Tonight’s bedtime story involves adult film star and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey, the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard, and Chris Kirkpatrick from N*SYNC. One of them takes off their pants, and it isn’t Carey. Also there’s Bible verses.

Oh come on, you weren’t going to sleep tonight anyway.

In an interview with a Sacramento radio station on Tuesday, Carey — who was in town to promote a strip club, natch — told a pretty amazing story about being pursued by Howard, who showed up at Kirkpatrick’s house to see her while Carey was on a date with Kirkpatrick. Look, you’ll just have to hear it from her.

Includes a guest appearance by Mr. Mxyzptlk, as I am going to call this particular Superman body part.

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Before you watch Dwight Howard’s exceedingly descriptive reaction to a foul call last night in Detroit, here’s what he wrote on his blog about the game:

I was on the floor for 16 minutes and fouled out!!! Let me say that again: 17 minutes and six fouls!!! How can that be, ya’ll? It was crazy. They called me for a charge on a flop, a push off when the defender was on me and two fouls on blocked shots.Man, 16 minutes is a lifetime low for me I think. I haven’t played that little in a game since I was 10 years old in pee-wee ball. It was crazy from the start of the game all the way to when I fouled out with about 4 minutes to play.

What really bothers me is they are letting guys hammer me at one end of the floor, yet I’m being called for everything. All of those hits take a toll on my body after a while.

You wonder if the league will have something to say to Howard about those blog comments.  Especially taken in the context of his on-court display last night on live TV.

There’s shouldn’t be any formal disicipline from the NBA though. Howard didn’t name officials or dispute specific calls. He just vented his frustration to fans by presenting an empirical argument. How can the league argue with that?

And like you, I’m loving Howard’s candor. Fascinating stuff.

Definitely want the headphones on for this one. No matter where you are. Video after the jump. Read more…

It’s not often that injury news takes us completely aback, but that’s absolutely the case over in Pullman tonight. One slightly mentioned aspect of last weekend’s game pitting Washington State against Southern Methodist was WSU’s tailback, James Montgomery, suffering an apparent knee injury. Not that those aren’t serious, but, y’know… they happen.

But one thing that doesn’t usually happen is a potentially fatal injury that nobody recognizes immediately. That’s what apparently befell Montgomery during the game; after the game, he reported increasing discomfort with the knee, and went in for surgery on Sunday morning. It probably saved his life.

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It’s been no surprise to any fan of the NBA (especially the televised version) that Dwight Howard is a popular person to put in front of a camera. Hey, why not? He’s a physical freak of nature with a flair for the dramatic, and acting goofy is a lot easier than learning post moves.

(Dwight, I know a place where you can take advantage of better special effects than that.)

But as you can imagine, Orlando ought to be very worried that Howard has evidently figured out that part about acting and playing basketball. And while there’s plenty of places in America to shoot a movie, the best place is right in the backyard of that team that just erased them in the Finals.

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So, it’s a slow news day in the NBA. Not a whole lot going on. Pau Gasol had that finger surgery a couple days ago, and, um, yeah. Hey, there’s something about Dwight Howard and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT HOG.

(You should be happy that this is censored.)

MEDIATAKEOUT.COM announced to the world that they had acquired pictures of Dwight Howard showing off his, um, “D12.” And the candid nature of it all seemed to support their claim. Fortunately for all of our sensibilities, though, their story’s being challenged. False alarm on famous schlong, people. Please disperse.

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• The career route of Troy O’Leary’s ex-wife Annette: From elementary school assistant principal to escort-for-hire?

• Maurice Clarett decides he needs to spend more time in prison.

• A Rays fan takes a 40-foot drop at the Trop from an escalator.

• Hey, you Ole Miss Rebels - Mississippi State’s got two words for ya.

• The Titans will wear a special helmet decal in honor of the late Steve McNair. But some Tennessee fans aren’t so touched by the tribute.

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In the realm of guys you’d expect to hear were busted for using steroids, objectively, you’d have to think a string bean like Rashard Lewis would be way down on the list. But here we are, apparently.

(The NBA knew something was really up when they saw the Gumby cut.)

The ORLANDO SENTINEL is reporting that Lewis tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug today. So was it Manny’s female fertility drug or Michael Jackson’s Propafol and horse tranquilizers or something hardcore?

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Do you have a tattoo? Odds are that it’s stupid. No really, it’s stupid. You’re going to grow up and have kids and they’re going to ask why you drew a skull with fire coming out its eyeholes on your leg, and you’re not going to have an answer that doesn’t make you look even dumber than before.

(Is it really “sticking it to the man” if you ink yourself with a corporate logo and the company doesn’t even pay you?)

And then there’s the financial aspect of it all. Yes, the worst tattoos from a “get a job” standpoint are still the face tattoo (what the hell, seriously people) and the cursive name on the side of your neck (you might as well have written “I have gone to jail on assault charges” there). But for an NBA player, corporate logos can be just as damaging to the prospect of making more money. Marcin Gortat, ye of the Jumpman leg tattoo, we’re looking right at you.

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The NBA is in financial trouble right now. We all know that, right? It’s not even a question, what with the salary cap already going down and threatening to plummet in 2010. The new figures, based on projections by David Stern and the league, are a salary cap around $50-54 million and $61-65 million for the luxury tax floor - anything above that line, and teams are paying a dollar-for-dollar tax to the league. In other words, it’s not financially advantageous to go very far over that figure; eventually you’re paying $8 million for a $4 million player.

(”Hello! I’m here to wreck your financial future!”)

Why’s all this important? Because the Orlando Magic, already making head-scratching personnel decisions that involve questionably high-level salaries, have, according to the ORLANDO SENTINEL, just matched the Dallas Mavericks’ offer sheet to restricted free agent Marcin Gortat. Gortat was poised for quite a payday coming out of the shadow of Dwight Howard, and the Mavericks made what looked like a prohibitively large bid of 5 years and $34 million.

In case you’re keeping score at home, that runs Orlando’s salary guarantees to… hang on, let’s crunch the numbers… Eleventy jerzillion dollars.

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One of the most remarkable aspects of this year’s Orlando-Los Angeles NBA Finals wasn’t that it only took five games for the Lakers to dispathc the Magic, but how very close Orlando was to having their own 3-1 lead going into Game 5. Twice, Orlando had shots to win a game before it went into overtime. Twice, the shots missed, and twice, the Lakers prevailed in OT. Not bad for a team that was given utterly no shot to so much as make the Finals, much less win the whole thing.

(And, ahem, here’s their real MVP of the season.)

So considering the bevy of mostly-young talent in place in Orlando, it seemed like the only thing the Magic really needed to do was get back Hedo Turkoglu (who was absolutely indispensable in the playoffs), then keep the rest of the nucleus together and let them continue to improve. Turkoglu’s an unrestricted free agent, so that means throwing money at him, but considering his performance and how well he complements the team, a good offer seems like a foregone conclusion.

Wait, what’s that? Do you hear something? Good lord… it’s the EPIC FAIL FAIRY! And she’s bringing good news!

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