Connecting to multiple DB's

I host a few sites, and on usually each site will have it's own MySQL database in the background. I've decided that I want to link one site to another, and need to connect to more than one database at a time. I've found that when I try to connect to 2 or more, even if I assign the other database to another variable (ie . $db1 = @mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass); $db2 = @mysql_connect($dbhost2, $dbuser, $dbpass); ) , the last connect called is the only one that is active. Any work arounds to this? I've been having to do it where I connect to one when needed, then connect to the other, etc. I'm thinking there has to be a better way to do this. Also, what is the function to kill a connection to a db? Thanks!