It was launched in Scotts Valley, went nuclear and is now one of the most successful companies in America. The Netflix story.

At a glance, it doesn’t look like much. It’s red, square and fits neatly between your bills in the mailbox. But for Netflix founder and Santa Cruz resident Reed Hastings, his now-famous red envelope represents something more: A revolution in the way America watches movies.

What began as a small business in Scotts Valley 13 years ago has become the world’s largest subscription service streaming movies and television shows on the Internet and mailing DVDs. According to its website, Netflix members add 2 million movies to their Queues every day. With more than 15 million members as of June 2010, paying $8.99 a month to instantly watch movies online or have them delivered to their homes, the company has rapidly become a force to be reckoned with.

Keeping Santa Cruz funny
You might think that Santa Cruz is off the beaten-track for humor—located on the outermost spoke of the Bay Area comedy hub—but you would be mistaken. For 30 years the Crow’s Nest, on East Cliff Drive in the Santa Cruz harbor, has been presenting four comics on Sunday nights to a mostly sold-out crowd—which means Santa Cruz has one of the longest running comedy rooms in all of California. Locals and tourists jam pack the upstairs area and through the din, clamor and, at times, extremely rowdy environment, road weary stand-up comics and newbies attempt to tickle strangers’ funny bones.

Local bands sound off at new music festival to support AIDS Ride
When Keith Petrocelli was 8 years old, he was pulled aside and told that his estranged father died of AIDS. It was 1983, he was a Brooklyn kid living in Arizona, and he’d never met his dad. Because of AIDS, he never would. Suddenly he was thrust into a cause he wasn’t even old enough to fully wrap his head around.

Unconventional methods work for this new play
We all know the drill: the ushers seat the audience, the lights dim, the curtain goes up, and the play begins.

But what happens when all theatrical boundaries are removed, blurring the separation between the on-stage drama and reality, with no clear start or finish? Santa Cruz producer Alan Fox is determined to find out. Last week, Fox debuted his second career production, an original musical called “The Street”—think “Cabaret” meets Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

Cabrillo Gallery’s new exhibit boldy explores gender themes
“Visibly Invisible: Art And Transgender Subjectivity” may be one of the most thought-provoking art exhibits of the year, but not for the reason you think. True, Cabrillo Gallery wins points for offering an innovative mix of mindbending artists and works that explore themes of transgenderism, but what stands out, truly, is the work itself, much of it downright dynamic.

Plus Letters to Good Times

A great human encouraged me to take flying lessons, so last weekend there I was, up in a small Cessna, flying at 3,000 feet above the bay. A fascinating experience. We forget sometimes how beautiful this area actually is when we’re walking and moving around on land. From the air, it truly does look like paradise. But the flying lessons also became somewhat of a mirror for real life, too—especially when you’re learning how to land that damn plane. I found it very metaphoric in an odd looking-for-significance way. The bottom line: It never hurts to see the bigger picture. Next up: Skydiving. Anybody up for it?

Pianist Robert Edward Thies revisits the past
When most children were dreaming of becoming firefighters, doctors and astronauts, 4-year-old Robert Edward Thies was aspiring to be a classical musician.

On Oct. 2, the now 39-year-old distinguished pianist will help kick off the Santa Cruz Symphony’s 2010/2011 season with a concert called “Out of this World,” which will showcase three pieces, two of which inspired him as a young boy.

Thies will play George Gershwin’s jazzy “Rhapsody in Blue,” a composition originally written for the Paul Whiteman Band, which has held a special place in his heart since childhood. While he has been given the opportunity to perform the piece on several occasions throughout his career—this will be the third time this year. To him, it never gets old.

Standing in the center of Metavinyl, the record mecca in Downtown Santa Cruz owned by drummer Jonathon Schneiderman, the first thing the four members of The Terrible tell me is that they’re not really much of a band. Qué? Friends who’ve been jamming for a decade, they don’t play shows very often (a handful this year) and they don’t really practice (“I’ll practice the day of the show onstage at the Blue Lagoon,” guitarist Nick Gyorkos laughs, referencing this week’s gig). Like a space rock vampire that emerges after long bouts of sleep to clench audiences with a piercing attack before retreating, the hard-driving quartet may not take itself seriously, but listeners do. Plus, lining the wall behind the guys is a big clue that begs to differ with their claim: a slew of copies of The Terrible’s new record, their brown cardboard sleeves screenprinted with art by Stacie Willoughby and neatly wrapped in plastic. There are 300 limited-edition prints of the record, with a 21-minute haze of throbbing psychedelic rock on each side ready to melt your player needle, and it’s the impetus behind The Terrible’s performance with Mammatus and Indian Giver at 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 1 at The Blue Lagoon.

Worst is preconception about how you’re supposed to act and behave
of your gender. And the best is you get to wear great clothes.

Catherine
Bonnie Doon | nurse