The world is far

I often wonder how possible it is to truly live off the grid. And what parts of common culture you would allow yourself to bring along. The skinny on Eden Ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle, Brooklyn 1908) is that he was a proto-hippie LA denizen and songwriter who wore robes, slept outside, and lived on almost no money. Apparently, he wrote Nat King Cole's hit "Nature Boy" while living under the Hollywood sign, and found a way to be pretty productive craftsman over the years. 

Which makes me wonder how much that kind of Venn diagram of worlds one could pull off today. Can you write pop tunes and be cut off from the culture that laps up pop tunes? At a certain point, would you start to see your own detachment as a form of novelty or publicity?

This exotica-tinged tune sheds no light on any of this and generally smacks of beatnik bullshit, but I am fully loving the atmosphere it perpetrates. 

Eden Ahbez - The Wanderer