VARGAS MANAGER RUNS RINGS AROUND CIRCUS

So you think you work with a bunch of clowns? You think your job is a bear? Consider John Tobin. He keeps an office cabinet loaded with extra greasepaint for all the clowns he’s stuck with, and maintains a drawer labeled “Bears,” not to mention others for “Tigers” and “Elephants.”

Even amid the barely controlled chaos of a circus, someone has to keep the files straight. Someone has to bargain down the price of spotlight bulbs, keep an eye on the elephants’ hay supply, make sure fairground owners are paid and that radio spots announce the right dates. At the North Hollywood headquarters of the Circus Vargas, Tobin is that person.

One rainy day last week, Tobin, the vice president for operations, was in his cluttered office, helping to steer the circus through the third week of a 42-week season that will take it to 31 sites in Southern California (starting Friday in Santa Ana and ending May 18 in San Fernando), and 100 nationwide.

A few hours with Tobin illustrate the problems of running a circus that has 300 performers and workers and 200 animals and pulls up its stakes about every three days.

“I’m the man in the middle, the detail man,” said Tobin, a tall, red-haired 29-year-old who wears pin-striped suits and maintains a frazzled pace that he says is aging him fast. Presidents lean on their chiefs of staff, generals depend on aides and Clifford E. Vargas, who founded the Los Angeles-based circus 16 years ago, has Tobin.

“He’s my right arm,” said Vargas, a superstitious middle-aged man who believes it would be bad luck to give his age. Vargas said he generally tries to focus on the big picture of putting on the show.

Only on rare occasions, Tobin said, does he escape his office and see the circus spectacle that his labors produce. Right now, he’s bent over the phone talking to Joe Muscarello, the general manager who travels with the show.

“How’s the weather?” Tobin asks Muscarello, who’s in San Diego awaiting Circus Vargas’ opening-night appearance at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Near Tobin’s office, Vargas is watching the rain outside his window. Muscarello tells Tobin the weather is holding. But there’s a bigger concern: The manager of the fairground has told Muscarello that he has not received a rent check from Circus Vargas. No check, no show.

“It’s in the mail,” Tobin tells Muscarello. “I know I put it in the mail and he should have gotten it.”

Then another call comes from Muscarello. The city clerk in Chula Vista--the next stop after San Diego--is worried about not having received a $500 bond guaranteeing that the circus would clean up after its four-day run. Tobin sputters a few angry words, then says: “Somebody was supposed to do that for me. That was supposed to be taken care of.”

A former disc jockey, Tobin began his career in circus operations five years ago when a friend told him about a marketing job with Vargas. His job has since come to embrace virtually every aspect of running the circus. That includes making sure employees gets their mail, since the North Hollywood office serves as the home address for the circus’s nomadic members, and seeing that animal food and other supplies are in place.

A thick, black book on Tobin’s desk details that it costs the circus $20 per day to feed an elephant. The circus has nine elephants which go through 1.25 tons of hay daily.

Then there are those spotlight bulbs to illuminate the performers. They can cost as much as $300 each, but Tobin is proud to say that he recently bought some for $150 each.

His favorite animal is the yak, “an operations manager’s dream.” “It’s easy to move, there’s only one of him and he eats food that’s easy to get . . . oats,” he said.

An animal whose diet is a little more demanding is the tiger. Tobin said the tigers--Circus Vargas has 16--eat a product from Nebraska called Animal Spectrum.

“They’re these chunks of meat that look like fireplace logs,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t want to know what’s in it.”

Leading a tour of the circus offices, Tobin stopped at “the war room.” Along one wall are 31 large envelopes, one for each Southern California city on the circus schedule. The envelopes are filled in advance with city permits and documents needed for each stop.

On the current tour, 24 stops will be at shopping centers. Circus Vargas grew to its current size largely due to the proliferation of shopping malls with their huge parking lots, he said. It was a natural combination: The circus needed space and the mall operators liked the idea of entertainment that attracted families.

Tobin said moving the circus is like moving an army. The circus has a main tent that covers 45,000 square feet, about the size of a football field. There’s also a smaller tent for animals, but planning space for the big one always worries circus employees--including the 22 in the North Hollywood office.

The circus inspects each site in advance and makes plans for the tents, parking for patrons and the mobile homes where performers live. A few years ago, the circus arrived at one site to discover an olive tree in the middle of a parking lot intended for the main tent. Without consulting anyone, a circus worker cut it down, only to discover it was the parking lot owner’s prize 200-year-old olive tree.

That episode costs Circus Vargas about $350, Tobin said.

But that’s nothing in contrast to a blooper that brought to life what Tobin said is a recurring nightmare. He recalled it as “the time I scheduled a show that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

While printing up advertising material last year for the circus, which plays from one to three shows a day, Tobin mistakenly had thrown in an afternoon performance when none had been scheduled. In true show-business fashion, the show went on.

“It was pretty ugly,” he said. “In a circus, everybody knows when you’ve made a mistake like that. I got a lot of dirty looks. I really try not to do that. . . . I really, really try not to do that.

“We try to make everything work perfectly, but that doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen anywhere and it certainly doesn’t happen at a circus.”

Southland Appearances Santa Ana, 4th and Ross streets, Friday-Monday.

Huntington Beach, Beach Boulevard at Pacific Coast Highway, Tuesday- Feb.13.

Los Angeles, Farmers Market, Beverly Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue, Feb. 14-17.

Palos Verdes Peninsula, Peninsula Center, Hawthorne Boulevard at Silver Spur Road, Feb. 18-20.

Puente Hills, Puente Hills Mall, Pomona Freeway at Azusa Avenue, Feb. 21-24.

Laguna Hills, Laguna Hills Mall, Interstate 5 at El Toro Road, Feb. 25-27.

Costa Mesa, Bristol Town and Country, Bristol Street at the San Diego Freeway and MacArthur Boulevard, Feb. 25-March 2.

Information: (818) 982-5011.