Plenty has seen improvements over the years by the intervention of a gay man in the design and interpretation process.  Yet there are some serious areas of major money-making businesses that could do with some style, panache or just a plain old edgy renovation.

1) K-Mart

In the battle of large-scale Everything Stores, K-Mart is more gay-friendly than Wal-Mart and Target combined.  So, why then do they insist on being the most depressing shopping experience ever?  It’s all dirty floors, harsh fluorescents and baby clothes.  I get so glum walking past the Little Ceasars that I half-expect to see a single red ball roll across the floor, followed by a woman screaming “Help!  Where’s MY CHIIIILD???”

I’d rather shop at that grocery store from “The Mist.”

K-Mart needs a total makeover, and I’m not talking about just renaming it “The Big K.”  They need a new color scheme, a bang-up logo, and a hipster marketing campaign.  Also, please, please, please, here are the things to put at the front of your store: DVDs, a Coffee Shop, and a fashionable-yet-sensible clothing line from a minor fabulous celebrity (I’m thinking a Christine Baranski or a Faith Hill).  Here are the things to not put up front: baby clothes!!!  You put baby clothes up front, y’know what the first thing a young, hip person’s gonna see when they walk in?  Tired mommies or even more tired nannies.  Vogue, damn your eyes!

Also, if it wasn’t a copyright infringement, you could call yourself “Gay Mart”.

2) Late Night Comedy

SNL, you need a gay cast member right now.  You needed him yesterday.  (I suggest a gay man for SNL.  I have a better place for lesbians below– be patient!)  SNL’s recent Elton John-centric show really illuminated how awfully clumsy they are with gay material.  They are clearly supportive, but they all seem so blockheaded when it comes to execution that every sketch ends with Jason Sudeikis wildly tongue-kissing Elton/Fallon/Timberlake to the wild hoots of an audience so desperate for laughs, they’ll drink the sand.  What the hell?  When did I agree to start watching MadTV?

Giving straight Taran Killem all the gay parts doesn’t count.  Don’t waste Elton’s time, people.

SNL has had one openly gay cast member in its entire 35+ year run, and that was in the early 80′s (that’s right– one gay cast member and that was when gays were thought of as lecherous diseased parasites by the majority of the viewing public), for one season.  Terry Sweeney, who was pretty much regulated to doing Nancy Reagan.  SIDE NOTE: The one nancy-as-Nancy sketch I saw was pretty funny for that era– it involved Mrs. Reagan shuffling around trying to find the perfect placement of a vase.  She becomes so frustrated that she just destroys the vase.

My point, SNL, is when you have no gay cast members, you really have to walk on eggshells as to the kinds of gay jokes you can do.  If you get a gay in there, your options will open up, and everyone can calm down and finally think of something funny.  I know (sarcasm alert) you have edge to burn right now, but this could give you an edge on other sketch shows.  You career is older than Madonna’s.  Reinvent yourself!

Also, The Daily Show needs a lesbian correspondent.  A Rachel Maddow, if she weren’t so prominent.  Daily Show also suffers the same thing as SNL: compassionate, but because they have no gay voices, they are left to take the straight guy approach to gay rights stories, which is: I’m for it, but we don’t quite understand the intricacies of how the lack of rights is affecting these people.

Plus, gays need some refreshing political humor pronto.  We’re getting too stuffy for my liking.

3) Universal Studios

If you mean gay as in lame, then yes, Universal Studios is very gay.  But I say it needs the other kind of gay: the stylish, good at entertaining people kind of gay.  I just got back from spending a day at their Hollywood Park.  We were there from Noon to 6, and I swear to God we ran out of things to do.  And I don’t buy that it’s just “they don’t have that much land to work with.”  Disneyland doesn’t have much land to work with, either, and they’re pulling through alright.  The park is going through an identity crisis: Do we have reverence for old movies or do we not?  Rides for flash-in-the-pan films like “E.T.” and “Back to the Future” are being ripped out and replaced with rides for more timeless treasures like “The Mummy Returns” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”

The big problem is the Studio Backlot Tour.  What should be a glamorous extravaganza of film past and present has now been reduced to a golf cart trip through empty lots, where we ride past the Bates Motel set, but we don’t hear any history about it because the driver is too busy advertising “Hop.”  I almost leapt across the cars to grab the mike and start narrating the tour myself!  We were told at several points to be quiet because “Desperate Housewives” was filming.  Cue audible gasps and murmurs of “that show’s still on??”  And that new King Kong 3-D part of the tour?  Twenty seconds of bad, dull IMAX (that apparently cost $4 million).

Oh no, it’s that King Kong from the thing and the…has it really been 40 minutes since we boarded?

Universal, get your gay on, embrace the glamor of old Hollywood, like Hitchcock (I PROMISE YOU, gays and film nerds– of which I’ve heard there are a couple of in Hollywood– will flock).  Also, get some nightlife for goodness sake.  Your park closes at 6 (it’s still light out!), and your Citywalk (y’know, with all the bars and cool restaurants) closes at 10!  Criminy!  If only Horror Nights could last all year round.

4) The Hip Hop Industry

When are these guys gonna kiss already?!  50 Cent, with the homophobic tweets; Lil’ Wayne, with the “no homo”; all the posturing and shirtlessness “you’re my bitch”.  I can’t take much more of this sexual tension game, fellas.

5) Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer, I love you.  I’m a “Friends” fan.  You had an amazing stint on “30 Rock.”  So, let me put this delicately:  STOP.  DOING.  MOVIES!  They all stink.  All of them.  Stop doing movies with straight schnooks like Sandler and Gerard Butler.

BOOO all of your choices!

Go back to TV!  Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow did it, and their gay fanbases are growing by the day.  There isn’t a gay I know who isn’t obsessed with “The Comeback,” and my gay buddies are the only people I’m aware of excited for “Scream 4.”  Oh, I’m sorry, “SCRE4M.”

Return, return, return to TV.  There will be shitloads of money in it for you.  You are disrespected in the movie world.  It isn’t where you belong!  You will be welcomed with open arms, and you could probably meet a really nice guy on set who isn’t gonna be too famous for you.

6) The CMAs

Award Shows are for gays.  I don’t care if it’s country music or the Source Awards, the only people who watch are gays and girls.  So, why oh why, would my dear Reba McEntire get onstage and make a WORN-THE-HELL-OUT “Brokeback Mountain” joke in reference to why Gyllenhaal broke up with Tennessee Songbird Taylor Swift?

If only those Awards Show gift baskets were paid for by a few chuckling cowboys, this wouldn’t be such an issue.

WHY?  Spruce this up!  The decorum is terrible.  Also, the Oscars, I think a grain or two of dust could stand to be blown off that workhorse.

7) Marvel Superheroes

Actually, this one’s on here because it needs less gay.  The gay blogosphere is lit up to a near Christmas-like capacity over every new “Captain America” and “Thor” promo picture, that we have to be responsible for at least 3/4 of its buzz.  Avi Arad should be so overcome with gratitude that he orders Chris Evans and Hemsworth to give round the clock blowjobs to every gay nerd in town.  But, as usual, our contributions to the buzz machine will be overlooked and lumped in with the “Girls 14-25″ demographic.

I’m getting a little worn thin, frankly, with all the promotions, and we’re still months away.  Yes, Thor is hot and positively giddy to see Natalie Portman in something again in my “Black Swan” afterglow, but I have ears and a brain, and it looks like true malarky.

Apparently, director Kenneth Branagh spent months agonizing over the look of Thor’s legendary hammer.  And after an exhaustive search he came up with…probably the same hammer I would’ve chosen in ten seconds.

It’s a mythical god kingdom, and everything is fetish armor and Anthony Hopkins whizzing his legacy down his ankle.  Everything’s so big and grandiose without original design.  If you don’t have a crazy unique design for a god kingdom, then go for something muted and gritty.  You don’t have to blow your load at everyone opera-tunity.

All I’m saying is that comic book movies need to get less gay or start actively chasing our demographic more.  It’s dishonestly closeted.  From May to July, I should not be able to go into the Abbey or Fiesta Cantina without running into ten big blond dudes dressed like Thor, handing out condoms with May 6th/Rated PG-13 on ‘em.

If Thor, Wolverine, Captain America and the gang are going to bang us, we expect a kiss on the mouth.