Android: customize application's menu (e.g background color)
I created my own menu class. It maybe isn't exactly what you want but it should hopefully get you started. Here is the article I published and a downloadable link to the source code.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/android/AndroidMenusMyWay.aspx
Not with the built-in menu framework.
You are welcome to intercept the MENU button (via onKeyDown() or something) and render what you want, but bear in mind that users will be expecting it to look like the rest of the menus do on their device.
You can also just implement the "onCreateOptionsMenu" method, that is usually used to display the standard menu, and display whatever you want in this case.
In my game, I implemented it to display a "Game Paused" dialog box when the menu button is pressed...