DF is known for many things. Winning “Most Pungent” seven years running. That famous picture of me flipping off a unicorn while a Tyrannosaurus Rex elbows me in the crotch. Finishing my Nobel Prize acceptance speech despite barfing three times. But DF is emphatically NOT known for his calm, judicious sense of self-control. Au the contraire, he has been known to engage in … shall we say … untoward episodes of uncontrolled indulgence. To wit:

August, 1968: an innocent, straight-laced adolescent DF agrees to take a single puff of a marijuana cigarette proffered by a hirsute amigo. Next thing I recall is waking up three years and several hundred acid trips later, face-down in the middle of Golden Gate Park, long hippie hair corralled by a beaded headband, bearing Jerry Garcia’s love child.

September, 1979: a few months into my new, responsible job and life as a pencil-sharpener salesman, a colleague offers me a beer at a calm post-work happy hour on a Wednesday night. I chug the beer, then with the seal broken, chug seventeen additional beers, then chug countless shots of Rumplemints, and finally awake from the ensuing blackout period several days later in an Ensenada gutter, wearing only mascara and a “Huggies” diaper that really left nothing to the imagination. The really weird part is that upon getting back to work, my colleague told me that the beer he’d given me was non-alcoholic.

May, 1985: Sizzler comes out with their “All you can eat salad bar” campaign. DF, against the advice of his lawyer, parole officer, and psychologist, visits a San Dimas Sizzler during this promotion, and after eating all the food in the salad bar, proceeds to the kitchen, where he ingests several dozen frozen skirt steaks and drinks a tureen of ranch dressing before an elderly gentleman brings an end to the madness by whacking DF on the head repeatedly with his prosthesis. And you know what? I woke up from the ensuing coma still hungry as hell.

So yeah, DF and self-restraint don’t really belong in the same sentence. But after my misspent youth (and early adulthood, and most of middle age), I’ve learned a lesson: stay away from temptation! And that’s why I’m shit-scared right now, because temptation has come and found me with not one, not two, but THREE awesome-balls banked-track derby events this weekend in the greater SoCal area.

Believe it, rollerfans! This Saturday night, May 7, will witness the earth-shattering debut of the banked-track incarnation of the OC Roller Girls on their brand-new track, as the Orange Whip square off with the Traffic Jammers down at the Anaheim Convention Center Arena. And if you’re averse to traveling below the Orange Curtain that night, you’re still in luck, because the LA Derby Dolls will be in action at Hi-Fi’s Doll Factory on Sat eve as well, when the Varsity Brawlers, fresh off their big upset of the three-time-defending-champ Tough Cookies, will take on that perennial threat from way down south, the San Diego Derby Dolls’ banked track specialists, the Swarm.

And whichever banked track action you opt for on Saturday, you’ll still be able to engorge yourself with more derby the very next day, as an adorably named but undeniably fierce Babydoll Brawl will go down at the Doll Fac on Sunday, May 8. And yes, that’s Mom’s day, but what better way to celebrate the nice lady whose vagina expelled you to see some of the finest up-and-coming skaters LADD has to offer? Take note: the BDB is an all-ages event, so feel free to bring the kiddies. And due to the family atmo, there will be no booze served, which is really for the best for DF given aforementioned proclivities.

Lord knows this troika of derby fantasticness may well be the death of DF and his poor overstressed sense of self-control, but hey—if you gotta die, death by derby is a pretty sweet way to go. Get your tixes for OCRG here and LADD here, and DF’ll see you at the track, young’uns.