newsmakers

August 21, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

newsmakers

Man jumps to death onto stage at concert

SARATOGA, Calif.

Authorities say a man jumped to his death onto the stage of a Northern California concert in front of hundreds of horrified music fans.

The band, The Swell Season, was playing an outdoor show in Saratoga Thursday night when the jump happened.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Rick Sung says the man left a friend in the audience around 10 p.m. and soon appeared on a roof that covers the stage. Witnesses say he jumped off the roof and landed on stage near the band’s lead singer, Glen Hansard.

The jumper was pronounced dead by a doctor who spent an hour trying to revive him.

The band, which includes Hansard and Czech pianist Marketa Irglova — the stars of the film “Once” — extended its sympathies on its website Friday.

Memorabilia dealer selling Salinger’s toilet

KERNERSVILLE, N.C.

A North Carolina collectibles dealer is hawking a toilet ripped from reclusive author J.D. Salinger’s former home.

Rick Kohl of The Vault said Friday he bought the standard white porcelain fixture from a New Hampshire couple who owned a home where the author of “Catcher in the Rye” once lived.

To vouch that this is no phony, Kohl has a letter from the homeowner attesting that she and her husband replaced the toilet while remodeling and that they knew the workmen who installed it decades ago.

The receptacle has an eBay asking price of $1 million, though Kohl says he’s willing to see what the literary giant’s home throne will fetch.

The toilet’s lid is stamped with a manufacturing date of 1962, well after the 1951 publication date of Salinger’s classic novel.

Colbert shows to honor US troops

NEW YORK

Stephen Colbert is dusting off his camouflage suit.

The comedian will broadcast two special episodes of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” to celebrate the end of combat operations in Iraq and to honor returning troops.

On Sept. 8 and 9, the show will fill its audience with Iraq War veterans and active-duty service men and women. Others will be beamed in via satellite from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“The Report,” which likes to parody over-the-top cable news graphics, is calling the episodes “Been There, Won That: The Returnification of the American-Do Troopscape.”

Guests will include Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and the U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno.

Odierno famously shaved Colbert’s head — on President Barack Obama’s orders — when the comedian broadcast four episodes of “The Report” from Baghdad last year. On that visit, Colbert donned a camouflage suit and reported from a desk supported by sand bags.

Leno’s coast show to benefit fishermen

BILOXI, Miss.

Jay Leno will be doing standup to help the Gulf Coast.

The “Tonight Show” host and comedian will appear today at the Beau Rivage Theater in Biloxi, Miss., in a benefit performance for residents who’ve been affected by the massive oil spill.

The appearance is billed as “Stand Up for the Gulf Coast: A Special Evening with Jay Leno to Benefit the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.” Leno says the coastal fishing community and others need money, and he wants to help raise it.

Tickets for the benefit are $40, $80 and $150 each.

Funds raised will be administered by the foundation through its Mississippi Oil Spill Recovery Fund.

Vindicator wire services