Joe Gould was a corky old man, which is evident in his weird yet habitual activities like eating ketchup, carrying a bag or cigarette butts, and naming the pigeons he fed on a regular basis in Madison Square Park. He seems far from the attractive type with his being bald and toothless. He speaks of being tormented by the the three H’s: homelessness, hunger, and hangovers. He was working on a book; a oral history he had been working on for 26 years.
Gould was funny, with out meaning to be, which was evident in his behavior and mannerisms from pretending to be deaf on the train, to asking people if they ever had a painful operation or disease, to carrying a bag of sour balls, among other eccentric habits.
Gould, with his messy, care-free appearance and the formless way in which he wrote, makes him seem like the absent-minded and free spirited type. But what he lacks in appearance, he seems to make up in brilliance. It’s not because he came from a smart family, which he did, it is because of the way he lives free of conformity.
Despite Gould’s vices, it is clear why Joseph Mitchell admired him and his way of living for himself, rather than for others. “He was Joe Gould the poet, he was Joe Gould the historian, he was Joe Gould the wild Chippewa Indian dancer…he was the banished man.”
The fact that in actually there was no oral history, is Gould’s final corky, weird, and humorous act. It seems just like him to do such a thing.