Emeril Lagasse is one of the world's most natural showmen. (The picture is from a Duke University satire, called Malignant Humor.)

He has a love of people that's genuine, and a love of language that's infectious. He comes up with buzzphrases the way I come up with blog items.

And one of his favorites, which he often uses before commercial breaks, has become, "after these messages, another notch." (It means he'll "kick up the flavor" (or action, or fun) again after this commercial break. For a Portuguese-Canadian from Fall River, Mass., he's got some cockney in him.)

It's a tune we're all singing as the spam flood grows and grows. My inbox now gets almost 30 spams per hour -- my e-mail address has been around since 1998, and it's published everywhere I write. Maybe you think I deserve it.

I don't. No one does.

The problem remains what it has always been. That is, the marketing industry refuses to accept the definition of spam inherent in TCP/IP, which is any mass mailing I didn't specifically request.

A simple anti-spam law, one that might work, would simply mandate permission audits for anyone with a mailing list over 1,000, or who sends out over, say, 10,000 e-mails per month. Break the law, and you go to jail. Create a company to get around the law, we sic RICO on you.

How many people would have to go to jail before the spam flood began to ebb? Maybe a few hundred. Maybe, in some countries, a few thousand. (Threatening to cut off Internet access to the outside world would bring the laggards around.)

The problem is that this would impose a cost on those who send "spam that is not spam," legitimate offers that take valid opt-outs. Tough. While they were at it, these marketers might also consider aging their lists, looking at bounces, and identifying those addresses that bounce their message regularly (regardless of whether they opted-in or not). Trim your lists, people.

Or else, Bam! And I'm not talking the essence here, either.