I met Keith Knudsen, the drummer for the Doobie Brothers Band, back in the early nineties while doing an interview for the low budget cable company I was working for. The project was to get behind the scenes of rock and roll and tell the story of life on the road. Ninety days after the project was completed my phone rang with Jeff Mills on the other end, the bands road manager, asking if I wanted a job. Would I be willing to ride my Harley to Northern California with the guys to do a gig making sure they didn’t run out of gas, arrived in one piece and on time? Well let me think about it, dream job, I’m in. It lasted for the next twelve years.
During that time Keith and I grew closer and closer as friends. Soon he was my best friend; he wanted nothing from me other than to be a brother. So here I am a fireman at the beach in Southern California, riding my Harley with the band and doing cable TV. Life was good, but not quite good enough, we needed more. The words “road trip” was called out and it was game on, men on Harleys, on vacation, doing what they want. Jeff came up with the term MANCATION and we lived it. Now life was really good!
Sadly in 2005 we lost Keith to a long battle with illness that just wore him down. ManCation was no more, when he left a big part of me left with him. Keith gave countless hours of his time and talents to charity. He would tell me “Randy whatever it takes I’ll be there, anything for the betterment of mankind”
Jeff Mills called me sometime after his death to tell me that ManCation must live on in Keith’s honor, he was right. More road trips on bikes, no too painful without Keith. But let me think; men water skiing on the Colorado River, eating like kings and running around the Arizona desert shooting crazy ass weapons, sounded about right. ManCation was reborn
Today ManCation Nation is not much different than it was from the old days. A bunch of guys get together and spend a week having the most fun of their lives, bonding up like brothers. It’s a closeness that’s hard to describe. The resort, the radio show, the ManCation membership and whatever television comes along are all about the same thing, the betterment of mankind. We’re not rock stars like Keith was but it is our way of making men’s lives better. We will give advice, create a membership of men helping men, instill self confidence and just have one hell of a good time.
What better way to remember a person who had one of the biggest effects on my life than to create something he strongly believed in.
