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Welcome to
www.RubenMacBlue.com
Ruben MacBlue
(Ruben Blue)
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This is the story of
RUBEN BLUE
THE BOY
WITH BLUE HAIR
Who ignited and fueled
the Greatest Music Scene of All Time
In Hollywood, California, during the 1980s and 90s
when all the clubs and bands were booming
and all the girls were pretty* (Axl Rose)
It was PARADISE CITY for musicians and rockers
Pack your bags, grab your gear
Hollywood is where you get discovered, and
THE BOY WITH BLUE HAIR was gonna make you a star!
Ruben's latest book is called
Hollywood Scenesters
A full color coffee-table yearbook for
all the celebrities of the Hollywood Scene.
144 pages of beautiful color portrait photography
of 700 local stars with their bios, VIEWABLE HERE NOW
Meanwhile you can order on Amazon for $34.95
Just search for HOLLYWOOD SCENESTERS
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Growing up in Michigan  
(with a round barn) Middleton, Michigan Attended Mennonite Church Went to Fulton High School - 1953 - 1971  Excelled in High School Academics and Sports including basketball, baseball, golf, track and field, and cross country Eventually became a hippie Western Michigan University College Graduate BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (Behavioral Psychology, Philosophy, and Logic)  Western Michigan University is one of the largest colleges in Michigan. Ruben went there for math and science and ended up learning how to party. By senior year Ruben was throwing the best house parties in town. 1971-75 |
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Moved to California 
Ruben was still attending college back in Michigan, but hitchhiked to California on his summer
vacations and lived on the beaches of Southern California from 1970-1974 "RUBEN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD" 
Well written with a good sense of humor and lots of fascinating stories, this pictorial coffee table book is thrilling from the get go and once you start reading you can't put it down. It paints a picture of California life with brilliance and excitement as well as down to earth events, both good and bad. The story has a soundtrack as well, consisting of songs that were influential during Ruben's travels. The reader follows Ruben's life through his transformation from a hillbilly farm boy to a Hollywood "Scenester" as his life soon becomes one endless party. Ruben discovers the abundance of beautiful girls, the art, the fashion, the nightlife, and mostly the bands. All the intriguing and colorful characters in the book are real people and real names. His friends, artists, and musicians who became Hollywood's underground celebrities are portrayed as they really were during this early time leading up to the start of Ruben's publishing career. |
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Became Rockabilly Ruben Moved to Disgraceland Bought a Hot Rod 
 Levi and the Rockats, The Blasters, and Rosie Flores and James Intveld 
 Pleasant and Levi get married and Pleasant and Limey Dave 
 Jeffrey Jolson Colburn, and Lisa and Mandy of the Lame Flames with Ruben "White" Ruben moved to the American Hotel, Downtown Arts District LA - 1982-1983, and was a draftsman @ Feldman Lighting, Downtown Arts District LA - 1980-1983 Ruben then bought a 1939 Dodge Coup, hot rodded it out, painted flames on it, and drove it around town, where it got more attention than a firetruck. 1981-1986  Ruben with his '39 Dodge Coupe Hot Rod |
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Ruben Blue: Publisher/Editor/Photographer SCRATCH MAGAZINE © The Talk of Hollywood 1983 - 1986 SCRATCH Magazine was a Weekly Hollywood Rock and Scenester Magazine, SCRATCH was originaly started when Ruben was hanging out with Germaine at her and Violet's apartment and discussing how the scene needed some press coverage, so they teamed up with Iris Berry, who lived up on the fourth floor, and the rest is history 
 Ruben Blue - - - Germaine Pompeii, Violet Liquori, and Iris Berry Ruben drew the first cover with a felt marker, and bought a Polaroid Camera to take pictures of all the Hollywood scenesters. The first issues were put together on Germaine and Violet's kitchen table. Germaine's friend Allison's mom worked at UCLA,where the pages were copied on the Xerox machine and then stapled together. The next day Ruben went down to Melrose and dropped off stacks at all the cool stores, and then to every club and passed them out to all the cool kids who wanted to see who was in it. 
 
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BE BOP BOY AND VA VA VOOM In 1980s Hollywood, Ruben loved Germaine, but Germaine was always playing hard to get, which was inspiration for Tomata Du Plenty, an artist and singer of the SCREAMERS, who penned this surreal cartoon 
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Ruben Blue presents: MELROSE AVENUE 
 THE MELROSE PAGES |
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Publisher/Editor/Photographer LA ROCKS! © A Free Tabloid Newspaper/Magazine Los Angeles, 1986 - 1987 This Section is under construction and will be much bigger and better. That day will come soon. Stay Tuned. 
In 1987, Ruben changed SCRATCH Magazine into LA ROCKS and enlarged it from letter size to tabloid size. Using a different printer, a huckster from England named Ian Brodie, it was printed on a web press, which was more bang for the buck, and we published it weekly instead of monthly. Just like SCRATCH, it featured a ton of live photos and reviews of all the local up-and-coming bands, plus band interviews, club listings for the following week, and other cool stuff for the Hollywood in-crowd, and was distributed to all the same locations |
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Model Railroad Hobbiest and Layout Builder ROCK CITY RAILROAD © A Multi-Scale Model Railroad Is a 20' by 30' model train layout Built at the Rock City Railroad Complex in a refurbished old Hollywood Theatre at 5555 Hollywood Blvd, and then moved to the Save a Life Ranch, Antelope Valley 1995 - Present www.rockcityrailroad.com www.rockcitynews.com/railroad facebook.com/RockCityModelRailroad 
Above Photo: Ruben outside of the back Warehouse at the Rock City Railroad Complex on Hollywood Blvd  Ruben inside the Rock City Railroad Store with his model railroad in the front window  Ruben with his model railroad photo by Ross Feighery 
AI Image of Ruben Blue in his workshop as a boy |
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ROCK CITY RAILROAD an Antique Store, Festival Complex, and Theater on Hollywood Blvd Facebook Page: Rock-City-Railroad-Store In 2014, Ruben moved his store out of Hollywood to Lancaster, California, and changed the name to Ventura Treasures © (scroll down)  Ruben MacBlue in front of his Rock City Railroad Store Hollywood, CA  The Entrance to the Marilyn Monroe Building of the Rock City Railroad Complex, Hollywood, CA |
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Ruben MacBlue, CEO/President VENTURA TREASURES © Antique, Vintage, & Collectable Store 710 W. Ave L, Lancaster, CA 93534 Non-Profit Antique and Thrift Store for Save a Life Cat Rescue 2020 - 2024 Facebook.com/VenturaTreasures VENTURA TREASURES IS CURRENTLY CLOSED Stay Tuned for New Location 
 Laurie Johnson and Ruben in front Ruben's designed and hand-painted "Ventura Treasures" signs Antiques, Vintage Gifts, Collectables, Unique One-of-a-Kind Items! 710 W. Ave L, Lancaster, CA 93534 - Just off the 14 Fwy One block past Costco . . . Across from Kaiser Hospital |
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Ruben MacBlue, President Save-a-Life Cat Rescue www.save-a-life.org A 501c3 Non-Profit, No-Kill, Animal Sanctuary Saving, Managing, and Adopting Cats 10 acres, 10 buildings, 50 trees, 100 cats Antelope Valley (1 hour north of L.A.) 1995 - 2025  
Photo: Save-a-Life Non-Profit Board of Directors, Cherie Gillette, Me, and my girlfriend at the time, Geraldine Mitchell, who was responsible for getting me to move out here.  While managing the giant 10 acre cat rescue ranch, Save-a-Life, we found a veterinarian in Palmdale named DVM Gay Naiditch (Allegra) who helped us take care of all our feline critters. We also dated for 3 or 4 years, and since she owned dozens of properties around town, she let me open my antique store, VENTURA TREASURES, in a former grocery store in Lancaster. It was also fun hanging out at her mansion-on-the-mountain overlooking the Antelope Valley and her beach house in Ventura. She was quite a woman, a self-made multi-millionaire. 
Ruben Blue with Veterinarian Allegra Nadich MAP of Save-a-Life's Magic Cat Ranch  Click Map to Enlarge www.Save-a-Life.org facebook.com/SaveaLifeNonProfit facebook.com/SaveALifeNoKillShelter |
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ROCK CITY MUSEUM ©  
 30 years of photographs, banners, flyers, etc, Plus, every issue of Ruben's weekly publications: SCRATCH Magazine, LA ROCKS, & ROCK CITY NEWS. 1,000 issues and a quarter-of-a-million photographs, documenting L.A.'s rock history from 1980 to 2010 |
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Ruben delved into the world of poetry and songs last year and is now developing poems and songs for his band, BILLY THE KID, to play local gigs and showcases Ruben MacBlue, Sound Engineer ROCK CITY RECORDING STUDIO located in the Rock City Museum Antelope Valley, California Ruben's band is called . . .  BILLY THE KID © Country, Blues, and Metal Billy The Kid's first record is called "Coming to Your Town" Listen to it here Coming to Your Town Listen to other Billy the Kid songs on the Poetry/Songs Page and is available on Rock City Records Distributed through DIstroKid Distribution Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music for $.99 |
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Other Interests of Ruben MacBlue Party Animal 
 Not only did Ruben attend more parties than anyone, but he was a regular at the Rainbow Bar and Grill where all the musicians went. Ruben threw parties every Saturday night at his "Bubble House" in Laurel Canyon, and soon became the go-to person for finding the ever increasing number of house parties in the Hollywood Hills during the late 70s.  Matt Lee, Frank Infante, Rodney Bingenheimer, and Clem Burke of Blondie When the house parties started declining in the early 80s, Ruben brought all his friends, Rainbow regulars, and die-hard party people to the new clubs that were opening in Hollywood. Then he dyed his hair blue, started SCRATCH Magazine, and partied like its 1999 for the next 30 years.
The flood of new people attending these new clubs brought Hollywood back into the limelight after a long period of bad publicity and bad people. Suddenly Hollywood was cool again, and then Ruben started SCRATCH Magazine to document it, which also fueled it's growth until Hollywood became known as the party capital of the world. Along with Ruben's weekly promotion of Melrose Avenue, which also fueled the rise of Melrose as the shopping mecca of L.A., and his promotional TV shows, fashion shows, and bringing to life the billboard queen, Angelyne, as host of his shows, the Hollywood boom was now in full swing. And that was just the start, as Ruben then covered all the shows on the booming Sunset Strip which led to the sidewalks being packed with kids from Tower Records and the Whisky up to the Roxy and Gazzarries. The Hollywood music scene was soon in full bloom like never seen before.
Not only did Ruben ignite the music scene and fuel it for two decades through his ongoing photography and publishing empire, but he also documented it weekly in his publications as L.A.'s music scene explosion during the 80s and 90s and up to 2009  Always on the Cutting Edge Draftsman Ruben was a draftsman and designer of light fixtures at Feldman Lighting in Los Angeles from 1980 - 1983 
 Art Deco Light Fixtures Designed by Ruben Blue for Feldman Lighting Rebeling against Corruption, Fascism, and our Decayed Version of Capitalism House and Yard Planning Gardening, Tree Trimming and Planting, Hydroponics, Aquaducts, and Rock Decor |
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