By Theo Kalomirakis
In just one month, the gr2me family lost another member. After the unexpected passing of my dear friend and gr2me contributing editor writer Maureen Jensen two weeks ago, Mike Gaughn, the first editor of gr2me, sadly lost his short battle with cancer, the same illness that took Maureen.
I have known Mike for over 20 years. When I met him, he was the editor of “Sound and Vision” magazine and a big fan of my work as a home theater designer. He interviewed me several times for the magazine. Occasionally, when someone wants to learn about my career in home entertainment, I still send out a copy of his article, “The Man Who Invented Home Theater”. Mike encouraged me to write a column for “Sound and Vision” called “Ask Theo”, where I reviewed the work of amateur home theater designers. Initially, I enjoyed the assignment. It was satisfying to see do-it-yourselfers tackling the complexities of a field that combines design, acoustics, and technology. However, after a while, I stepped back from the column. Because I did not want to hurt peoples’ feelings, it felt insincere to provide encouraging feedback on work that its main inspiration seemed to be the often-glitzy aspect of home theater design.
I worked with Mike on our next project, “Theo’s Roundtable”, a monthly digital blog where Mike, our friends, and I focused on often-overlooked movies, music, and other aspects of pop culture. The blog was a lot of fun, but it was challenging to keep it running as a business. It lasted a couple of years before Mike moved on to “Cinelux”, a website he initially developed for Kaleidescape and later for our friend John Sciacca, who bought the site from Kaleidescape.
Around 2015, Mike suggested writing a book about my work. I was flattered. We started recording countless hours of conversations based on stories, memories, and reflections on my role in home entertainment. We paused our recording sessions around 2020 when I moved to Greece and focused on building gr2me our website that celebrates Greek life and culture. Choosing an editor for the site was easy; nobody I trusted could do a better job than Mike Gaughn. Our cultural differences didn’t matter to me. I was born and raised in Greece, while Mike only knew about Greece through movies and what he studied in school. What mattered was that Mike could view Greece and its culture as an outsider. It may sound contradictory, but that was precisely what I wanted: to see Greece through the unjaded perspective of an outsider, excited to explore a culture that goes beyond Mykonos, souvlaki, and breaking plates.
This shared vision fueled the development of our multifaceted platform that aims to cover Greek civilization from every cultural angle. Initially we named the site Film Hive, and we began developing it in 2021, while Mike was in New York and I was in Athens. At the beginning the focused on Greek cinema but we soon realized this approach was too narrow. Greece is much more than just movies. Mike supported the expansion of the site to include all aspects of the country’s culture. We came up with a new name, gr2me, together. But perhaps due to his non-Greek background or his perfectionism, at some point we started to see things differently. We decided to part ways a couple of years later.
Working with Mike could be challenging at times. He held strong beliefs about editorial and design choices. However, his passion for original content and keen design sense played a major role in shaping the site’s initial layout. Mike had a lasting influence on the evolution of gr2me, and I will always appreciate his contributions. I will miss his friendship and I will also miss the book he planned to write about my life and career. Few people understood my vision and my work as well as Mike did.
RIP Mike.
Your friend,
Theo
PS: Here is a link to the story about me, written by Mike Gaugn that was going to be the basis of our book together.