John Strausbaugh

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John Strausbaugh (born in Baltimore in 1951) is an American author, cultural commentator, and host of the New York Times "Weekend Explorer" video podcast series on New York City.

Strausbaugh's books have examined the history of recreational drug use (The Drug User: Documents 1840-1960, co-edited with Donald Blaise, with an introduction by William S. Burroughs, 1990), the intersection of politics and popular culture in the White House (Alone With the President, 1992), the priesthood that spreads the gospel of Elvisism (E: Reflections on the Birth of the Elvis Faith, 1995) and Rock and Roll's infidelity to the youth culture that created it (Rock 'Til You Drop: The Decline From Rebellion to Nostalgia, 2001), which was declared “the definitive word on the senescent Rolling Stones” by The New York Times.

Strausbaugh's next book, the controversial, Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture, 2006, explored race relations in popular culture, including the pervasive and long-lasting impact of black-face performance in rock and roll, hip-hop, advertising, “gangsta-lit” and contemporary Hollywood film-making. His new book, Sissy Nation: How America Became a Culture of Wimps & Stoopits, was released on February 5, 2008 by Virgin Books USA.

Strausbaugh is a regular contributor to the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Cabinet Magazine. He also worked as a contributor and editor of The New York Press from 1990 until late 2002, when the paper was sold to Avalon Equity Partners. He established the paper as an independent thinking and often irreverent voice, which directly competed with the city's more traditionally liberal downtown paper, The Village Voice.