Gossip should have no friends.

[March 14th, 2007] PIVOT, BLOCK, BLOODY JAM! Calling all hot wheels: Portland's National Roller-Derby League team "Wheels of Justice" needs a coach before its first season home game on Saturday, April 21. "These are the best girls in the league, with the strongest opinions," Kim Stegemann, a.k.a. Rocket Mean , prez of Portland's Rose City Rollers league , says of the all-star Wheels, which utilizes players from Portland's four derby teams to play in the national circuit. Ideal candidates for the unpaid coach position will have coaching or serious speed-skating experience and be able to command some respect. The team is also looking for unpaid volunteers to work as statisticians and scorekeepers. Benefits: learning a new sport, traveling the country with hot, sweaty athletes and, according to Stegemann, "a central theme of drinking ." Email rocketmean@rosecityrollers.com for more info.

PORTLAND BLUES It's going to take a pretty big coffin just to lay Paul deLay 's body to rest, but no box could contain the enormity of his spirit or his talent. A world-renowned master of the blues harmonica, born and raised in Portland, deLay was celebrated not only for his stunning musicianship, but his songwriting, which celebrated blues tradition while steering clear of cliché. He developed health problems in recent years, after overcoming addiction, arrest and incarceration during the first half of the '90s. DeLay checked into Providence Portland Medical Center last week, thinking the shortness of breath he'd experienced following a gig the previous Saturday was from a lingering bout with bronchitis. Doctors found the news was much more dire—deLay's organs were failing due to end-stage leukemia. He slipped into a coma, then slipped away early Wednesday, March 7 . His sudden exit from the stage leaves a huge hole in Portland's blues community and the hearts of its members. A wake for deLay was held Monday evening at the Kennedy School; details of a public memorial are being finalized and will be posted on LocalCut.com as they become available. In the meantime, read local remembrances of deLay and share your own memories at LocalCut.com.

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR Portland Opera made a big fuss about launching their Studio Artists program in 2005, holding national auditions to "train the next generation of opera singers." Five young singers made the cut—and now one of those singers, tenor Heath Rush, has gotten the boot. According to Scoop's sources, Rush hadn't yet learned one of the most rudimentary rules of life upon the wicked stage: learn your music before the first rehearsal. The Opera, for its part, says Rush left abruptly to "attend to family matters." The other four members of the studio artists program give a recital April 1 at the Hampton Opera Center.