Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe DENVER, March 4 (UPI) -- Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper says his introduction of his lieutenant governor to an audience of school children as a "sex star" was a compliment gone awry. "I didn't mean 'sex symbol,' I meant 'rock star,' but I said 'sex star,'" Hickenlooper said Thursday, the day after his ill-fated effort to describe Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia during a literacy event at Colfax Elementary School in Denver. "It was a poorly designed effort to pay compliments to Joe. Advertisement "This might go down as one of my most difficult press conferences in the history of the office. "As I say to my wife all the time, there's always 5 feet between me and disaster. That's the distance between my foot and my mouth." Garcia took it all in stride. "He calls me a rock star a lot," the lieutenant governor told the Post. "I'm really a pretty straight-arrow, boring kind of guy." Read More Colorado lawmaker: Homosexuality a choice Bennet wins Colorado Senate race Colo. governor has stitches for head wound