Musician - guitar, vocals Formerly with Furthur, Dark Star Orchestra Touring with Melvin Seals and JGB Other active projects:Furthurmore, Golden Gate Wingmen, The Latin Dead, Solo Acousti'Lectric johnkmusic.net Booking: Michael Weinstein | mw@343ent.com
![Plot background
In the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse, Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs.[7] Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments.[8]: 45 Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads,[8]: 7 and all mail delivery is by hired courier.[8]: 306 The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them.[8]: 176 Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs),[8]: 14 each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential burbclaves (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress.[8]: 22](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kerghqppsswjjzphjxwjtwc2/bafkreib7r347oao2jkdubudqxn7fu7gfarcat6ibowojo2pvjkp3njo7h4)
