the shock of it being delivered by the fragile, withered old prune before me.

I’m not having a go at you, Albert!

You little bugger! Bloody kids, spoiling it for us old folk!

But I’m 34 – I’m 20 years older than you!

Oh, shut yer bleedin’ cake hole, you! Alls we want is a bit o’ peace, to be left alone. We don’t bother you, but you come here and poke fun…arrrghhhh, in my day…tired now…cranky…ah, to hell with ya…can’t be bothered…gotta have me nap…

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And just like that, the interview was over. Albert doddered off, grumbling and cursing to himself, and when I tried to follow, a posse of Bent Hoppers appeared from nowhere on electric wheelchairs, blocking my way. I left the suburb of Bentleigh even more puzzled than before. But the more I think about it, the more I can see that Bent Hop is the logical end product of youth rebellion. Don’t all kids, in adolescence, dress and act older than they are, to get laid, to get into clubs, to get respect? And don’t we, as a society, put pressure on our kids to act this way, through the media, through marketing? Bent Hoppers merely take this process to its logical extreme.

Don’t we, as a society, relentlessly commodifiy anything and everything in the endless search for new product? Old age, it would seem, is the last taboo, the last lifestyle to be commodified, to be sold as hip and cool. The media can sell any aspect of human behaviour back to us as a lifestyle choice: lesbian glamour, nerd power, heroin chic, and on and on. Bent Hoppers seem to be parodying market forces and our yearning for new and different titillation.

From talking to “young” Albert I can see that youth is not all it’s cracked up to be; there’s a lot of pressure on kids these days to conform, to get top grades, a career, a house, a family. To be perfect. Perhaps it makes sense to skip middle life altogether and go straight on to old age and nursing homes, where kids can once again be mollycoddled and fussed over, like they were when babies. These Bent Hoppers will never have to make any adult commitments, will never have to pay rent or bills or mortgage or alimony. It’s straight onto the pension for them.

Natural, genetic old age is often described as a “return to the womb”, as we lose our faculties and become childlike once again. Bent Hoppers have bridged the gap between “real” childhood and degenerative “babyhood”, and who can really blame them? It’s a nasty world out there, so why not skip knowledge and “maturity” altogether? The more you know, the more confused you become. Who wants, or needs, that hassle? I’m not sure I do.

Now, where’s me cardigan? I feel a chill coming on…bloody kids…spoiling it for the rest of us…