That amusing cardboard cutout of Clint Eastwood, installed by Glassell Park artist Justin Stadel on a San Rafael Hills hiking trail last spring to inspire the cowboy in all of us (and especially freeway commuters on the 2 below), is finally complete:

As of this afternoon, according to NBC4, “someone added chairs.” Not one, but two empty chairs — one apparently of the 3-D wooden variety, and another in cardboard-cutout form, to match the Eastwood original.

Genius! The Los Angeles Times confirms this report, and points out the obvious:

The Clint Eastwood cutout overlooking the Glendale Freeway now has its empty chair — a nod to the film director's much-talked-about appearance at the Republican National Convention last week.

Certainly gives new validity to rumors that Eastwood and his empty-chair act will be permanently hitting the trail with Team Romney this campaign season. (Har har.)

We've contacted Stadel — who installed the Eastwood statue-of-sorts, along with cutouts of John Wayne and Gene Autry, at various mile markers throughout the San Rafael Hills above Glendale — to see if he had anything to do with today's snarky addition.

Meanwhile, rest of you: Let us know if you've got any clues that could point to a culprit.

Here's the source material, for those who missed the finest moment in the history of the Republican National Convention. “So I've got Mr. Obama sitting here…”

Update: After thinking over this whole guerilla art exhibit for a minute, we've decided that it's way depressing, and that it very much confirms the worst of our fears. The Clint Eastwood we've come to love as Hollywood's rugged purveyor of saloon wisdom — embodied to a T by the dusty Eastwood cutout peering out over the Glendale Freeway, with that far-off look in his eyes — has been clowned and marred forever by one terrible, slightly senile decision last weekend. We were hoping it'd blow over after everyone got sick of the Eastwooding meme in a week or two, and we could revert to our sepia-tinted image of an American legend in his prime. But this three-dimensional diorama in the San Rafael Hills makes it all so REAL. After the lulz, shit kind of hurts.

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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