It's awfully nice of the New York Times to cite the Los Angeles Times' Emmy expert, don't you think? Yesterday I was an answer in the Gotham newspaper's crossword puzzle. See "57 Across."

Clue: "'The Emmys' author Thomas"

"Just think," a friend told me yesterday. "Today Bill Clinton is filling in your name while doing the crossword."

That, of course, assumes Mr. Clinton gets all of the corresponding up and down answers correct. I kinda doubt he got 57 Across right. I doubt that he's read my Emmy book. But who knows? He's a smart one, that Billyboy, and he knows a thing or two about showbiz.

Years ago there was a popular comic strip called "Dondi" that ran in hundreds of newspapers daily, often above the fold on the front page of the Sunday sections like it did in the New York Daily News. Cartoonist Irwin Hasen, a great pal of mine, was not only famous for being its artist, but for being a rascally bon vivant around the Manhattan party circuit.

When we first became pals and he invited me to drop by his apartment off Park Avenue, he pointed to a wall hanging and said, "Check this out. I don't know if I've ever really accomplished anything in my life, but that tells me that I got noticed. I'm an answer in the New York Times crossword puzzle!"

Today "Dondi" has vanished from America's newspapers, but Irwin, in his 80s now, still bounds around New York, charming everybody, and that framed crossword puzzle still hangs most prominently by his front door. I'm in L.A. now and haven't called him about mine, don't want to brag and upstage my ole pal, but I kinda hope he just happened across it yesterday. I'm pretty sure he'd know the answer to 57 Across.