What A Week!

What the hell's going on in our sleepy little burg? Portland seems like it's caught tabloid fever, mounting an impressive display of public scandals and squabbles.

Why, in just the past seven days we've learned that Police Chief Derrick Foxworth, who was put on leave Tuesday, apparently borrows from Penthouse Forum for inspiration in all matters romantic as well as literary;

City Council candidate Emilie Boyles, an ordained Celtic Anabaptist minister who makes $600 a month, has somehow become the face of everything that can go wrong with public financing of city election campaigns;

And for some real fur flying, there's the escalating debate over who's more bloodthirsty: the Schumacher Fur store downtown or the protesters outside it.

It's not all as confusing as it seems. Each controversy reflects some of our most basic human traits: lust, the ache to get ahead, and our love of animals.

But for a fuller picture, read on. See what local erotica writers think of our top cop's steamy email prose, and read our exclusive interview with Boyles. First, get all riled up over Q&As with some of the more unique voices in the city's fur furor.

^Pelted

WW checks in with three individuals snared in the battle between a local furrier and a band of animal-rights protesters.

The five-month free-for-all between the owners of downtown's Schumacher Fur Co. and a cadre of hardcore anti-fur activists leaves us throwin' up our collective hands—who and what to support? A local, legal business or individuals' First Amendment rights to speak up for animals to keep their hides? Sexy luxury fashions or the lives of cute, cute critters? Gawd, it's a puzzler.

But first, a quick recap of the hubbub: It's clear that protesters have been picketing outside the Schumachers' shop each Saturday since the 111-year-old business moved to a new, higher-traffic location on Southwest 9th Avenue and Morrison Street last November. But store owners Gregg and Linda Schumacher allege protesters are actually breaking the law. They accuse the activists of vandalizing their shop by throwing red paint on their doorstep and threatening to kill them. "The vandalism, there is no denying that happened," concedes protest organizer Matt Rossell, the Northwest outreach coordinator for the national group In Defense of Animals. "But the Schumachers saying we threatened to kill them? That's a total fabrication." According to Portland Police Bureau Central Precinct Commander Dave Benson, the police have arrested a total of five protesters on charges ranging from criminal mischief to harassing a police officer since last November—including two juveniles who spit on the fur store's windows. "The police are in a tough position. We don't take a stance on one side or the other," says Detective Paul Dolbey, Portland Police Bureau spokesman. "We are there to enforce the law."

The Schumachers have come out swingin' themselves: They admit to slapping up "Protest Sale 50% OFF" signs during demonstrations and flashing a doctored poster reading "All Protestors should be Beaten, Strangled, Skinned Alive, Anally Electrocuted and Clubbed" at protesters. But Rossell also claims the Schumachers have spit at protesters, called one activist a "whore" and followed demonstrators to their cars and threatened them physically; according to Dolbey, those allegations have not been confirmed by the Portland Police Bureau. Rossell says he has video footage to corroborate some of his claims (it's being catalogued at the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center). "There have been confrontations," says Gregg Schumacher. "But they were instigated by the protesters.

Adding to the drama, Commander Benson and City Commish Randy Leonard stuck their noses into the melee two weeks ago and mentioned that perhaps the Schumachers should consider moving their biz to a different locale. And, man, did the fur fly: An uproar from Portland's downtown business community, a heated April 5 City Council meeting and promises of mediation proffered on both sides ensued. Yep, all this over a bunch of weasly minks or ostentatious jackets that cost as much as a monthly mortgage payment—depending on your outlook.

WW decided to get a little perspective with the personal opinions of three Portlanders caught up in the fur debate: a Schumacher shopper, a longtime protester, and an animal-rights activist who now (gasp!) uses fur in his fashion designs. —Kelly Clarke

MARGARET GOODWIN

Margaret Goodwin, 51, is a musician, former cab driver and lifelong Portland resident—and she loves her fur coat. It's a white, mid-length mink with matching hat that she's had cleaned and maintained at Schumacher Furs since she inherited it from her mother.

Goodwin stopped by Schumacher's on a recent afternoon to express her support for the store.

"Why don't the cops just arrest those people?" she exclaims, nodding at the four protesters milling on the sidewalk outside, holding signs, and peering through the windows of the nearly empty fur store.

Goodwin calls herself an old hippie from a clan of Republicans, and on the day we spoke she was wearing a green linen shirt, tan pants and Ugg boots. Before we start, she mentions that, although Willamette Week is "socialist crap," she won't hold that against me. —Jon Weatherford

WW: Are you shopping for another fur?

Margaret Goodwin: I couldn't afford one right now; I'm not working.

So, say you won the lottery...

Oh God, yes. Some of the coats they have in [Schumacher's], the full-length, are gorgeous.

Where do you wear your fur?

Anywhere. Everywhere, from when I go out around [downtown] to the Wigwam Tavern in Scappoose.

Do you get hassled for wearing fur?

No. People have asked me [if they can] try it on.

Do you worry about the image it presents?

Are you kidding? People seem to like to put other people down, but I'm not worried about that.

Have you ever protested anything?

We protested so we could wear jeans to high school.

What do like most about wearing fur?

I got diagnosed with fibromyalgia [generalized pain and fatigue] a few months ago, and I'm cold all the time now. Sometimes I like to sleep in the coat; it's comfortable, and it keeps me warm.

ADAM ARNOLD

When style mavens and designers dropped fur in the 1990s, it wasn't about just politics. It was also about fashion: a backlash against the '80s over-the-top style with its giant shoulders, giant gold jewelry and giant ostentatious furs. The '90s brought more austere, simple looks, and fur just didn't fit in. But the pendulum's been swinging back and now the runways are filled with fur fashions with an edge—less country club and more downtown.

You'll find fur in the arsenal of a number of Portland-based independent designers. Heralded local designer Adam Arnold's fall 2005 collection included a tan woman's coat piped with lambskin trim and topped off with a white fox collar and a gray bomber for men sporting a lush fox collar. What made the pieces even more unique? Arnold used to be an animal rights protester.

How did this designer get from his anti-fur activist youth ("Literally, I would protest outside the Rheinlander [restaurant] for eight hours straight," he remembers, "saying, 'Meat is murder!'") and 20 years of vegetarianism to using fur? We asked. —Lisa Radon

WW: You used foxtails in your fall '05 collection. Why fur now?

Adam Arnold: It just felt right. My fall line was good as it was, but fur...added a certain depth and richness to the textures that were involved. I actually did put some faux fur with some of the pieces, but it didn't have same depth and richness that the fabrics had.

When you were younger you were an animal rights activist, right?

I was a hardcore animal rights activist. Extreme. I'd protest for hours. I was pretty intense. I used to put little cards in the pockets of furs at Nordstrom that read, "The original owner of this coat died in it."

What made you start protesting?

Why did I start? I always felt different from other people when I was 15, and [protesting] was something that was totally anti-mainstream and made me feel like I was part of something, like I was doing something good and revolutionary for the planet and for people.

Kit Collins IMAGE: BRIAN LEE

Derrick Foxworth

Sure, Foxworth's stupendous disregard for email etiquette may or may not end his career (innocent before proven guilty, remember? We don't exactly know what Oswalt was writing him back just yet). But how could he pen such terrible porn? Reprint a few choice excerpts from those emails, slap on a paperback cover emblazoned with an airbrush painting of a bulging Fabio lookalike and you've got a supermarket checkout line bestseller.

But who are we to judge? That's why WW asked a pair of Portland authors of erotica—sexy horror writer Jemiah Jefferson (who penned WW's fiction cover story "Polaroids of Dorothy" last October) and smut goddess and former Libertarian state Senate candidate Theresa "Darklady" Reed—to deconstruct the chief's lurid prose and give us their expert opinion on whether Foxworth should contemplate shifting his career focus from the clink to the kink.

Psst! We also asked our dirty authors the toughest question: Would this email get you in the mood? "Uhhh, no," said Reed. "Hell no," responded Jefferson. "Poor grammar is a huge turnoff."

—KELLY CLARKE

Scroll down to the end of Foxworth's email for our experts comments.

Excerpted from Angela Oswalt's tort claim.

1: Politicians are expected to have depraved, federally inflamed imaginations, as well as personal lives; Foxworth is more of a "grassroots" pervert, desirous of ass at the local level. —Jemiah

2: Given his position, I am not surprised that he dedicates so much time to praising his throbbing ebony manhood. What surprised me about Foxworth's writings is the near tenderness and vulnerability expressed. He indicates an understanding of the value of taking it slow during actual intercourse, of building sexual heat, of using the tease in order to enhance the please. Although, as a reader, I'd have preferred to see a bit of that oral attention returned. —Darklady

3: An overuse of the words "slowly" and "pussy" shows a profound lack of creativity. Grab a thesaurus—synonyms are a beautiful thing, with words like "haltingly" and "agonizingly" and "quim" eager to be utilized. —Jemiah

4: Due to Mr. Foxworth's challenges with spelling and consistent use of tense, there's not really an entire line that works for me. However, there are some good fragments, and this is chief among them, so to speak. —Darklady

5: A strange sentence. "Then" implies a strict order in which the desired actions take place. Why not loosen up, pal? It's just an email, you're not on America's Next Top Model. "That blonde hair of yours" is equally redundant and inflexible. Who else's hair would it be? This implies that the blond hair has made his object of desire famous, or infamous. This wording is repeated in later passages, and is a common linguistic trope of the nervous and insecure, a narrator who is unsure of being able to recapture a bliss that has passed by. —Jemiah

6: This is the stuff of porno videos. —Darklady

7: Already a classic line. It reminds me pleasantly of the works of that genius of seduction, Onion love columnist Smoove B, and his devout adherence to a lady's right to choose. —Jemiah

8: I recommend that Mr. Foxworth take a look at the books Best Bondage Erotica and Uniform Sex to give him an idea what's out there in the world of kinky fiction. Thomas Roche has a great short story about a traffic stop that ends in roadside sex, as well. —Darklady

9: This is just crap. —Jemiah

10: Just as the Department of Homeland Security official who thought he was picking up a 14-year-old girl wasn't practicing online "seduction," neither was Mr. Foxworth, in my opinion. These aren't the letters of a man seducing a woman via email; these are the letters of an obsessed man who apparently wasn't very concerned about whether the recipient of his attention wanted it. —Darklady

FINAL VERDICT

Foxworth shows definite promise but would benefit from some workshops to hone his nascent craft. His spare language brings to mind the work of Patrick Califia, with its lack of extraneous, sentimental, "womanish" detail. He describes the acts without fuss, getting straight to basics and eschewing the purplish prose of, say, your average Harry Potter slash fan fiction. —Jemiah

I wouldn't immediately recommend a career in erotic fiction for Foxworth, no. While his ability to clearly and precisely articulate his sexual desires is extremely laudable (even if his methods of partner selection and relationship maintenance are not), it takes more than a vivid sexual imagination in order to make it as an erotica writer. Additionally, his fantasies are fairly standard fare. The story of his interactions with Ms. Oswalt, on the other hand, would make for some pretty interesting psychological smut. —Darklady

City Council candidate Emilie Boyles

Jemiah Jefferson says she's been writing hardcore, literary smut since she was 12. She is the author of St*rf*ck*ng, Fiend, Wounds and Voice of the Blood. Read Jemiah Jefferson's sexy story Paean to the Cosmo Boy at www.jemiah.com/writing/stories/janda.html.

Theresa "Darklady" Reed is a professional sex writer and free-speech activist, as well as CEO of Darklady Productions and the organizer of Portland's infamous Masturbate-a-thon. Learn more about Darklady's plans for world conquest at www.darklady.com.

Check out Angela Oswalt's full tort claim at www.wweek.com/media/7416.pdf.

^The $150,000 question

City Council candidate Emilie Boyles breaks her silence about the money she received in public financing and whether she's responsible for her own campaign's screw-ups.

City Council candidate Emilie Boyles, who sprang up almost overnight from Portland's Slavic community to political legitimacy by virtue of public campaign funds, sent an email to reporters last week.

In it, Boyles stated that she's in the May 16 race for good and won't let a state investigation into her campaign hamper her challenge to unseat Commissioner Erik Sten.

The investigation began after The Oregonian's Anna Griffin uncovered irregularities in the signature gathering that qualified Boyles for $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to spend on her campaign. Boyles promised in her email not to spend any more of the disputed $150,000 than she had already "obligated" for her campaign.

Griffin found that some of the signatures were of people who said they had not signed—and some signatures were duplicates. She also identified a mysterious individual named Volodmyr Golovan, who purportedly gathered the signatures needed for Boyles to receive public financing—with the agreement that she'd pay him.

Boyles' first fund-raising report Monday showed she'd spent about half the $150,000, including $15,000 in payments to Golovan, who's since been terminated by her campaign. Incredibly, the report also showed Boyles paid $12,500 to her 16-year-old daughter, an early high school graduate who takes classes at Portland Community College, for campaign work as an "Internet marketing specialist."

During the past week, Boyles, who has emphasized her deeply religious roots (she is an ordained minister of the Celtic Anabaptist church) and her humble circumstances (she says she lives in a mobile home on an income of $600 a month), has clammed up faster than a hothouse flower in a Moscow winter.

No interviews, no media, no returned phone calls.

Until last Thursday, when she came into our office for our endorsement interview with Sten and fellow candidates Ginny Burdick and Dave Lister. We pulled Boyles into our closet, which the good folks at Public Media Works had converted into a temporary film studio. There, we filmed an interview with Boyles (and followed up Tuesday with a phone interview) and challenged her to respond to charges that she has tainted, if not ruined, the ideals of so-called "voter-owned" elections.

WW: Your campaign stands for the idea that you're more connected with the average Portlander, yet you're the one charged with having supporters who claim not to even know you.

Emilie Boyles: It goes back to the cultural history of this particular group, and the fact that this is targeting me, that I'm a threat. If this weren't a viable campaign, we wouldn't be sitting here.

Let's, for the sake of conversation, assume you spent $75,000 and that the investigation finds you need to return that money. How are you going to come up with $75,000?

I can't comment on anything about that until the investigation is completed.

What did your daughter do for $12,500?

She's coordinated hundreds, if not thousands, of avenues that Portlanders get information from on-line about our campaign. She works at least 40 hours a week. We're not talking about your average 16-year-old.

But why hire her when it looks like you're using public money to get $12,500 to your teen-age daughter?

She needed a job and she understands the concepts of our campaign.

Can't you see how that makes this public-finance system look crooked?

I understand that criticism. But this type of marketing is unique and this is a process that would take more time to train somebody else.

Do you still believe in "voter-owned" elections?

I believe in the concept. The biggest challenge is that it wasn't thoroughly thought through by the people who crafted it.

What do you mean?

Things such as resources available for verification. They didn't take a look at the difference between a seasoned politician and someone who's not, and is new to those techniques.

What responsibilities do you bear for the signatures themselves?

When it's determined what happened and whether those situations need a second look, then I can answer. What I can say is that I've never shied away from taking responsibility for things that were my obligation.

What do you mean "when" it's determined? Aren't you responsible to determine the signatures' validity?

We did due diligence. We firmly believe we did the best we could according to the rules. I won't say any more.

How should voters react to you saying you don't want to respond about your conduct in a central election issue?

To the best of our understanding, we followed what we were told. We were in correspondence with the city. I got permission beforehand.

And who from the city told you that was OK?

The elections officer [Susan Francois].

And she said it's fine to pay somebody for collecting those signatures?

Right.

Editor's note: City Auditor Gary Blackmer, who supervises the elections office, says the city isn't commenting on answers it provided to Boyles' questions because of the ongoing investigation, but he does say officials always advised Boyles to read the actual law.

How long have you known Golovan?

I've been a part of the Slavic coalition for a number of years, and he's been a leader in the coalition for as long as I've been involved. We served on a couple of the same committees, so I knew him through that and through his leadership. He was well-known by a number of people who I respect. I have generally checked everybody's background and records. I'm a single person, and I run background checks on the people I go out with. You can't be too careful.

Do you believe the comments from Slavic people quoted in The Oregonian who essentially said, "We wouldn't sign this because we come from a place where you never put your name on anything because we lived in a police state"?

I do know from working with the Slavic community that it's a very difficult thing to say no to your friends.

Should you bear any responsibility that your campaign may torpedo the larger notion of "voter-owned" elections?

We don't know yet if this has taken away from that.

If it's determined you violated the spirit of the law, do you think people should still vote for you?

Yes, because I'm willing to take responsibility, and I'm also willing to say this is exactly why we need change in our government.

And if it's determined that your campaign broke the law, should people still vote for you? [Kevin Neely, with the state Attorney General's Office, says most campaign finance violations are class C felonies, which carry a potential penalty of five years in prison and a maximum $5,000 fine].

Absolutely, for the same reason. Because it's still part of a systemic issue. As you said yourself, this is not about Emilie Boyles, this is about a bigger issue, an issue about a system that's broken. Who's been running this system longer than any other elected official? The incumbent.

Is this keeping you awake?

No. I can't change those circumstances. What I can do is just continue to live my life and live it well.

—HENRY STERN and MARK ZUSMAN

Editor's note: For another take on this controversy, check out the recent blog on www.CandidatesGoneWild.com, the website for keeping up with events surrounding the May 1 political forum at the RoselandTheater.