Newhall calls the state Legislature ‘a whining, lying, groveling gang of sneak thieves.’

In any urban area, from megalopolis to crossroads, there is a rallying place where the natives flock to share momentous occasions--the outbreak of war or peace, the death of the king, the National League pennant. Buckingham Palace or Dirty Sadie’s Saloon, true natives of any town know where their special place is and gather there when a Great Occasion calls.

So, in the aftermath of their municipal birth, the leadership of the new city of Santa Clarita, lacking tradition to guide them, instinctively rallied about their homeland’s sole monument:

Scott Newhall.

Newhall, editorial thunderer and grand poobah of the Newhall Signal newspaper, has led an awesomely colorful life. San Francisco Chronicle editor and Atlantic sailor, born blueblood, youthful scapegrace and local land baron, he is as identifiable a symbol of the Santa Clarita Valley as the Eiffel Tower is of Paris.

Reporters from outside inevitably wind up writing stories about Newhall’s uninhibited newspaper and his editorials--avalanches of vituperation that bury opponents under heaps of baroque prose unseen in American newspapers since the last editor was horsewhipped.

Newhall’s editorials are long, bombastic and run atop the front page, in the best traditions of the 19th Century.

Other journalists are fascinated by Newhall, the way police officers would be fascinated to meet Wyatt Earp if he were wearing a badge today, or business executives would be to shake hands with J. P. Morgan. There is the thrill of living history, of seeing how it was done when America was young, and you could just let ‘er rip and ride right over the nervous Nellies.

As the editor of the Chronicle, Newhall earned journalistic immortality for, among other things, crusading against the immodesty of naked animals, arguing that they should at least wear diapers.

With cowboy actor William S. Hart still dead, Newhall is as famous a person as there is in the new city of Santa Clarita, which swallows up two towns founded by his great-grandfather, Newhall and Saugus.

That makes him a target for a new American tradition, the roast, in which a person of renown is paraded before a roomful of people he barely knows, while his supposedly good friends lash him with insults that in any other setting would ignite a blood feud.

Three weeks after the cityhood election, Newhall and his wife Ruth were roasted for the benefit of the Santa Clarita Valley Zonta Club, a women’s civic group. Members dressed in fire-engine red marshaled the event, attended by le tout Clarita, and thick with insider jokes about political machinations in the spirited campaign over cityhood.

State Sen. Ed Davis attended in full Scots regalia, including kilt, for reasons unclear.

Because Newhall has the disadvantage (from the point of view of his fellow Claritans, probably not from his own) of being a mobile monument, they were not in the Santa Clarita Valley, which has no dining room suitable for such an event, chagrined Claritans admitted. But speakers at the dinner in the Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills did not let this stop them from referring to “this valley” or “here in Santa Clarita.”

Claritans obviously are at home in all the world.

Many of the insults hurled at Newhall consisted of his own writings, read back at him.

Assemblywoman Cathie Wright read his description of the state Legislature--”a whining, lying, groveling gang of sneak thieves.”

School Supt. Clyde Smyth read an editorial in which Newhall, criticizing Smythe’s salary, dubbed him “bet-a-Million Smythe,” suggesting he spend it on “a year’s supply of Dr. Gonzo’s patented genital rejuvenation salve.”

He also resurrected several classic Newhall headlines, including “Hot Pants in the Cashier’s Cage,” “Big Rigs Won’t Stop/Throw the Bastards in Jail,” and “Sugar and Spice and a Knee in the Groin.”

Wright fished out a Newhall editorial which described the social differences between the towns that united to form the new city.

Canyon Country women “are partial to the rodeo circuit . . . and Western jamborees,” he wrote, while “Valencia matrons . . . seek their divertissement across the hills in male strip salons like Chippendale’s, where they can tuck ten-dollar bills into the pelvic regalia of Playgirl gatefold boys.”

Newhall opened his response with a Polish joke that cannot be printed here, told a story about traveling with his fly open that cannot be printed here and closed with a limerick about Santa Clarita high school students that cannot be printed here, although they just may read it in the Signal someday.

Three days later, the Signal printed an “anonymous letter” heaping insults on Newhall. It was long, bombastic and ran atop the front page: “A man of such low principles . . . disreputable trail behind him . . . in his long and unsavory career,” etcetera.

It appeared to be a lesson to the amateurs from the Master:

This, tadpoles, was how a real curmudgeon would do the job.