NEWS LITE : BOBBITT TO KEEP THEM IN STITCHES.

John Wayne Bobbitt has heard a lot of laughs at his expense since he became a household name at the hands of his steak knife-wielding ex-wife.

Keep laughing, he says. Only now he wants to get paid for it.

The 32-year-old ex-Marine is back home in New York to embark on a new career as a comedian.

He said he's trained with established Los Angeles comedians and has already survived open mike night at The Improv in Los Angeles. He's booked at a Toronto club next week.

``I had a bad relationship, and I think I can talk about that, have some advice,'' Bobbitt said in Tuesday's Buffalo News. ``Like sleep on your stomach.''

Bobbitt's penis was reattached after it was sliced off in 1993 by his then-wife, Lorena. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

He later starred in a few adult movies.

``I could just go home and get a job,'' he said. ``Or I could do stand-up comedy, and that's exciting, and wild and crazy, and have fun making people laugh. Make a career out of it.''

Prince Andrew's dinner fed a tabloid

A socialite's dinner with Prince Andrew was secretly videotaped by her jealous husband, according to a lawsuit that claims the video and suggestions of a torrid royal tryst were given to a British tabloid.

Melissa M. Lincoln, 40, of Newport Beach filed a Superior Court lawsuit Tuesday against J.D. Lincoln, 63, claiming her privacy was invaded and she suffered emotional distress when he made her a scandal-sheet celebrity.

In addition to allegedly giving the video to The Sun in London, Lincoln is accused of revealing intimate details about their marriage and providing nude photos of Mrs. Lincoln.

Melissa Lincoln met Prince Andrew on a flight to Hawaii, her attorney, Gloria Allred, said Thursday. The two had dinner - and nothing else - and the video was shot from the bushes outside the woman's bungalow as the prince left for the evening, Allred said.

Crawford has got so much to offer

Cindy Crawford doesn't mind being phat.

The hip-hop term for ``cool'' is used to describe the supermodel in a song by Blessid Union of Souls called ``Hey Leonardo (She Likes Me for Me).''

The lyric goes ``I like her for her/ Not because she's phat like Cindy Crawford.''

``How could I be anything but flattered?'' Crawford wrote in a note to lead singer Eliot Sloan, according to his publicist. ``Thanks for calling me phat!''

World Cup team gets a new image

U.S. Women's Soccer has scored again. The stars of the World Cup-winning squad checked into Manhattan's Time Hotel this week for an apparently racy photo shoot with David LaChappelle for the 30th anniversary issue of Interview, says the Post's Page Six. LaChappelle, who made ``X-Files' '' provocative agent Gillian Anderson look even more sultry, was said to have sent stylists to a shop for cross-dressers and to Frederick's of Hollywood. ``Let's put it this way,'' an insider said. ``He won't have them in their soccer uniforms in any normal way.''

OFFBEAT 

Upset by the constant ringing of cellular telephones in Israel's Parliament chamber, Speaker Avraham Burg said Friday he would install an electronic jamming device to render the little nuisances unusable. Three of every 10 Israelis has a mobile phone - one of the highest rates in the world. Lawmakers were not pleased.

Taiwanese rocker rolls China's boat

China is crazy about Ah-Mei. And she rocked Beijing on Friday night, sending a stadium full of fans into a tizzy of screeching adulation.

Ah-Mei can sing all right, and her dancing does dazzle, oh yeah. But it is Ah-Mei's sexy charm and suggestive stage work that seem to have suddenly catapulted her to the No. 1 slot in rock 'n' roll popularity in China.

One more thing: Ah-Mei is from Taiwan.

It is surely a measure of how increasingly irrelevant China's political campaigns have become to ordinary people when a rock star from Taiwan can draw more than 45,000 screaming fans to Beijing's biggest stadium, at the height of a China-Taiwan political crisis, and no one gives it a second thought.

To the young people bopping to the rhythms and singing along, loudly, Ah-Mei's attraction easily overpowered any consideration of the current battle over who should have sovereignty over Taiwan, which has badly distracted China's leaders in recent weeks.

``She is the coolest,'' said Li Chen, 28, who would not take her eyes off the stage, even as she spoke about Ah-Mei, whose real name is Zhang Hui-mei. ``I don't care where she's from.''

Ah-Mei, 27, is becoming the Madonna of China. Her voice is fine, her dancing better, but it is her animated persona and sexual suggestiveness that really give a kick to her performances and to her raging popularity.

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) THE ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL

Albert Lee of Atherton, Calif., skates along Highway 44 between Picket and Oshkosh, Wis., during a cross-country skating trip to raise money for the American Red Cross. Lee left Seattle on skates on June 13 and plans to arrive in Hanover, N.H., early next month.

Kevin Kreck/The Northwestern

(2) BOBBITT