I'm asking for assistance for my friend and coworker of many years (first in New Orleans and later at Walt Disney World), Scott Black---a highly talented musician, composer, archivist, and author---who is absolutely flat busted and in the weeds in Jacksonville, FL, through no fault of his own. He came home from China to put his elderly mother in assisted living in rural Virginia. It was during COVID and, since all his China connections had closed down anyway, he planned to take two weeks off to get his elderly mother squared away, then go back to Hong Kong where his music and his life were swinging. Long, long story short, four years later his mother died two days ago penniless, leaving Scott the same way. He's got some physical assets in storage up in New England that he can't get to. Scott needs three things: money to eat and sleep in the short run, money to get to New England to liquidate his stash, and money to get back to Hong Kong and resume his career---which, as I say, was hopping before COVID (now no longer an issue in Hong Kong).

If you don't know Scott by name, here is a highly encapsulated version of his resume in his own words:

"I started playing at age five with no lessons much to the dismay of everyone listening. Grew up playing in my father’s group and joined the union in 1968. Moved to Atlantic City in 1971. Worked all the casinos at the time with various groups---mostly Dixieland bands. Played in a few Top 40 groups and spent time in England. Joined Leon Redbone in 1982 and did heavy touring off and on for 27 years. Spent most of my late teens with best pal Jimmy McPartland at night and visiting Eddie Condon during the day. Spent countless nights at Jimmy Ryan’s sitting in with Roy Eldridge and the boys. Spent early 80s doing shows in St Thomas. Played at the Red Garter for a few summers and at "Your Fathers Moustache". I moved to New Orleans in 1983 and lived there for 10 years working everywhere, but mostly with Jacque Gauthe's Creole Rice Jazz Band at the Meridian Hotel. I also helped my very good friend Phil Evans with his final book on Bix Beiderbecke and was left Phil's collection of tens of thousands of letters, etc.; and did some lectures on Bix as well as many radio shows. I played on NBC's Tonight Show with Leon Redbone about 8 times in the 1980's as well as countless other shows. I've appeared on about 50 albums over the years (including Live At The Olympia in Paris) and my own "Scott Blacks Hot Horns" on the Good Time Jazz label. After the nursing home tricked my mother into hospice care they cleaned out her bank account including tens of thousands of dollars she was holding for me to get back to Hong Kong with. I'm now stuck in Jacksonville, Florida with no way out."