VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: MTV2 lifts Vail on new video

Friday, Sept. 20, 2002 | 4:37 a.m.

Look for a lot of students at Palo Verde High School in Summerlin to be late for school Monday.

That's because they will be up late tonight watching classmate Ashley Vail, 16, on the MTV2 show "120 Minutes."

The aspiring model, dancer and actress, appears in the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize?" video, which debuts tonight on the 11 p.m. broadcast.

Shot by noted video director Mark Pellington, it features the group strolling through downtown Las Vegas accompanied by girls, an elephant and a guy in a frog suit.

Better for you to watch than me to explain.

Ashley is easy to spot -- she was cast in the video partly because of her musical theater talents, and partly because she wears braces.

Her mother, Mary Vail, is a Las Vegas publicity executive, and father David Vail was a "Top Gun" fighter pilot who was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Ashley was born.

He's now an executive at Perini Construction -- builders of such major resorts as Green Valley Ranch Station Casino, Palms, Caesars Palace and Paris Las Vegas.

The anatomically challenged John Wayne Bobbitt is back in a Nevada court.

All thanks to fellow tabloid favorite Joey Buttafuoco.

Seems Bobbitt -- who achieved global fame in 1993 when his then-wife Lorena chopped off his reproductive organ -- is challenging a Fallon judge's order that he not cohabit with his current spouse until after domestic violence charges against him are resolved, reports the Sun's Emily Richmond.

"This is going to mean a lot of hardship and pain if we can't live together to work on this marriage," Bobbitt told Richmond.

Bobbitt was arrested in Las Vegas on May 13 after a fight with wife Joanne Forcinel over his planned participation in an episode of "Celebrity Boxing 2" on Fox.

She objected to his scheduled fight with pal Joey, whose wife was shot in the face by Long Island Lolita, Amy Fisher, with whom Buttafuoco was having an affair.

Churchill County District Judge Archie Blake had ordered that Bobbitt not live with Forcinel until Bobbitt's November trial for the May incident is over.

A ruling is expected shortly.

Bernie Yuman is generally a sharp-looking guy.

The longtime manager for Sieg- fried & Roy and Muhammad Ali is usually decked out in black, from his snake-skin boots to tuxedo jacket.

When we ran into him the other day, he proudly showed us his socks; he favors 1970s-style white tube socks with stripes across the top in his favorite team's colors -- Miami Dolphins orange and aquamarine.

We left before he got around to showing us his underwear.

When the producers of tonight's Emmy Awards say "goody" bags, they mean business.

"The point is to give presenters who do not get paid for their time and effort a nice thank-you gift," said Suzanne Gutierrez, director of corporate relations for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Oh yes. Gotta help out presenters like Martin Sheen (who makes $300,000 per episode of "The West Wing" ), Debra Messing ($500,000 per for "Will & Grace"), the cast of "Friends" ($1 million each per episode) and Tom Hanks (who earned an estimated $70 million from "Forrest Gump").

Many (not all?) of the presenters, countered Gutierrez, donate the goods.

So what exactly do they get?

Among the trinkets in the gift bag (total estimated value: at least $25,000) are a Lacroix watch, a Stueben vase, upgrades from United Airlines (what, no tickets?), a Nokia phone, a set of Rembrandt toothbrushes (excuse me, "oral care products"), dinner atop the John Hancock building in Chicago, a leather purse, some jewelry and a health club membership.

As if Martha Stewart doesn't already have enough to worry about.

According to New York magazine, the Diva of Domesticity's summer retreat in tony East Hampton, N.Y., was recently toilet papered.

A spy told the glossy that white toilet paper was strewn through the estate's hedges and around the front gate.

"It definitely didn't look like one of her decorating projects," the magazine reported.