No slash for me, thank you.

Several weeks ago I woke up at 5:00AM to a troubling email.

Actually, the fact that I was awake at 5 AM is troubling enough. I used to sleep like a bear who had stumbled unto a winter's worth of Maker's Mark and a bottle of Nyquil, but now I find myself rising before the sun and all the neighbor's barking dogs.

I won't share the identity of the email sender, suffice to say it was from a former Chiat/Day colleague.

She asked if I had written the Here's to the Crazy Ones anthem spot.

Perhaps because I have written so many manifestos, some good, many achingly bad, the confusion is somewhat understandable. Also because Rob Siltanen and I share the same initials. Not to mention the rugged, athletic good looks that always leaves women thinking, "Damn, all the good ones are taken."

Nevertheless, I wanted to stop this train of thought before it ever left the station. And told my former colleague, in no uncertain terms and with no room for vagary, that I did NOT write the Apple anthem.

More importantly, I wanted it to get back to Rob Siltanen that I had done all that I could to distance myself from this rumor. Not because the work isn't great, it is. But because I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Look, I'm well aware of my reputation in this business. I can be hardheaded, opinionated, and monumentally contentious. In fact, I'm working for a creative director right now who could probably add some other colorful phrases. I can live with all that, because it's all in service of the Work.

But the ad agency world is jammed jelly-tight with people who game the system, who allow rumors to fester, who play the PR machine like it's a Stradivarius and who hound glory that is not theirs to hound.

I know who they are.

You know they are.

I am not one of them.