The editorial was headlined, ‘Beware The Inferno of The San Fernando.’ : Notes From the Valley of the Dead

No one has ever said that the San Fernando Valley is beautiful. Pacoima is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Paris, and I don’t believe anything in Van Nuys has ever appeared in Better Homes and Gardens. In fact, I understand the editors won’t even allow the magazine to be sold in Van Nuys.

But I’m not quite so sure the Valley is as ugly as a pimple on the nose, either.

In that respect I take issue with Scott Newhall, who publishes a sprightly neighborhood newspaper in the town that bears his family’s name.

Newhall, a churlish old coot, writes editorials in baroque prose that appear on the front page of the Newhall Signal. One of his more recent efforts was called to my attention by several friends who wanted to know how I could bear to write a column from such a terrible place as the Valley.

The editorial was headlined, “Beware The Inferno of The San Fernando.”

Its purpose, if I have correctly charted my way through Newhall’s murky passages, was to warn the Santa Clarita Valley that, without proper planning, it was in danger of becoming another San Fernando Valley.

And what, according to the editorial, is the San Fernando Valley made of? Not slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, but:

“Tabernacles, pee-wee golf courses, billion-dollar, emerald-green gardens of the dead, TV antennas, burrito and chop suey palaces, punk teen-agers, bingo-playing oldsters, rock-house drug parlors and used-car lots where ancient and twisted vehicles are huddled together on every street corner.”

Not only that, boys and girls, but we are also:

“A heaven on earth for winos, dog poisoners, child abusers, husband swappers, wife beaters, porno stars, bill jumpers, street racers, defrocked priests and street-corner bordellos.”

The street-corner bordellos, in case you missed them, are next to the used-car lots filled with ancient and twisted vehicles.

I had never thought of the Valley quite that way, except possibly for Chatsworth. Mostly it seems composed of decent, hard-working air-conditioning repairmen who live in modest little stucco houses with wives named Fay and sons they call Buddy.

The homes have wall-to-wall carpeting, large color TV sets with remote control and genuine Naugahyde furniture. No custom drapes yet, but by giving up the vacation to the lake this year, they may have them soon.

There’s some ugliness around, all right, but not necessarily in the areas that Newhall mentions. I am thinking particularly of that gothic, antebellum, neo-calamitous office-building monstrosity that sits on Ventura Boulevard and which old Scott apparently missed.

The structure, which is called The Chateau, may be, to quote a phrase used by the late President Lyndon B. Johnson at the unveiling of his White House portrait, “The ugliest thang ah evrah did see.”

How Newhall overlooked The Chateau is beyond me. Or perhaps he didn’t. Since the structure’s architectural style is so similar to Newhall’s prose style, he may have thought it was beautiful.

I went out to see him recently in the bungalow offices of the Signal to ask where he got the idea that the Valley was necessarily a heaven on earth for winos and defrocked priests, among others.

We talked for about half an hour, but I can’t tell you what we talked about because he insisted that his comments be off the record. I can tell you, however, that you aren’t missing a thing.

The drive wasn’t entirely wasted because it offered an opportunity to look around Newhall. I found it to be a random collection of taco stands, bowling alleys, Burger Kings, abandoned Christmas tree lots with Styrofoam snowmen, roadside fruit stands, condos, quasi-cultural, coke-snorting women not worth trading your wife for, self-important, bisexual vegetarian art majors and bratty white girls called Heather who think that Secretary of State George P. Schultz draws the Peanuts cartoon strip.

You’re probably wondering how I get my information about the kids, the art majors and the women who, when they aren’t stuffing candy up their nose, specialize in being docents. The same way Newhall discovered the defrocked priests and the husband swappers. It’s a secret way we have of ferreting out information, but I can’t talk about it.

I will admit that I didn’t see any defrocked priests in Newhall, but I didn’t see any churches, either. Obviously, they do not believe in God in the Santa Clarita Valley. Rumor has it that they worship instead a beat-generation Zen Buddhist poet who migrated south out of Berkeley during the late 1950s.

I asked Newhall about all this and his response was probably the most interesting thing he had to say but, of course, it was off the record too.

That’s all right. I have already lost interest in the subject. Newhall can think whatever he wants because what he thinks isn’t going to make any difference, anyhow. He’s right where he belongs, and that’s good enough for me.

Heaven help the Santa Clarita Valley.