The Nutcracker

The title is not a tribute to Tchaikovsky; it is a literal reference to an outpatient vasectomy scheduled in the middle of December. William Lee Martin takes the familiar dread of family holiday gatherings and anchors it to the clinical awkwardness of surrendering to a surgeon just before Christmas dinner.

Released in late 2019 by Comedy Dynamics alongside his special Standing in the Middle, the 54-minute set captures Martin phasing out his longtime Cowboy Bill moniker while keeping his Texas drawl and domestic perspective front and center. He works clean on profanity, leaning instead on exaggerated pacing, Southern phrasing, and small-town exasperation.

Specific bits move through childhood recollections of a father who allegedly shot Santa Claus, the claustrophobia of shopping malls with elderly relatives, and buying a lemon off an unpromising car lot under the impression that divine intervention was involved. The back half zeroes in on the procedure itself, treating paper hospital gowns, awkward urologist banter, and bags of frozen peas with straight-faced domestic grievance.