So Alan and I were discussing the idea of how the Vince Fumo story would be, should be and is probably already being made into a book… with a movie to follow of course. There are probably at least a few newspaper reporters who are looking at the prospects for their own industry’s future and hoping to take the Grogan route, riding the Fumo gravy train like he was their rambunctious but recently deceased puppy.

Our city has spawned a lot of great rags to riches stores. Of course everyone should remember Invincible, that Mark Wahlberg movie in which a guy named, coincidentally, Vince rises up from his lowly roots as a working class guy in South Philadelphia to reach the very pinnacle of athletic achievement. He was smaller than the other guys, probably not as naturally gifted and yet through hard work and a unflappable will to succeed, Vince Papale made it to the NFL. He was, as the title of the story suggests, Invincible and he deserved that title.

Now we have an unfortunate riches to rags story in which a guy, named Vince from a well to do family in South Philadelphia, given the opportunity of a prep school and college education, blessed with Mensa level intelligence found himself in the right place at the right time to enter an exclusive club of state senators.  He used his position and the longetivity in his office to build up his power until he could pretty much get anything he wanted from any other politician, especially in his home town of Philadelphia.  The power eventually got to him and, as indicated by the recently completed trial, he began to blur the lines between what was his by right and what belonged to you and me.

He flaunted his use of “other people’s money” (OPM) and did ridiculous things like hire private investigators to tail romantic interests, all the while never believing that the law would catch up to him.  Just as Vince Papale showed remarkable ability to elude tacklers and outrun the defense in the pursuit of his goals, Fumo believed he could evade those who would take him down.  According to Fumo’s playbook, using “OPM” was just as common as the forward pass in football.  But in the end the law did get to him.  His crimes were discovered and put on display for everyone to see over nearly five painful months.  And now he’s likely headed to prison after having nearly all of his property claimed by the federal government on behalf of the tax payers he wronged.  As Fumo found out, he was Vincible.

Yep.  It’s not exactly a sequel to the similarly named Mark Wahlberg vehicle about the suprising success of a barman turned NFL player but it captures the very essence of a man who thought he was above it all until he realized… he wasn’t.

So to you, loyal readers, we suggest the following.  Let’s use the comments section to this post as our own crowd-sourced, serialized and probably fanciful novel about the life of Vince Fumo.  If 10,000 monkeys typing for 10,000 years on 10,000 typewriters can end up with the Gettysburg Address, then you, Alan and I should be able to string together a ridiculous tale of relative power (does anyone really think he had “absolute” power?) corrupting absolutely.

I’ll start.