So. Granted. I’m terribly prejudiced. I’m forced to drive down the hill from Bouquet Canyon to reach the yawning civilization of Greater Newhall, what newcomers like to call, “Santa Clarita,” after the height-challenged St. Clare. Dear cripes. How I long to write, “… midget.” (As in, pickles …) 

There’s a problem. A whoop of not chimpanzees but developers and construction workers have been removing the hill on Bouquet Canyon. It brings a sneer to my upper lip because I love mountains, so especially in the spring when they’re dotted with uncountable wild flowers. Construction is necessary, but, it’s like putting rouge on a hunchbacked dowager. The birth of housing projects and strip malls comes with an essential and bland ugliness. But, they become not just houses, but homes, that build memories, some painful, some wonderful of children and blessed sanctuary. 

Still. I’ve got to motor down Bouquet and take an annoying detour that dramatic me grumbles that it leads to Greater Newhall via Frazier Park. I’m guessing developers already have penned a catchy albeit inaccurate name for the project. My wincing detour as I drive past Formerly Beautiful Hills Estates reminds me of the old Michael Keaton movie, “Multiplicity.” Hilarious flick and Keaton truly deserved at least an Oscar nomination for playing four, separate characters in his wonderful comedy. It was just a passing visual joke in a background scene, but Keaton portrays a construction foreman working on a new housing project named, “Vista del Nada.” Apologies to the Spanish speakers for translating the obvious, but, it means, “View of Nothing.” 

Life imitates Art. It’s the growing sub-theme of life here that last half-century. We’ve traded mighty oaks and wildflowers for properly managed Ficus trees and a square foot of dichondra. Missing? The unbridled wildness of Nature, that which brings the blessed, involuntary breath of The Greater Recognition. 

I’m not sure what they’re going to name our next, unasked-for housing project at Benz Road and Bouquet. Right now, for me? It’s Shaved Gaping Wound Hill Estates. 

 It’s probably a good thing that there’s not more Truth In Advertising in the naming of our communities. Of course, there might be some reticence from the latest boatload of yuppie refugees to move into another new development labeled Beigeburgville. Because of California’s ongoing war on aesthetics, the kids can attend Diminished Expectations Middle School. It’ll be just a short walk away (because today’s kids are so short-winded) from the tony, new development: Falta de Cualquier Imaginación Discernible en las Casas. 

En ingles? Lack of Any Discernible Imagination Houses. 

I know. I know. Take forever to read that racing by at 70 mph. In a school zone. 

Keeping to the theme of naming a neighborhood after something vague and Spanish, how about Acres de las Axilas? Simply translated? Armpit Acres. Or, if you move into a house next door to Chiquita Landfill, Acres de axila apestosos y desagradables. 

Eye-wateringly Smelly Armpit Acres. 

Actually, I’m being harsh. I’d just KILL to have a T-shirt emblazoned with Smelly Armpit Acres.  

Back to West Castaic, aka, Val Verde, and a proud salute to the toxic hazard dump on 126 — what about Casa de Landfill? Hmm. I think I actually ate at a restaurant once named Casa de Landfill. The place was garbage. 

We do seem to be adding an inordinate amount of condos and townhouses that look like One Size Fits All high security mental institutions. I’m not going to name actual names, but, I was driving up and over Plum Canyon and there’s these new units that really should be called, The Penal Colony. Or, better — The Penal Colony For Severely Violent Offenders. I’m waiting for a new security sign to be added: “NO OUTSIDE LAB RATS ALLOWED ON PREMISES,” the “damn you” silent but implied. I must confess. I simply LOVE the pretentious understatement approach in naming our addresses. Perhaps a simple, The Penitentiary, would be a more fitting handle for this Orwellian cheap-asterisks architecture. 

I’m a big fan of cheap, alleged Mexican fast food, so I wouldn’t mind at all living in, or next to, The Condos — At Del Taco, which, although my Spanish is rusty, I believe is — Los Condos — At Del Taco.  

Speaking of wearing an SCV T-shirt proudly, my second To Die For wardrobe addition would be a burnt-out building with the simple logo, “Section 8,” followed by maybe a coffee mug for the office, emblazoned with, “Post Scenic Units.” 

That last one? “Post Scenic Units” would make a better bad but angry British 1980s big hair punk rock band. 

There’s still so much lovely open space to cement, to fill with Home Depot shelving units and disingenuous labels. I’d like a subdued advertising totem at the next human-sized Legos construction site: Future Home of Depressed Oaks. Artwork would be of a fallen and massive Quercus robur, with an earthmover triumphantly atop. How about another “Models Now Open!!!” billboard announcing, Lake sans Agua? Or, The Flood Plain, at Southern Pacific? Or, Big Ka-Blooey Ridge (by the former Saugus Speedway)? Or, in keeping with Truth In Advertising: a discreet signage noting: “Unnamed, But, We Bribed A Planning Commissioner & There’s Nothing You Can Do About It.” 

Because failed state education is so important, we’re going to need schools for all these kids moving into all the character-less housing projects. I proudly nominate: Los Changos High School. Plop it smack dab in the middle of Sand Canyon, just to annoy the Republicans. 

What can I say, except — 

“Hey-hey, we’re the SCV Monkees, people say we monkey around, but we’re too busy living, in eyesore Just Add Water housing, to put anybody — down …” 

“Naked Came the Novelist,” John Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” is on sale at JohnBoston-Books.com. So are other fine books, including his two-part “SCV Monsters” series. A lifelong SCV resident with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, Boston is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.

© Santa Clarita Valley Signal