Is that how you do it?
This will leave your script with two open connections to different hosts until it ends.
You may reuse either of these connections by calling mysql_pconnect again.
Notice I used pconnect, does that affect calling it twice on the same page?
From the docs:
The function would first try to find a (persistent) link that's already open with the same host, username and password
Since your hosts are different, there will be two different connections
Also, do I have to close the connection for the first one before calling the second one?
You cannot explicitly close a connection open with mysql_pconnect.
