Amy! Are you ready for this?? Blog readers! Are you ready for this?? It’ll be a trip, that’s for sure.

So I’m starting in San Francisco at the original headquarters of Bank of America. It was the Bank of Italy before B of I swallowed up B of A back in the 20’s.

B of A, of course, generated headlines a couple of weeks ago when it gobbled up Merrill Lynch. Basically we now have three massive banks in this country . . . B of A, Citi, and JP Morgan. What does that mean??? I know it certainly means that former customers of Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia are confused and will start getting lots of mail from their new bank.

I suppose what we’re really after here is to find that vaunted “Main Street” (wanna see who can go the longest without using that phrase?) and explore where all this seething anger is coming from and what folks think a better solution might be.

Happy trails, my friend. After San Fran I’m off to do some gambling. No, no, no, not with derivatives and credit default swaps in my 401k.

I’m headed to Reno.

They say there are casinos there to rival Wall Street.

Snake eyes to you…

Meet me in St. Louis?