Once I fixed FTGL and avifile-0.7 to be usr/local instead of usr/ in configure things built a little farther. Here is another problem though...
g++ -o Gem.pd_linux -shared ../Manips/*.o ../Particles/*.o ../Base/*.o ../MarkEx/*.o ../Pixes/*.o ../Controls/*.o ../Nongeos/*.o ../Geos/*.o ../openGL/*.o -laviplay -lftgl -ldv -lmpeg3 -lquicktime -laviplay -lpng -ljpeg -ltiff -lGLU -lGL -lXext -lXxf86vm -lXext -lX11 -ldl -lz -lm -L/usr/X11R6/lib64 -lfreetype -lz
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libftgl.a(FTFont.o): relocation R_X86_64_32S can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
-fPIC IS used for all of the subdirs though, or so the screen reports.
g++ -c -fPIC -g -O2 -I/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I.. -I/usr/local/include/FTGL -I/usr/local/include/avifile-0.7 part_draw.cpp -o part_draw.o
for example...
Whats wrong? Its just this last step! So close! Thanks for the help! -thewade