MAKE errors with php 4.4.1

[burden]

I give up. here i am. I'm attempting to recompile PHP. this time with some bells and whistles. currently the configuration is simple. --with-apxs, and --with-mysql. so now i'm attempting to attach curl and gdlib to no avail after finally getting the ./configure right

./configure \
--with-apxs=/www/bin/apxs \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-curl \
--with-jpeg \
--with-png \
--with-gif \
--with-gd \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib/

Now when i run make it chugs along for awhile until finally it chokes and spits out several blocks of text like:

/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(zutil.o)(.text+0x18): first defined here
/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(zutil.o)(.text+0x2c): In function `zcalloc':
: multiple definition of `zcalloc'
/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(zutil.o)(.text+0x2c): first defined here
/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(zutil.o)(.text+0x40): In function `zcfree':
: multiple definition of `zcfree'
/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(zutil.o)(.text+0x40): first defined here

Before finally giving me the generic:

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [libphp4.la] Error 1

Google doesn't know what's up. It looks like something to do with zlib. one of the lines is:

: multiple definition of `zlibCompileFlags'

Hopefully someone here can shed some light on what i'm doing wrong.
As far as troubleshooting; i went with the original configuration again, and tried compiling and got errors.

main/output.lo(.text+0x76d): In function `php_ob_init_named':
/usr/local/src/php/php-4.4.1/main/output.c:426: undefined reference to `php_ob_gzhandler_check'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [sapi/cli/php] Error 1

So i'm assuming there's something very much broken with zlib?