Porn Valley- Former AVN’er Heidi Joy Pike was a guest on KSEX’s The Young and The Curious, but half of her showed up. That’s because Pike has lost something like 140 pounds, she told host Jason Sechrest, www.jasoncurious.com. Sechrest noted that her name used to be Heidi Pike Johnson.

“I was married,” she said. In exchange of pleasantries about driver’s license information and hair color that at times bordered on the strange, Sechrest asked Pike if she enjoyed her original weight while in prison.

“No,” said Pike. “But I did shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

“Is that Bob Dylan?” Sechrest asked.

“Yes,” said Pike. [Actually it’s Johnny Cash.] Pike was on the show to promote her movie corrupted by Justine Joli which is out from New Machine.

“I directed my first movie,” she announced.

“No one cares,” said Sechrest, laughing. Continuing the interrogation regarding her driver’s license info, Sechrest asked Pike where she was born.

“A little town called South Kingston in Rhode Island,” she stated. With a total lack of conviction, Sechrest said he loved the state because there was so much to do there. Pike grew up in a town called Westerly and describes herself as a quiet kid.

“Were you quiet because you were beaten?” Sechrest asked. Pike said she was always quiet because she had nothing to say.

“Put it this way,” she continued. “There are people who like to talk a lot to talk.” Sechrest agreed that those people who like the sounds of their own voice annoy the hell out of him.

“I think being quiet shows great strength,” added Sechrest, also wondering if Pike had been touched inappropriately when she was young. Pike gave him a confused semantics response that was in keeping with the nonsense nature of the conversation to that point.

“I had a great childhood,” Pike finally said. Asked if she still sees her parents, Pike said no that they still live in Rhode Island and she doesn’t talk to them very often.

“Are that angry at you for working at AVN?” Sechrest also asked her.

“Yes,” she replied. According to Pike, the last time she spoke to her father was two months ago and her mother, three months ago.

“I just don’t like them very much,” she explained. Sechrest took that to mean that they don’t support her endeavors.

“It’s disappointing,” Pike admitted. “I do good things in the world and I make people pretty happy for the most part. It would be nice to be supported.”

“How did they not show their support- did they tell you you were going to hell?” Sechrest wondered.

“Kind of,” said Pike. “I’m like that’s really not your call but thank you for offering that opinion. It’s good to know where people stand because you never know.” Pike said she preferred hearing the truth from people than them pretending to like her for 30 years. Asked why she left Rhode Island, Pike said she wanted to go to college in Hartford, Connecticut.

“I went there for awhile until I couldn’t afford it anymore,” she continued. “It was way too difficult and I had an aunt who lived in Olympia, Washington. She said come out here. I did.” Pike was 19 1/2 and lost her virginity at the age of 22. Pike explained how she moved from Olympia to Seattle then met John Stagliano.

“He said please come run my magazine in Los Angeles,” she said. Which was Buttman magazine. Pike ran the mag and it was about that time she told her parents she was in porn. But Pike felt she was putting out a product that made a lot of people happy and didn’t mind putting her real name to it.

Sechrest wondered what it was like working for Buttman.

“Great,” said Pike.

“Was it your best moment in the industry?” he continued.

“There were a couple moments there that were great,” said Pike, noting that it was quite satisfying to see the magazine grow and do what it did.

“Which is to become the number one hardcore seller in adult,” she added. “It wasn’t me that did it, but it was great getting the product out there and getting to be a part of that process. I made sure the trains ran on time. That’s what I did and that’s what the magazine needed.”

“You were a conductor- you conducted the butt of Buttman,” said Sechrest reaching for metaphor. Pike said when she took it over it was a bi-monthly magazine that was coming out three times a year.

“I got it to be on schedule,” she said. Sechrest wondered where the magazine was and Pike said it was on newsstands everywhere.

“I think it’s still bi-monthy,” she said. “All my magazines are sold out but you can see the current ones.” Pike gave a plug to the website, www.buttmanmagazine.com.

Asked how she made the transition to AVN, Pike said she wasn’t working at Buttman Magazine any more and three days later got the gig at AVN. Sechrest wondered why she stopped working at Buttman.

“Because it was time for the magazine to take a different direction,” Pike replied.

“And they fired you,” Sechrest translated.

“Yup,” said Pike. “It was basically a lot of things and John wanted to bring in someone else to do things. He decided he wanted things to go a different way. It was weird because at the time I didn’t understand it. He was very clear with me on certain things he wanted and basically he didn’t want that any more. That was okay.” Pike basically made it sound that she was kept out of the loop on certain editorial calls.

“What were you doing ? What were you writing for Buttman magazine?” Sechrest further asked. “You were writing erotica?”

Pike said she was, basically.

“And I would interview porn stars, directors, artists- I would do that kind of thing,” Pike went on to say. “And I would also write- we need the getting humped in the ass story- so I would write that.” Sechrest assumed that once she got to AVN, her articles were more serious ones from freedom of speech to 2257.

“You covered the gamut.”

Pike said she was brought in to be the editor of avn.com.

“I did that but I ended up being associate editor,” she said. Sechrest asked her what was the best thing about working at AVN.

“I got to meet a lot of great people,” Pike answered. “And I got to watch a lot of porn and get paid for it.” Pike, who’s been in the industry a total of 14 years, said she still likes watching porn.

Pike also noted that her porn career didn’t begin in LA, that she worked in an adult store and did live peep shows/sex show in downtown Seattle as well.

“Where there’s something beautiful, I like to watch it,” Pike stipulated, noting that spitting and slapping could also be beautiful in porn.

The worst thing about working at AVN, according to her, was the politics, inter-office and industry.

“And the deadlines and the workload,” she added. Sechrest asked her to explain what she meant by the workload.

“When people leave or things happen and basically they throw it on everybody,” she explained. “It gets distributed in a way that it’s fair and not fair. There are months, where, no lie, I’d be responsible for 40 movies. And I hated doing that because it didn’t feel fair. You do the best you can. I would stay home and I would do nothing else. You watch things as closely as you can. I’d immerse myself. I would do nothing else, just watch these movies and be there for them.”

Pike also mentioned the fact that she lives with Dick Logan who shot her movie for New Machine and that he could attest to what she used to have to do.

“But let’s be fair to AVN,” she continued. “A lot of that I would take upon myself. I would feel awkward about assigning them to other people.” Pike said she wanted to be sure the movie was getting a fair shake in the hands of the right person.

“I felt I was doing the right thing by the movie.”

“Didn’t they give you an ulcer from working you too hard?” Sechrest asked. “There was something all over Luke Ford that you were ill. What happened?”

Pike said there were rumors that she had brain cancer but discounted those. Pike did say that she was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia, a disease that gives her chronic headaches.

“I take a couple of medications a day,” she said. “There’s no cure. It was brought on by the fact that I was basically working and living too hard. You normally get this kind of disease when you’re in your Fifties. I’m 34.”

“So Mike Ramone gave you chronic headaches?” asked Sechrest.

“No,” stated Pike emphatically.

“Who gave you chronic headaches- AVN as a whole?” Sechrest persisted.

“A lot of things in my life,” said Pike. “I was a lot bigger if you remember. It’s a cumulative thing. It’s like being Muhammad Ali- too many hits to the head.”

“Who over at AVN hit you the hardest in the head?” Sechrest asked her.

“I’m going to take that as a positive- I’m going to turn that one around,” answered Pike. “I’m going to say the best thing in the world would be the person who did the most transformative work on me. That would be Paul Fishbein. That’s like changing someone’s life in a way to permanently alter them. And I am forever changed by working for Paul Fishbein. It changed me. He gave me a lot of opportunities. He let me see a lot of great things.”

“Why did you leave and what would have made you stay?” Sechrest wondered.

“I left because I wanted something that was lower stress,” answered Pike. “Basically the disease I have, excessive stress will trigger it and make me really sick. I’m on two kinds of medication that I take twice a day. I need to keep things on pretty level. And getting diagnosed with it and losing all the weight and seeing how people change- when you weigh a whole other person more, people treat you a lot differently. And I had a lot of things going on personally. If you notice, I was married and I’m not, now. There was a lot of different changes, and, okay, what’s really important? I looked at myself and said what do I want to do now? I wanted to make something beautiful.”

Pike said she was very lucky to have a supportive partner. Pike also noted that she was asked by AVN if she’d take a leave of absence.

“But I didn’t think it was ethical to keep my job there and go off and direct movies,” she added. “I didn’t think that was okay. It was nice to come back and have Paul offer to leave the door open. I just didn’t feel right.”

Sechrest asked if there were other possibilities that would have kept her staying.

“Shitloads more money,” answered Pike. “Change my job structure. Make me report to different people and do different things.” Pike said she was reporting at one point to Tim Connelly.

“On a regular basis Mike Ramone and Paul Fishbein.” Of those people, Pike said she got along best with Fishbein.