Pop Culture News and Notes

Elton John is celebrating his 60^th birthday (which is on March 25^th) by playing a record-extending 60^th show at New York's storied Madison Square Garden. Sir Elton is also joining the digital age by finally allowing his catalog of 30+ albums available for legal download for the first time. The downloads…ranging from his 1969 debut record Empty Sky to Rocket Man, a new 17-track hits compilation…will be exclusively available on iTunes for a month and then they will be available on the other major services.

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NBC Universal and News Corp. (the parent company of Fox TV) have joined forces to set up a network for sharing video clips, TV shows, and movies online as a direct assault on the growing prominence of Google’s YouTube. The network will utilize the already extant sites of partners Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft’s MSN as well as News Corp.’s MySpace to deliver their offerings (which will include TV shows such as Heroes, House, and 24 owned by the two principals.) The network is supposed to be up and running sometime this summer.

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Ever wanted to visit the sets of hit TV shows like Desperate Housewives, 24, House, or All My Children? Or maybe you’ve thought about having a meal with someone like Robin Williams, Hank Aaron, Richard Gere, or Alan Alda. Perhaps you’re interested in VIP seating at the Police reunion show in Madison Square Garden or attending a Chicago Bears game with 50-yard line seats and Hall of Famer Gayle Sayers as your host or being a VIP guest at Bette Midler’s annual “Hulaween” Gala. Maybe you’d like to play golf with Ethel Kennedy or go falconing (yes, falconing) with Robert Kennedy, Jr. Or maybe you’d like to have your iPod programmed by Quincy Jones.

All of these are among the 115 experiences (you can hang out with Martha Stewart!) and items (a Tina Turner dress or a shirt signed by Robert Redford) up for bid at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Auction running between now and April 6^th on the Charitybuzz site.

You will, of course, need deep pockets: as of this writing, the least expensive thing up for bid is a CD signed by the Indigo Girls ($75…plus $15 shipping and handling); breakfast or tea with former Federal Reserve honcho Alan Greenspan and his wife NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, on the other hand, is going for a whopping $45,000 as this hits the blog.