Madden Mischief

Ask me what’s my political affiliation, and I’ll fire back asking you “who’s on first?  Why?  Because I stand up for stand-up!   

I’ve always found there’s nothing worse than political rhetoric at a party.  Better to spring funny stories or crack jokes to enliven any party left or right like a pudgy Lou would tell his trimmer partner Bud “Who’s on first!” 

“Who” was the first baseman’s name.  Well, it was funny back in the 1940s and 1950s as the movie duo known as Abbott and Costello did their stand ups with hilarious results.  No, you’re probably too young, or just pretending to be not to remember them, but they were the classic comedy hit act back in their day.  My wife Rita from Brazil calls the duo Gordo and Magro, Portuguese for Fat and Skinny. 

Bud and Lou blended rapid-fire patter with knockabout slapsticks, with the scheming straight man Abbott beside the childlike, bumbling Costello. Together they made classic comedic chemistry that propelled them to historical heights of radio, film, and television fame.

These days I’m investing in a new form of them I call Abbot and Constella, coupling Abbot Laboratories (ABT) with Constellation Energy (CEG).  Abbott is a global healthcare company that develops and sells medical devices, diagnostic, nutritional products and branded generic pharmaceuticals to help people live fuller, healthier, happier lives. Lately it’s been a little under the weather, but still fundamentally healthy and headed for a rebound.

Constellation is the largest producer of carbon-free nuclear power in the U.S. sitting at the center of several powerful phenomena—rising electricity demand from data centers and AI, grid reliability concerns, and the environmentally friendly push toward combating one of President Trump’s least favorite causes, decarbonization.  

I’m impressed how well both stocks do stand up together, one fat with medicine, the other nuclear streamlined.  I get a kick out of when their stock prices rise together, but goosebumps when occasionally they run into today’s Frankenstein, those scary market downturns, one that wiped the shine right off gold and silver this week, clobbering my Newmont mining stock NYSE:NEM.

Another pair I thought was a riot when growing up in what was then known as “the world’s playground,” Atlantic City, NJ, was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.  This is probably why I like pairing big bang bank stocks like JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley with hopeful pharmaceuticals like AbbVie (ABBV) and thinkers like IBM.   

Speaking of the late Crosby, I used to represent his now late beautiful wife Kathryn, with whom I traveled across the country promoting her book “My Life with Bing” and on some of our tours we’d meet up with Bing’s buddy Bob Hope, where else, but on a golf course. 

And I’d enjoy another suave, even cooler crooner, Dean Martin, doing quirky standups with his scatter-brained silly partner Jerry Lewis where I grew up pretending to be 21 in fancy nightclubs like the swanky 500 owned by Paul “Skinny” D’Amato where the duo debuted in my hometown.  

Yes, Bing and Bob, Abbott and Constella, all the Gordo and Magro’s, Dean and Jerries are the epitome of that saying “opposites attract” as they did to me and now, I’m taking thrilling stock rides in those two sometimes chilling Hollywood amusement parks, Disney Dow Jones and Nasdaq Universal, ever betting on their tantalizing entertaining opposites!

With all the articles, blogs and books he continually writes, they call Tom Madden not just the Spin Man, but a busy wordsmith, but for him putting words together is more fun than work.  And when not writing, he’s running his illustrious PR firm TransMedia Group, along with his industrious daughter Adrienne Mazzone.  Working together with an outstanding crew of professionals, they’re making their clients’ businesses more successful and their success stories better known, including those of such top law firms as The Ticktin Law Group and Rader Law Group and more recently the firm’s about to restore the reputation of forgotten co-founder of Apple, Inc., Ronald Wayne, who’d like his fame back and legacy rejuvenated through meteoric publicity TransMedia is now busily arranging starting with this news release that went national:  https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/transmedia-group-to-upgrade-ronald-g-waynes-legacy-from-just-the-forgotten-co-founder-of-apple-inc-302669770.html?tc=eml_cleartime .  So, stay tuned!