George Carlin is no longer with us, but that doesn’t mean he can’t gift us new material. SiriusXM has released a previously unheard clip from a Carlin set recorded just before Sept. 11, 2001.
The new material titled “Rats & Squealers,” first posted by Vulture, is astonishingly relevant, given that it was recorded 15 years ago. Carlin riffs on police brutality and corruption, a blistering indictment of crooked cops.
“When I was a kid and we went to the movies, we rooted against the police and for the crooks — and I still do,” he starts out. “They’ll plant fake evidence, they’ll put a gun in the hands of an unarmed man they shot to death. They harass minorities, they brutalize people, they deny people their rights, and they lie about it all in court all the time.”
He segues, in classic Carlin style, to one of his favorite topics: religion. “You religious folks? On Judgment Day, when you see God? Ask Him if you can plea bargain. Ask Him, if you turn in your family, will He let you in to Heaven? You know what He’ll say? He’ll say, ‘Go to hell. Go to hell you f—in’ squealing prick.’ ‘Cause even God hates a rat.”
The riff is part of what was originally supposed to be an HBO stand-up special, “I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die.” For reasons obvious to anyone who isn’t a full-blown sociopath, the special never aired, and the album version remained locked away.
The satellite radio company will play the album in its entirety on Sept. 1, first on its Carlin’s Corner channel at 4 p.m. ET, then on its Comedy Greats channel at 7 p.m. The album itself will be available for purchase on Sept. 16.
Listen to the clip below, after plugging in some headphones: